10 questions meme

Wendy tagged me for a 10 questions meme. I haven't been feeling very writerly or bloggerly lately, but with the contents of my blog post laid out for me already, I guess I can do this.

1. What's your biggest pet peeve?

Weird. Punctuation. Because question marks and periods in the middles of sentences? Are just wrong. I know it's supposed to indicate vocal inflection, but the technique doesn't work. It works a little bit better after months of exposure, I suppose. However, my Bad Grammar Alarm is giving me a headache, and drowning out the intended inflections.

2. Where and how did you meet your spouse?

Funny story! I had just broken up with my previous boyfriend of three years. That was three years of bad relationship, but it took me two years to realize the guy was a bad investment, and one year to get rid of him. Therefore, when I dumped him, I promised myself three whole months in which I wouldn't THINK about guys; I wouldn't LOOK at any guys; I'd still talk to them, but I certainly wouldn't FLIRT with them. No way. Not me. I was free.

But I had almost no friends. My ex-boyfriend didn't tend to like me having friends hanging around. So my co-worker decided he'd remedy this by introducing me to all of HIS friends. (He didn't realize that this is my default state of social existence - I can't claim that I'd've been Ms. Popularity if the ex hadn't driven them off.)

My co-worker invited me to a Monday Night Card Game. I didn't know what game was being played; he didn't tell me, and I assumed it was poker. Me at a poker game would be truly surreal, but I went.

It wasn't poker. It was Magic: The Gathering. I'd never heard of it, but one fellow took it upon himself to teach me to play. There were hundreds of different cards, and each had a lovely piece of artwork on it and some instructions. It was all very complicated and geeky. The guy was very sweet, though, and although I didn't learn how to play Magic until a year later, he and I found something we did have in common: storytelling.

That was 1.5 months after my vow to spend 3 months as a free spirit. I don't miss the other 1.5 months.

3. Favorite food?

Ice cream. I wish it weren't. There's nothing redeeming about ice cream except that it tastes sooooo good.

4. Deserted island...what three things are you bringing with you (no other humans allowed)?

The Boy Scout Handbook - thanks to my husband for that idea. I want to be able to meet my basic camping needs.
A pile of sketchbooks. With all that free time, I may as well turn it into an artist's retreat, right? If I stay there long enough, I may finish Knifeclaw Company AND Zephyr & Reginald: Minions For Hire #4. How sweet would that be?
The scripts. I can't draw comic books if I don't bring the scripts.

5. Favorite TV show?

Um... The Daily Show, I guess. It's the only show I watch. It probably wouldn't be my favorite show if I had more of a selection, but I don't, so it is.

I also watch Frontline, but that makes me cry, so I can't really justify saying it's my favorite.

6. Three adjectives to describe you?

Reticent, fickle, and short.

7. Worst job?

Hmmm. I've had a few bad jobs in my time.

I'm going to say the job at the new age gift shop. I only worked there for one day, without training. Worse, I opened the store that day, and my boss hadn't showed me where the lights were or how to use the cash register or anything! I figured it out myself. Then the Tarot reader was a bitch to me. He wouldn't speak to me directly at all, but muttered unkind things about me within my range of hearing. My second day of work was supposed to be September 12. I showed up, but the owner was wailing about the apocalypse and told me to go home and forget about the job and any semblance of a normal life, because the Muslims were going to get us all. Her vendors were Muslim and were most certainly terrorists, and she had no choice but to close the store. I tried to talk some sense into her. Unfortunately, reason was not popular that day, and I must have hit some really sore spot in her. Weeks later, noticing the store was still open, I went in to ask her about the job. She slipped into the back room, and I was left talking to a new woman who told me that the store owner was really quite busy, and I probably shouldn't drop by anymore. Ever. Not even as a customer.

8. Biggest fear?

Success. It's a strange one, but I know why I fear success.

Early in life, I didn't receive very good guidance in navigating pursuits I was interested in. I wasn't very ambitious, and I didn't know what my options were. I needed some pushes in the right direction. The pushes I got were inadequate, and my achievement bar remained very low.

As I got older, the people around me developed an attitude that everything I did was wrong. I began to have to be careful, because the price of being wrong got steeper and steeper, and no matter what approach I took, it always seemed to be wrong. Even doing nothing was wrong. For a while, I gave up on achievements altogether, because accomplishing something drew attention to myself, and attention was dangerous. Many of my decisions during that time were bad, but you can hardly blame me. I spent years in basic survival mode, on the lower rungs of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. And now that I have the opportunity to climb to the top rung, self-actualization, I hesitate. I don't want to try to accomplish anything - not because I might fail, because I'm fine with failure. I can fail over and over for the rest of my life and never leave my comfort zone. But what if I succeed? What if I accomplish something and it's wrong, and somebody notices? What if I succeed at something and my Hierarchy of Needs foundation is too flimsy? Will my success be disqualified?

9. What's on your mind right now?

How terribly, terribly tired I am. And how my new pedometer is being wasted. I so want to strap it on and watch the numbers go up up up.... but that would require moving.

10. Ideal vacation location?

Northeastern Arizona. Where the climate is similar to New England's - at least in winter - and the last of the southwestern Indian tribes eke out an existence in abject poverty. My soul is drawn to the life of the downtrodden, the oppressed, the person without opportunity. We did that to them - white Americans of European origin - and I want to undo it. I want to die undoing it. I want to see my knuckles bleed from the sheer hopeless effort of paying for the sins of my countrymen.

Okay, that's not really about taking a vacation. But the only time I've been to Arizona was on vacation, and now the idea of vacation reminds me of it.


Now I've worn myself out. I don't know who to tag, anyhow. Half of you have already done this meme, and the other half either don't read this blog or don't have a blog.

I'm going to go play some Spore.