Despertar

i started seeing a therapist, it sucks

1. Do you think it's fair that people who urinate outdoors have to register as sex offenders?
...I'm pretty sure that's not true in most jurisdictions, especially this one. At the beginning of my love affair with alcohol, I probably did that thirty times within six months. And I've had friends who got caught doing it. At the most, I'd think you would get charged with public indecency, and to my knowledge that doesn't earn you a place on the sex offender registry.

2. When you have a cold what steps do you take to feel better?
Wet my hair, open the window and shout myself hoarse to prolong the incubation of my Sexyvoice.

3. Have you ever witnessed a couple fighting in public?
Yes. I tend to like it. Obviously I'd try to take action if I ever felt like it might get violent (I once called the police on a couple I saw taking swings at each other in Dupont Circle), but generally I think it's the most interesting thing ever, because you know how couples develop that weird shorthand? That vocabulary that doesn't make any sense to anyone but them? So you hear husbands yelling things like "I can't believe you're still mad about the fucking casserole," which, for a wannabe fictionista, is like striking gold.

4. What do you think about people who say they have no regrets in life?
I find it obnoxious, but I guess I respect and envy them. The end of that sentence tends to be "because everything I've done made me the person I am today," and how do you not admire someone who genuinely enjoys being who they are? Who assigns a positive net value to the sum of all their clumsy adventures?

5. What are you looking forward to the most in the upcoming months?
I'm psyched for Thanksgiving this year. I'm coming apart at the seams and it will be nice to be around extended family.

6. Describe what it was like growing up in your house?
I don't know that there are easy words for it. It was both the same as and different from the childhoods of everyone else I've ever known. Two parents who worked late but loved us more than anything. A little brother who used to snap the heads off of my Barbies even after I explained to him how they never quite screw back on the same way. An aesthetically eighties-style stereo system on which my parents played a lot of smooth jazz--mostly Fourplay and Anita Baker. A bunch of shitty babysitters we hated, all of them African or Central American. No one ever enforced bedtime because our parents liked playing with us too much, and anyway we rarely ate dinner before eight or eight-thirty. A standing piano in the dining room. Tropical fish in an aquarium in the basement. Et cetera, et cetera.

7. Have you ever ended a friendship because it wasn't good for your own well being?
No. I tend to put the most effort into my least rewarding relationships. That pattern has held fast since first grade.

8. Have any family recipes been handed down to you?
I'm not sure they count as "family recipes" if they all come from the Campbell's cookbook. Sorry to debunk the stereotype, but pretty much none of the women in my family are especially passionate cooks.

9. If it made your mother happy would you wear her old wedding dress and get married in it?
It wouldn't fit. I'm three inches taller than she is.

10. If you're having a horrible day can people tell, or do you tend to try to hide it?
It depends on the type of horrible. I'm famous for making absolutely everyone listen to all my problems, from minor inconveniences to full-blown existential crises, but when I'm feeing genuinely rotten, like, so miserable my body starts to hurt, it's harder to break through that to whatever payoff I get from talking it out. It feels better to turn off my phone and do crazy things like fast for two days. Did I mention I'm seeing a therapist?

11. Hate is a strong word, do you honestly hate someone?
So after years of hearing this cliche, that hate is a strong sentiment and I should think twice before using it to describe my feelings toward one of God's children, I'm finally taking the time, now, to check the official dictionary definition. And what I'm learning is it doesn't mean anything cosmic or spiritual, it doesn't mean wishing its object would die (a claim made repeatedly by elementary-school colleagues of mine); it means "intense or passionate dislike." Why shouldn't I intensely or passionately dislike someone who hurt me badly and doesn't regret it? Why am I allowed to hate Hitler but not my ex-boyfriend from college? Why should I think twice before embracing my passionate dislike for an asshole?

12. Do you believe in psychics?
I believe in mentalism. I believe some people have honed their understanding of human behavior so finely that they can predict it on an impressive micro level. But I generally don't believe in things that don't make sense, and textbook clairvoyance falls well within that category.

13. Have you ever had a session with a psychic medium or clairvoyant?
Twice. Blah blah, I'm a hypocrite.

14. If they imposed a water ban in your town but it was ninety-five degrees out, would you really conserve water?
What right would I have not to? If it's ninety-five out for me, it's ninety-five out for everyone, right?

15. Have you ever let anyone live with you because they were having a hard time?
Kyla, the lesbian I talked about sometimes in college, lived in my dorm room for about three weeks while she was between girlfriends/meal tickets.

16. Would you vote on a law and pay extra taxes if they were trying to pass a law that would make all domestic animal owners spay and neuter their animals?
All of them? No. I don't know how the breeding world works, but I'm sure the operational definition of "domestic animals" would come into question, and it would turn into a big contentious mess. Plus, I don't care enough.

17. Is there anyone who can tell how you're feeling just by looking at you?
My mom. Very frustrating.

18. Are you counting down the days to anything?
Not anymore. I was before I went to Kansas City last weekend. Oh yeah, I haven't told this story here! I met Stacy London! She called me on stage to illustrate a point she was making about boot size and lengthening the line of the leg! She fussed around with the hem of my shirt and scrunched my boot down to ankle length! Meg and I waited in line for two hours to get front-row seats to her lecture, and it was totally worth the wait, but I was dying of adoration the whole time I spent on stage, so I barely remember any of it anyway.

