gbh

When I was in high school, a lot of us wrote the following phrase on our notebooks and folders:
Conformity is deformity! ahem.

"The Proust Questionnaire", taken from The Lisa Book:

• Your most marked characteristic?
  Physically, big blue eyes that apparently don't blink enough. Less corporeally, I would say 'fortitude'.
• The quality you most like in a man?
  Consciousness. I'm not trying to be funny. I mean, the sense of awareness that comes from realizing and caring that there is more to life and the world than oneself.
• The quality you most like in a woman?
  Warmth. Again, not in a humorous, surface sense, but in that they can transcend the need to be everything to everyone, and be themselves in their own skin. Comfortable. Warm.
• What do you most value in your friends?
  Conversation. Presence. Consideration. Hugs.
• What is your dream of happiness?
  Fleeting.
• What is your principle defect?
  Dreaming. I lack focus and drive.
• What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?
  Living without connection.
• What is your favorite occupation?
  Writing.
• What would you like to be?
  A cat.
• In what country would you like to live?
  This one is getting me by. I like the idea of Spain, though. Or Ireland. And I've heard that Greece is nice. Who [whom?] am I kidding, though? I am a coward.
• Who are your favorite prose writers?
  Elinor Lipman. Alisa Kwitney. Pam Rosenthal, though her last one blew chunks. Tom Perrotta. David James Duncan, of course. Anne Lamott, though I have to be in the right mood to deal with it.
• Who are your favorite poets?
  Mary Karr. Pablo Neruda (thank you, Heidi!). Mary Oliver. Marge Piercy (thank you, Heidi!). Edna St. Vincent Millay. Margaret Atwood (thank you, Heidi!). Charles Bukowski (thank you--you know who you are).
• What natural gift would you like to possess?
  Impassivity.
• Who are your favorite composers?
  Chopin. Liszt.
• Who are your favorite painters?
  Mark Rothko. Claude Monet. Eh, I'm not such a fan of painting per se.
• What is your favorite color?
  330099. If you understand what that means, you're as fucking screwy as I am.
• Who are your heroes in real life?
  Eric. Dad. Pat. Nan. People who can say "I have no heroes" and mean it.
• What is it you most dislike?
  Being dismissed. People who deprive themselves of happiness because they think they don't deserve it. Automobile commercials that show cars being used dangerously. Excessive fat in my food. Leaving for work in the morning. Saying goodbye.
• How would you like to die?
  Quickly, painlessly, and with no fanfare.
• What is your present state of mind?
  Morose.
• To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
  Trying to get one's brain around something, and so not being able to quite commit to it.
• What is your motto?
  This is as good as any:
  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote, in Wind, Sand and Stars: "Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness."