Five Things: More Opportunity for Me to Expound on Leah!

From Megan, a fun meme.

If you like, after reading this, every single last word and punctuation mark, haha, and you would like me to ask you five questions, you can follow Megan's instructions (I quote verbatim, 'cause she's funny):

"1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions. If your profile does not include an email address, then send it to me. And if you don't know where to look for my email address, I wash my hands of you.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions."

It's a sort of question pyramid scheme.

Here are my questions from Megan. I really like these questions. And I'm supposed to be writing, but I'm taking a break to do this instead:


1. A wizard casts a spell and either you or Sarge must be mute for one week. You have to pick. Who gets this curse (or blessing)? (Note that it doesn't affect work outside the home, or anything. Just within the family.)

I would take the curse. Of the people in my household, I'm the most likely to say something churlish, curmudgeonly, cranky. I should be the one to shut up for a week. I bet life would be a little quieter around the old weatherinthestreets homestead...

2. Are you near-sighted or far-sighted? If you could get laser eye surgery would you? Or do you prefer glasses? (Kind of a dull question, I know, but as a glasses-wearer, I am curious!)

I am desperately near-sighted. I mean, without my glasses I'm disabled. I got my first glasses when I was 11. Sob. No, actually, I like glasses now. I tried contact lenses, and prefer glasses. I don't think I'd have laser surgery, because, well, I don't know why not exactly. I'd worry it would go wrong and blind me completely, which is an unreasonable fear. And my glasses are just a part of me.

3. I love U2 but as I mentioned, Joshua Tree is not for me. I have personal reasons for this, but even disregarding those, I have difficulty approving the album itself. Do you have a similar situation with a favorite artist? Who, What and Why?

Okay, it's about to get ugly all up in here for a sec. You can skip this if you still think I'm kinda nice. I have a HUGE, I mean HUGE ENORMOUS beef with anyone who supports Mumia Abu-Jamal. If you don't know who he is, you're probably better off. I become insensate with rage, and I'm not kidding here, when I think about the fact that this doofus is still alive on death row, bitching and moaning. Unfortunately, there are some music folk who support him--Sting, for one, but since I don't really care about Sting, that's fine. A real disappointment is the Beastie Boys. I once loved the Beastie Boys--they're from my neck of the woods and they're great. But I have a complete boycott since learning of their support of Mumia. Oof. Good question, Megan.

4. Hedgie graduates from high school with honors and a scholarship to university, but tells you that rather than go to college or get a job right away, she'd rather spend a year at home first, "thinking things out." What would you say?

Now I like to be as open-minded as possible (Mumia notwithstanding) but this would really throw me. If Hedgie had a really really good plan, for instance she wanted to do a wonderful internship that would lead to great things after college/grad school and was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, I might be inclined to be supportive. My family has always been dogged believers in a straight path to college and beyond, and I would have a super-hard time letting go of that. In my experience, too, once you're off a track like that, it's damned hard to get back on it successfully. So if she was just going to take a year to mull things over, with no real plan, I'd be strongly opposed.

That said, I don't think college is the be-all-and-end-all. Not going to, or not finishing, college, or not doing it on schedule, doesn't make a person less of a fine mind, a good human being, and worthwhile. But I was raised with the expectation, and I have it for Hedgie. I know Sarge does too. Plus, she's already planning to go to me and Sarge's alma mater...hmmm...

I'm going to have to pose this question to Sarge. It's a really excellent question, because it really goes much deeper than just the face of it--it gets into all sorts of things, our expectations for our children and for ourselves, exploring limits of tolerance and acceptance, questioning our own rigidity and bias and judgmental tendencies, fighting against those, doing what's best for our children, not just what we think is best for them...


5. The wizard comes back for more - you can either record a great song that will be sung by all the world, or publish your book (with no guarantee of success)?

No question that I would choose the publication of my book, even if it ultimately garnered bad reviews and was remaindered within the half-year!

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So if you need some blogging inspiration, and are willing to take the gamble, let me know and I'll be delighted to interview you!