19. Do you really think the world will end? If so, how is it going to end?
Eventually the sun will burn out. Life as we know it on Earth will have gone extinct long before then, though, or adapted to gradual changes in the solar conditions over time. It's not quite as romantic as the Rapture, but it's an idea I can get behind with confidence.

20. Do you have a passport?
Yes.

21. If your husband/wife had to go overseas for two years would you honestly wait that long for them?
If we were already married, I don't see where I'd have a choice. We would hopefully have the resources where I could schedule regular visits to see him, and if we had children by then, I'm sure I could manage without feeling lonely.

22. Does it get you angry when you see people who get public assistance (food stamps, free housing, etc.) buying expensive seafood and driving around in very expensive cars?
Well, poor financial decisions and the need for public assistance tend to feed into each other cyclically, so there's no point in getting "angry" about it. It's a question of education, another social problem that's worse in some communities than in others. Also, I buy stupid shit I can't really afford all the time. I'm not on public assistance, but if I were, I'm sure I'd try to keep my quality of life as high as possible, which would probably mean buying stuff judgmental outsiders considered irresponsible.

23. Is there anyone you would risk your own life for?
Lots of people.

24. Is there any part of your town that you refuse to go to because it's such a high crime neighborhood?
I've been mugged twice within two blocks of my apartment, and I had all the electronics stolen out of my car while it was parked in front of Justin's. It's not the crimiest part of the District by far, but if I were the type to scare easy, I'd stay inside all the time.

25. If you slept with your doors unlocked at night would you really feel safe?
No. Who would do that?

26. Do you consider it sexual harassment if a coworker told you a dirty joke?
No. But I have a really, really low (high?) threshold for what does and doesn't constitute sexual harassment.

27. Do you know anyone who was accused of a sexual crime and they were later found innocent?
The older brother of a friend of my brother's had sex with a thirteen-year-old a couple years ago. She told him she was sixteen, the age of consent in the state where it happened. He was acquitted at trial, which isn't the same as being found innocent, but it's close.

28. Do you think most parents overreact about pedophiles and sexual offenders?
I think it's important that parents are vigilant about keeping an eye on known sex offenders, but with one caveat: I really, really don't think adults who have sex with sexually mature teenagers (the ones with adult bodies and a reasonable ability to manipulate information) should be lumped in the same category with adults who interact with little kids in a sexual way. In other words, true pedophiles, whose sexual gratification comes from physical interaction with little people, are a different kind of criminal than people who take advantage of teenagers but are otherwise sexually normal. But I don't think I'd knowingly raise my kids next door to a member of either category.

29. Do you think first time drug offenders that are severely addicted to narcotics should be given the chance to rehabilitate themselves before going to prison?
How exactly are they supposed to do that? The drug addicts you see on Dr. Phil, whose parents can afford endless stays at pricey rehab centers, aren't exactly a representative sample of the people getting arrested for drug use on a daily basis.

30. Have you ever been part of a jury?
Got out of it because I was out of state for school.

31. Do you think someone who kills another person in self defense should be charged with murder?
Each state has a pretty concrete threshold for what constitutes self defense, and mostly it keeps people safe from murder charges. (How boring am I these days? I hate law school for turning blog surveys into written exams.)

32. Do you think Barbie and Ken are a positive or negative influence on children?
Honestly, of all the women I know who spend every waking moment worried about being fat (read: all of them), not one has ever attributed her body image issues to Barbie's paradox of a body. Also, by the time I hit Barbie age, Mattel had started outfitting her for every career imaginable, from runway modeling to gynecology, so the messages of female empowerment were there, too. Ken was a two-dimensional prop, but I don't know any boys who treated him as a role model, anyway. The biggest problem with the Barbie thing, for me, was the fact that Christie, Barbie's black friend, had waist-length flowing straight hair, a perky Aryan nose and Barbie's selfsame blue eyes (albeit modified with token flecks of brown). But even in 1992, I had a vague sense that I was supposed to be grateful Christie existed at all, so I sucked it up and started dreaming of the day I could start getting chemical straighteners for my hair. (True story.)

33. What do you miss most about your past?
All the things I hadn't screwed up yet.

34. Have you ever purposely called someone and hung up just to hear their voice?
No, but I am guilty of having pretended to accidentally dial someone because I wanted them to remember they were supposed to call me. Also of having pretended to type something in the wrong chat window because I wanted someone to see it without my having to take responsibility for tell them directly. Very mature, of course.

35. Are you afraid of going to the doctor because you may hear bad news?
Not really. The worst news I've ever gotten from a doctor was a UTI, and that was a relief, because they gave me pills for it.

