The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

I needed to keep myself busy...

I don't usually do questionnaires, mostly because a lot of them are silly and pointless, but then, so is my journal so why not indulge? I saw this in about three other journals, and lately I've been making an effort to join things, so here goes...

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Recognizing the happiness as it happens, without worrying about its inevitable end.

2. What is your greatest extravagance?
These days, there aren’t many. I feel guilty buying anything that’s just for me, but if I had to say, I’d go with books. Ooh, wait, I have a Dyson vacuum cleaner. For a person like myself, this is major.

3. What is your current state of mind?
Frustrated--we haven’t really been talking these past few days, due to an argument that came from nowhere, and it’s not his style to ask me what’s wrong or to approach me first. That bothers me more than the actual argument, the fact that he doesn’t seem interested in diffusing this bomb, and my pride and stubbornness won’t let me go first this time. At least, not yet.

4. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
I am a procrastinator, and it causes all sorts of problems around here. That, and the fact that I am given to worrying about things beyond my control.

5. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Complacency. I am someone who gets passionate about things, who reacts in an honest way, and I don’t really get those people who sit back with their ‘whatever, man’ attitude. I also despise people who are insincere and untrustworthy. Own it.

6. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Resilience. There’s something kind of inhuman about it. How is someone weak or at fault for feeling something and reacting to it? I get what it’s supposed to be about but it doesn’t seem all that realistic to me. Of course, what do I know? I am not resilient.

7. What is your favorite occupation?
Writer, I think, which is obvious but really, imagine getting paid to put your thoughts in print and have people want to read them? Little bit of ego-stroking for cash. Also, I’d love to be a behavioural therapist, if I actually thought I could help anyone get out of this mess with a smile.

8. What is your most marked characteristic?
I have an expression that apparently goes with me wherever. It is the ‘are you really that stupid?’ face. It’s not always what I plan to wear, but it is reliable and it always fits.

9. What do you value most in your friends?
Intelligence, humour and understanding. What more could you ask?

10. When and where were you happiest?
There was a day, four years ago, when we had moved into this house and I was heavily pregnant. I lay on the bed rubbing my belly/baby, with the window open, and there was a warm breeze rocking the tree limbs back and forth. I lay there, knowing I was where I am supposed to be, and it thrilled me.

11. What do you dislike most about your appearance?
I think if I were slimmer I’d be happier. I’m not obese, but sometimes I see the weight in my face, or in my arms, and I know it shouldn’t be there. I would not like to be especially thin, either, but somewhere in the middle would be just fine.

12. Which living person do you most despise?
I don’t know that I legitimately hate anyone, per se, but I have some fairly strong negative reactions to the likes of dictators who kill innocent people for kicks. Oh, and Paris Hilton.

13. On what occasion do you lie?
When I suspect the truth will do nothing to help the situation.

14. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
M.

15. Which talent would you most like to have?
To play an instrument, or to paint as well as M.

16. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
My anxiety. I’d banish it. I’d throw it in a bottomless hole. I know I’d be more than this if I could do that.

17. If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
I can’t change my family, as in my original family, but in this new family, it would be nice to actually be officially married, and to perhaps have another child one day.

18. What is your most treasured possession?
Other than the love of my child, I’d go with the old trunk of my grandparent’s wartime letters.

19. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Losing anyone you love more than yourself.

20. Who are your favorite writers?
Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith, J.D Salinger…it goes on, but those were off the top of my head.

21. Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Eve. She was the first to exercise free will. Also, Holden Caulfield who makes me laugh like a madman.

22. What are your favorite names?
Nuala, Riordan, Claire, Katriona, Amélie, Evangeline…I’m sensing a trend. For boys, there’s Colm, Cashel, Declan, Lennon…I tend to like surnames as first names, too.

23. What is it that you most dislike?
Uncertainty.

24. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Leaving a relationship that wasn’t working, and living through it. Moving away from everything which was comfortable and familiar, to tackle the unknown. I’m still a work in progress.

25. If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
A ladybug, maybe. There’s prophecy in the spots, and they’re pretty.

26. If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?
A poetess. The non-suicidal tendency sort.

27. Where would you like to live?
Ireland, or France. Or both.

28. How would you like to die?
In my sleep, when I’m severely aged, but still able to know love and give it.

29. What is your greatest regret?
The way I treated R. I didn’t know I was capable of deception until then.

30. What is your motto?
There’s only one direction from the bottom.