Straight No Chaser

Zippered Lips

1. are you in a relationship?
i've got two parents, two brothers, two grandmothers, one first cousin, thirteen second cousins, eight next-door neighbors, four hundred classmates and some number of friends. i'm in more relationships than i can count if i used every finger and toe twice. next time be more specific.

2. do you hate more than three people?
going by the dictionary.com definition ("to feel hostility or animosity toward; to detest") rather than that massive, crippling spiritual definition, yes, i hate several people. today while i was preparing the floor plan spreadsheet, i color-coded all the coworkers i hate as sludge green, which made me feel powerful, like a cosmic painter.

3. how many houses/apartments have you lived in?
one in silver spring till age nine, and then this one in colesville, ever since.

4. what is your favorite candy bar?
it's a reese's peanut butter cup. not a bar, sorry.

5. what are your favorite shoes?
my favorite shoes to look at are cheap wicker heels that came from 5.7.9, and that go with my woven cream halter top. my favorite shoes to actually wear are old navy flip-flops, of which i have a different-colored pair for nearly every tank top i own. i am a pretty frugal person.

6. have you ever tripped someone?
all the time. i'm the clumsiest person i know. anytime i wear the shoes i'm wearing today, my ankles feel like apples on fire by bedtime.

7. what was your least favorite subject this year?
twentieth century british literature, hands down. followed closely by bowling, but that was just because of the inconvenience of changing into a gym uniform twice a week, and because i couldn't figure out why i only got one credit hour for a two-hours-a-week class. twentieth century british literature i hated for no good reason. i liked all the books, had marginal fun cramming for the midterm and final, but just, got tired of reading interpretive essays on absurdist theater. and hated indian ink.

8. what was your favorite subject this year?
twentieth century constructions of race and masculinity, again, hands down.

9. do you own a britney spears cd?
no, but not on principle or anything, because i think some of her stupid songs are catchy enough that i don't care how artless they are, or how backward she is. i just don't own any of her albums because i have only liked one song, from each of them. "baby one more time" from baby one more time. "oops!...i did it again" from oops!...i did it again. "toxic" from in the zone. i don't like anything from britney but i like "crazy," which isn't on anything but that soundtrack, so it evens out. i don't dig very deep, with her.

10. have you ever thrown up in public?
no.

i don't talk to my cube neighbors. at first i wished they would be more inclusive and tell me things, but now, for about the past two days, i've started to think they talk too much, sort of.

the two sandras in the desks adjacent to mine, who call each other by their last names and share a grandchild, they're always making jokes, with each other, about how fast and hard i type, like a court stenographer, and asking rhetorical questions about it. did she have to learn that for school? she can't grow fingernails doing that, can she? they never, never ever include me in this conversation, even though it takes place directly over my head and across my shoulders.

i can't decide whether they are impressed by my one stupid secretarial skill (because i can't organize or file things worth a damn), or just annoyed at all the noise i'm making. i wish i could ask.

11. name something that's always on your mind.
marcus. that one was easy.

12. what is your favorite music genre?
early sixties avant-garde bebop. or, jazz, if you prefer. i was noticing, in the car this morning, as i flipped through my ipod trying to pick something to sing along to during the drive, that seventy percent of my stored music are songs without words. the big four, mostly. that made me feel generic, so i said what the hell and listened to some dave matthews.

13. what is your sign?
aquarius, year of the ox.

14. what time were you born?
11:52 in the morning.

15. do you like beer?
you know, i don't, i think it's one of the grossest-tasting drinks there is, alcoholic or otherwise, and i can't think of a reason anyone would actively "develop a taste for it," as i'm so often encouraged to do, unless it's just that it's one of the cheaper routes to being drunk. the peruvian ice cream parlor in takoma park makes guinness-flavored ice cream now. it tastes okay.

16. have you ever made a prank call?
i'm way too shy and my voice is way too recognizable. i'd get caught and be embarrassed, because what a waste of time.

17. what is the most embarrassing cd you own?
stock answer: spice, but because most of my friends own a copy as well, i think it's more embarrasing that i own all three disney compilations and both ricky martin albums, as well.

18. are you sarcastic?
yes, but it's less effective in person.

19. what are your favorite colors?
kendal, forest, jungle and jade green, lavender, indigo, light silver, rose, amber and honey brown.

