to escape, you have to accept the fall when you are thrown

• Do you believe in destiny, fate or free will?
  sure - as if any of us have a concrete clue about any of it! I sometimes think that all our complex philosophical conundrums are only so much squirrel chittering.
• If you could talk to one species of animal which would it be?
  platypus. I want to know what all that stuff's about.
• If you had friends 'round, what DVDs would you have to watch?
  depends on the friends, of course. I'm into classic (old, critically acclaimed) films with my parents, newer and art-house sorts of movies with D&R (though he's more the shit-blowing-up sort, and she's the happy-ever-after queen of the universe), and wackadoo independent stuff on my own. I have a very large movie collection (and access to a zillion times more, of course) so it can really be tailored to the moment.
• Do you like vanilla or chocolate?
  yep. I probably have chocolate more regularly, but I've definitely had a hankering for a vanilla milkshake lately. Maybe tomorrow morning, I can make that happen. (Break time!)
• Are you a giver or a receiver?
  sorta yeah, sorta no. I'm incredibly awkward with receiving "big things", but at ease with things like alternating paying for meals or spotting a round of drinks. Or with asking if a friend can loan me money (and then paying it back promptly) when I'm in need of a Coke or something of the sort, too.
• Do you have any enemies?
  I suppose, in a sense. There are a couple of people that I'm likely to have confrontations with at some point, with whom I'd prefer to never come in contact. I'm not actively targeting them in any sense at all (except maybe spiritually, which only dings my own aura), though.
• Are you scared of needles?
  nope. Not a huge fan of having blood drawn, but it would be seriously hypocritical to whine about needles at this point.
• How many piercings do you have--if any?
  six. I keep thinking about getting one more (I like odd numbers and asymmetry) but can't settle on where to put it.
• Have you ever got majorly lost trying to get somewhere?
  yep. I saw a great deal of the lower peninsula of Michigan once, inadvertently, on my way back west. And notoriously wandered about the lakeshore in Chicago, looking for a hotel.
  
  Being lost isn't the worst thing in the world.
• Do you say "Zee" or "Zed" to describe the letter Z?
  I say "zee." I don't actually know anyone (anymore) who would say "zed", and, outside the countries where it is standard to do so, I would find it enormously pretentious. (I find anti-American [or vehemently pro-foreign] Americans very trying. Not that I'm so patriotic, but the protests seem so "firstworldproblems"-ish.)
• What was the last thing to make you feel happy?
  my friends' teenaged kid hurtled down a flight of stairs yelling "Nooooooo!" when told by it's parent that I was leaving after spending the night at their house. I was then glommed (?) upon in a 5-minute hug and good-naturedly whined at not to leave. I felt loved, accepted, and appreciated.
• What was the last thing to make you feel angry?
  work. I. Don't. Get. It.
  People keep telling me to give it time, that it will come. But I don't feel like I'm being given the tools to eventually do this job on my own. I feel like there's an expectation that I will just "pick it up", although a great deal of the job is not a task or a skill but reams of material to memorize (and exceptions to note). It is horribly complex, while still being endlessly dull for large chunks of time each day.
  
  I really don't get it.
• You are walking to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss told you if you are late one more time you're fired. Do you save the dog?
  exchange the dog with a cat and you know the answer in a heartbeat.
  
  I would likely still try to save a dog.
  
  I couldn't work for someone who couldn't make exceptions. Who couldn't recognize the gray in between the tiny stripes of black and white on the margins.
• Are you the kind of friend you'd want to have as a friend yourself?
  in terms of my capacity for friendship and the various qualities that are valuable within it, certainly. But, to have a friend who is just like me? No thank you. I'm better with someone who's a counterpoint to me in some way: more argumentative, more loving, more forthright, more attractive, more outgoing, more demonstrative. That allows me to be me, without trying to be all (or any) of that, too.
• Do you have any questions or queries about things you're just too scared or embarrassed to ask anyone about?
  of course. There's no one among us who's fully willing to blurt out whatever, whenever. I want to know how my best friends manage to create and maintain such amazing marriages. I want to know what the lizard-brain attorney was thinking. (For that matter, knowing what anyone was thinking, ever, would be lovely.) I want to know what really happened the night that was lost in the mist with Rowdy. I want to know what changed, with my former physical therapist's former girlfriend.
• If you were a wrestler what would your stage name be?
  According to Seventh Sanctum, I answer to "Barbara the Mean".
  
  Alternately, according to TheWrestlingFan.com, I go by "Stench Beefgnaw".
  
  The final alternative, from KROC, gives me Mighty Spawn.
• ...and what would your special move be called?
  I'm a big fan of everybody's favorite, the bridging cobra clutch. We can call it The Gerbalicious Special.

[ripped from here and carved into pieces; the title quotation is by Deng Ming-Dao, from Everyday Tao, and reads in its entirety: "Grappling with fate is like meeting an expert wrestler: to escape, you have to accept the fall when you are thrown. The only thing that counts is whether you get back up."]