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an abandoned mall (not actually the local version)
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1. If you could have a lifetime 50 percent discount in any single store at your local mall, which store would it be in? my local "mall" contained the following, last time I was there:
• BBQ restaurant owned by a high school classmate, which is so good that my tummy growled just thinking about it. I don't go as often as I'd like, mostly because I'd be at least as wide as I am tall before long. SO good.
• supplements store (never been)
• sushi restaurant (never been)
• axe-throwing and arcade games (never been)
• resale shop benefiting a parochial elementary school (have shopped once or twice, and donated once. There's a bag in my back seat waiting for me to haul it over, in fact.)
• cell phone store (never been)
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| another abandoned mall (still not the local version) |
• liquor store (once or twice? maybe?) • taekwondo gym (needless to say, I've never been. They've won some state and national meets, though, so if I were to go, that would be a great choice.)
• little kid gym. Gymnastics? Tumbling? Dance? Who knows.
• driving school
• internet service provider "store" (really just a call center)
• license center
Of those, the first or the last would be freaking AWESOME to access at half price. The rest of them...meh.
2. If you had to name the one thing that can most readily ruin your day, what would it be? computer/network/software malfunction. I realize that it's rampant throughout the work world, but it seems particularly problematic when working remotely. There's no IT department to troubleshoot me, after all.
3. If you were to name one person you know who is a true gentleman, who would it be?
my friend R. We met in our first year of college, back when we shared both a major course of study and an attitude about behavior and beverages (among other things). We also worked for the same department for our work-study jobs, though in quite different roles. We also sort of dated, briefly.
We've stayed in touch since then, most of that time in the era before social media. Letters, email, phone calls, and a few visits here and there. Literally here and there, in fact, since it happened both on the Flat and since I returned to home base.
My point is that he went out of his way to stay connected to me. There was no clear payoff for him. He wasn't making money on the deal. I had nothing tangible to offer in exchange for his time and effort. We ate and drank and talked, when we could be in the same state and make it work. We have a FB Messenger thread that is probably on its own dedicated server by now. Now and then, we text. Even more rarely, we talk on the phone. And each of those experiences is another piece to the growing puzzle of our friendship.
So, what makes him a gentleman? Check out this post from 'Gentleman's Journal'. Several of the elements stand out for me—numbers 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15 (especially 8 and 12)—but I can verify from my own experience that most of the list is in his arsenal. In short, he's a good guy, he works at things that require effort, and he shows
that he cares about the people in his life. And today is prehaps his birthday!
4. If you could have anyone from history welcome you into the afterlife, who would you want it to be? my dad's next-younger brother, my mom's next-younger sister's husband, and my godfather.
5. If you had to choose the most extreme example of sexual harassment you have suffered, what would it be?
besides the one described here involving a law prof, or the one described here starring Toby... it would be one of the first times I went to a bar by myself—well before I was of age—at my hometown's excuse for a "dance club". One of the rare times at that age that I went into a bar without "pregaming", I was totally sober. I walked in the door, intending to walk through to the other bar that was attached, slightly more low-key than the dance bar but also more intentional about the hookups. So. Walking through the dance bar, minding my own business, intent on my goal. Not really paying attention to my surroundings. All of a sudden, guy in a booth by himself reaches out and grabs me by the wrist. Pulls me onto his side of the booth. Clearly wasted, drunk as hell, he slurred out the usual canned blather. As if it was a compliment. I was not interested for various reasons, but most significantly because he was my boyfriend's dad. Not the bf of that moment, but recently enough that I knew him immediately. And he was trying to get his hands on me, and trying drunkenly to pick me up.
It was not difficult to extricate myself from the situation. He was hammered enough that I was able to pull my arm from his grip and get away pretty fast. And a bouncer had seen it happen and was headed our way from the door, so I would have been safe, regardless. But that feeling stuck with me for a while, both the physical feeling of being grabbed and pulled and slobbered at, and the emotional feeling of being repulsed and horrified and, for no reason that I could then understand, deeply ashamed.
6. If you had to identify the one thing destiny probably held in store for you, what would you say it is?
being alone. In my youth, I cared far too much about romantic adventure and entanglement. At times I was probably obsessed with it. That much focus and energy on anything isn't healthy, particularly when so much of it rests on the fickle whims of fate and men. I might wish it were different, but can't be surprised by how that all worked out.
7. If you could own a single prop from any film ever made, what would you choose?
Léon's sunglasses