36. Would you donate one of your kidneys to a family member?
Well, more relevantly, I wouldn't be able to say no.

37. If your sister couldn't have a child would you carry a baby for her?
This is one of few reasons I'm glad I don't have a sister. Like with the kidney thing, I don't think I would be able to say no, if my sister approached me with a request like that, but being a surrogate is just about the last thing I'd ever want to do in life. Pregnancy is just too sacred in my mind, and I have no intention of ever carrying a baby I don't then get to keep and raise.

38. Have you ever protested anything?
In high school, but I don't think I really cared about it. I just went to get out of a class I hated, and because my newspaper friends were doing it.

39. Have you ever considered a life of crime?
Not as a lifestyle, but I've definitely had those moments of weighing the feasibility and risks of getting various things done in illegal ways. Ultimately I always ram up against the reality of my own ineptitude.

40. With which family member do you have the strongest relationship with?
Double preposition.

41. Do you donate blood?
Only recently hit the lower weight limit. I know I should, but it's not exactly a fantasy of mine.

42. Have you ever gone to a benefit dinner?
More than I can count. It's one of the cornerstone truths of being born into the so-called "black elite." There are endless, endless benefit dinners, but invariably they benefit other members of the black elite, rather than the more apt targets who actually need it.

43. Have you ever helped raise money for your church?
Inadvertently, through Girl Scout cookie sales and stuff.

44. Do you believe everything happens for a reason?
Technically, yes. But a past reason, not a future reason. In other words, a child dies because he had an accident or a terminal illness, not because God wants his parents to learn a valuable life lesson. The action causes the reaction; the reaction isn't the divine reason for the action.

45. Do you think that you're really never given more than you can handle?
No, I don't think that. I don't believe there's a force meting problems out according to each individual's capabilities. People drown under the weight of everything they can't handle. This happens all the time.

46. What is something you'll just never understand?
Nothing. There's tons of stuff that confuses me, but there's an internal logic to everything. I have no idea why anyone would pay money to see a Bruce Springsteen concert, but I know people like the music they like for reasons of upbringing and personal taste. I'm baffled at how anyone could convert to Islam or Catholicism or Scientology, but I believe there must be compelling literature I haven't seen. And I find it really tough to identify with a woman who chooses not to have children for any reason other than overpopulation or carbon-footprint guilt, but it always ends up making sense on a case-by-case basis. Once again, stuff happens for a reason.

47. Are you easily confused?
No.

48. Do you follow politics?
Inasmuch as I read headlines and watch The Daily Show. I don't sit riveted to two hours of Congressional hearing footage, but I know basic things about most of the important issues.

49. Who do you think the next President of the United States will be?
Obama, hopefully.

50. Do you tend to ask a lot of questions when you don't understand something?
Honestly, the only time I ask questions is when I want to highlight that the something is difficult to understand at its face. I rarely ask for my own knowledge. I prefer to suffer through figuring it out or to just fall behind.

51. Do you think the staff at nursing homes are mostly caring or mostly coldhearted?
How would anyone make a determination like that? The staff at the place where my grandmother lives are really nice, but I believe there are places where they're callous and abusive.

52. Where do you think prison inmates get most of their drugs from?
Lower-security prisoners smuggle them in rectally? It's low on my list of concerns, frankly.

53. Have you ever cried because of the misfortune of someone you didn't know?
Yeah, but not in a socially aware, Angelina-Jolie kind of way. Major global issues like terrorism and female circumcision feel very remote to me. I'm much more likely to cry at a TLC special about Shiloh Pepin than I am at a news story about starving Somalians.

54. Do you think people who abuse animals should be given the same punishment that people who abuse people get?
I really don't know. I tend to think people take animal activism to extremes.

55. If you could have a five-minute conversation with Michael Vick what would you say to him?
What is there to say? The only kind of person who would principally endorse dogfighting is one who was raised in an environment where dogfighting was normal. I think it's despicable and wrong, but that's not going to matter to someone who thought it was completely fine before the law told him otherwise. Also, not to get into the whole thing about how no one bats an eyelash when people who aren't overpaid racial minorities go out and shoot inedible animals just for fun, but really, no one bats an eyelash when people who aren't overpaid racial minorities go out and shoot inedible animals just for fun.

56. What time of the day are you at your best?
This time. Thirty-eight minutes past midnight. Not a moment earlier or later.

57. How do you make the best of a bad situation?
By turning off my phone for an hour to binge and play the Sims. It cures most ills.

58. Have you ever had to choose sides?
I've been prodded to, but as an Aquarian (if you believe this sort of thing, which I don't), I am notorious for refusing to choose sides. This is why I have so many friends who hate each other, because I always see everyone's point.

59. Should smoking be banned, even from households and cars?
I don't know. My dad tells me to never support a law that impinges on personal freedoms, but it seems like there should be a way to outlaw smoking in the presence of children. But then, if we're protecting kids' lungs from secondhand smoke, shouldn't we be protecting everyone's? And if we're doing that, how do we measure thresholds of airspace? Which suggests domes and filters, and if we're making it that unpleasant for smokers to maintain their habit, oughtn't we just drop the other shoe anyway? But then we're back to impinging on personal freedoms.

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Follow the Leader  (13+) Round 12 open for sign-ups! #1378797 by mood indigo