20. how many watches do you own?
zero, currently. i've lost or broken every watch that was ever given to me. in middle school it was decided that i'd have a swatch collection, and everybody started giving me these stupid colorful watches that i knew i didn't want to wear, but i rotated them anyway, to be polite. no problem. then my mom gave me a brown leather watch with a gold frame and a mother-of-pearl face, and i promptly dropped it into a porta-potty.

for five minutes after marcus's mom called to thank me for her mother's day card, i was all excited and pleased with myself, until i realized it meant i was definitely going to have to do the same thing before father's day.

i don't have a problem with that, at all, because i like his dad and i would have done it anyway, but i know, i just know i'm going to forget, even now as i'm reminding myself for the thirtieth time, and then i'm going to want to kill myself.

i'm supposed to be updating the online attrition database, and i can't find it.

21. what's the last piece of music you listened to?
after dave matthews band, it was the carl saunders version of "one note samba." or, no...we've all been listening to sting all day, thanks to coworker sharon. how delightful.

22. spring or fall?
spring. i prefer the extremes, summer and winter, but if i have to choose i'd rather have the one that's on an upswing, temperature-wise.

23. what is your favorite color to wear?
pink. maybe black. never together.

24. pepsi or sprite?
i don't drink brown sodas, or very many clear ones, either. sprite, between the two, though.

25. what color is your cell phone?
the first twenty questions were better. my cell phone is silver with black and red accents. go verizon.

26. where is your second home?
closest thing would be atlanta, i guess, because it's where i spend a net total of seven months per year. but it doesn't feel like home, so i guess i'll give the obvious answer full of cheese and say it's here, writing.com. there's no other place not associated with a person where i ever go and want to, just, stay.

27. have you ever slapped someone?
in jest, maybe. not in anger. who has the right?

28. have you ever had a cavity?
half of one, that got filled before it went in deep. around then is when i stopped drinking soda.

29. where are you going?
to blow my nose. be right back.

30. how many video games do you own?
none, they technically all belong to my brother. we were very careful about putting ownership labels on all our things, growing up, as i'm sure a lot of kids with siblings are. i owned all the movies, because i was the only one who knew how to work the vcr, and he owned all the video games, because he was the one with the consoles. he's probably got about fifty of them, in total.

it's actually a good thing i never really chat with the sandras, because if i did, management would probably start trying to pump me for information about their attendance habits, again. that's what happened to me last year, when i was friendly with damon and chris, who had a reputation for sneaking around the time-reporting policies: one of my supervisors saw us chatting, one day, and immediately pulled me aside to ask me to "keep an eye on" illicit activity, like people punching out one another's clocks, leaving with a few minutes to spare, and so on.

which, sorry, but this is just a summer job, and while i don't condone anyone's seriously taking advantage of the system, i'm also not invested enough to make enemies out of people i have to sit with every day.

but, it's not a worry, because like i said, no one will talk to me. that's the positive side to being a huge isolated loser.

31. what was your first pet?
blah blah angelfish.

32. have you ever had braces?
for eight years. someone recently wrote about how her daughter couldn't choose rubber band colors, or something, which made me remember how, throughout those eight years, i could never have cared less what color rubber bands they snapped on there. it all hurt so fucking much that any notion of vanity was twisted right out of me.

33. do looks matter?
yes. to just about everyone. sorry.

34. do you use chapstik?
most chapstiks and lipsticks/glosses have octinaxate, which gives me an allergic reaction, so i usually use a really thin coating of vaseline and neutrogena lipshine for color.

35. name three teachers from your high school.
adamson, lee and west.

36. american eagle or abercrombie?
i can understand maybe a cute skirt or a hoodie, but if, in a world where ten cents a day can bring food, education and clothing to a child in need, you see fit to pay eighty dollars per pair for someone else to rip and ruin your jeans, you need to get your head checked.

37. are you too forgiving?
with some people. i forgive marcus several times a day. i'll never forgive myself, for certain things.

38. how many children do you want?
i'd love to have a big family, but i will probably not have more (or fewer) than two.

39. do you own something from hot topic?
no.

40. what is your favorite breakfast?
a handful of blueberries. i don't eat much.

i gave my mom an engraved ipod nano, black, with car and carrying accessories, for mother's day. she's already lost it twice but it's clearly her favorite thing she's ever owned, as it's almost never not attached to her belt loop.

i don't know what i'll get my dad, for father's day. he hates things and shows zero appreciation for gifts, which supposedly is because growing up poor made him less materialistic than we are, to the point of ungraciousness.

i'll probably take him to a movie. his whole world centered around our davinci code outing, last weekend.

41. do you own a gun?
no.

42. have you ever thought you were in love?
yes.

43. what are you wearing?
a stupid coral-colored tailored blouse and a guess? denim skirt, cut sort of like a pencil skirt so i can't sit on my legs. which, being bare, are getting very cold in this cryogenic chamber.

44. what did you do three nights ago?
heh. that's the night we had the house to ourselves, for about half an hour, which was really nice. we knew we were on a rushed schedule so we meant to run upstairs as soon as we got home, but then the phone rang, so then i was on the phone with my mom delivering a message from the caterer, while my arms were around marcus's neck and my hips were right in his lap, and the conversation lasted maybe twenty seconds, but felt like it took three damn years. then, though, we went upstairs.

45. when was the last time you went to olive garden?
for chris's twenty-first birthday. i forget what i had.

46. have you ever called your teacher "mom"?
who hasn't, at some point? i used to do it all the time, in preschool, because my preschool teacher looked and smelled like my mom, being thin and a coffee-drinker. a couple times i really lost track of myself and went as far as to wrap my arms around her legs, which, i'm sure, would have been awkward if i'd been a few years older.

47. have you ever been in a castle?
does the national cathedral count? it looks like a castle.

48. what are your nicknames?
bleh.

49. do you know anyone named bertha?
i do, actually. one of my grandmother's friends. she has lots of candle parties and i bought lavender tealights from her.

50. have you ever been to kentucky?
i actually can't remember, because sometimes my extended family travels up there from bolivar, tennessee, and i'd imagine when i'm there on family reunions i probably go with them, but i'm not sure, i might be thinking about their gambling trips, which i've never been on, so probably not.

anyway, it's no tragedy, that i'm not friends with these neighbors of mine.

i sit on my feet because i get cold a lot, and sometimes when i hear a noise i push up and look over the tops of the cubes, and i guess i do look sort of like a curious meerkat when i do it, minus the tail, but they're mean to say so, anyway.

i put them in sludge green.

51. do you own something from banana republic?
a pink shirt with drawstrings that bunches up on either side and a pink, white and khaki striped skirt that doesn't really fit.

52. how good is popcorn?
it isn't. kettle corn is okay, as a stand-in dessert. regular popcorn smells bad, burns your tongue and does not really even taste good. i can do without.

53. have you ever called someone boo?
that's what i've called my brother for years. i don't think it's a romantic or sexy word, so i wouldn't use it on someone i was trying to hit on, no.

54. do you smoke?
no.

55. do you own a diamond ring?
i own a ring with one carat each of midnight blue sapphire and diamond. i've owned others, but they were given to me at careless ages and have since been lost or broken.

56. are you happy with your life right now?
right this second, yes, as i have a takeout container of vegetable wok-fried rice in a plastic bag to my left, and will be sitting for the cutest baby in the world in a couple of hours. don't ask about overall.

57. have you dyed your hair?
never. either way, darker or lighter, i'd look ridiculous. unless i went, maybe, a single shade lighter, to an evener brown.

58. does anyone like you?
if not, then i need to get to work, immediately, on honing my lie-detection skills. my mom likes me, finally. that is refreshing and nice. she's started telling her secrets to me, as an alternative to her mother and sister. she still calls my grandmother for advice, though.

59. what year were you born?
1985.

60. what were you doing may of 1994?
finishing the third grade.

i did (or am doing; it's not quite done) this survey because i was a mite stressed, and sort of felt like stepping back from all the scoring of the other journals and the whatnot for a bit, and while i was doing it i also did three favors for the same sandra who made the meerkat joke and wouldn't tell me the number to the closest chinese delivery place at lunchtime.

i hate corporate america.

on the upside, marcus called as i was drifting off last night, and then i had nice dreams. and overslept, having them.

61. do you own a backstreet boys cd?
millennium, which i never listen to and never did. it was a seventh grade birthday present, and would still be in the wrapping if i hadn't cut out one of the liner pictures for a collage.

62. mcdonald's or wendy's?
tofu.

63. do you like yourself?
i do. i sometimes wonder, though, whether that's just because i have bad taste.

64. are you closer to your mother or father?
mother, like most young women my age, but partly that's because my dad and i are so much alike that it's hard for us to coexist peacefully. each of us behaves like we think we're smarter than the other, even though i secretly know he wins by far, and when we get grumpy we just naturally make everyone else miserable. there shouldn't be two of us.

65. favorite physical feature of the opposite sex?
much too late in the survey for this nonsense.

66. where is question sixty-six?
i don't know.

67. have you ever eaten paste?
i swallow more toothpaste than i spit out, usually, but the regular kind, i don't think so. my brother swears i used to eat palmolive in kindergarten, but i don't know if i trust the word of someone who was two years old and sucked on a pacifier at the time.

68. do you have a webcam?
no.

69. have you ever stripped?
frequently. for money? no.

70. what do you have to say to anyone who actually read this whole thing?
that i appreciate your patience.