the truth is more important than the facts

1. Did you ever get into a bar and drink before you were 21? If yes, how often?
   Yes, many times. It wasn't exactly a point of pride (as with some of my friends), but more a means to an end. I wanted to drink, that's where the drinks were, so that's where I went.
2. After Obama, who do you think will be the next president?
   I think it's likely to be someone from the same party.
   A digression: it's a sign of extraordinarily intellectual laziness in thinking to say things like, "We should throw them all back and start over." If politics is that much of a problem, then commit yourself to working to change the system itself. If you can't be bothered, then don't also be bothered to be so terribly negative and dismissive, while also implying that you know something that the rest of us obviously do not. There are others among us who actually believe that the system can work. Is that really so awful?
3. Do you believe places can really be haunted?
   no, but I believe that some people can really believe it - or that people can really feel particularly close to those who have passed, more so in specific places and with certain sorts of things around. To me that's not "haunted" so much as "connected."
4. Kimber is flying to [the north] to finally meet Berleen. What do you think about space travel?
   meh. "The space program" bored me, and certain family members' overwhelming enthusiasm for it seemed oddly misplaced. Yet I recognize that scientific research that was done in space had significant ramifications for life on terra firma, so I shouldn't cavil in the name of practical reality...much.
5. What if had exactly one year to live. What are the three things you'd want to do before you died?
   
   1. Tell every person that I love, face to face, that I love them, complete with real hugs. (I very much enjoyed a real hug from my old friend Sleek last week - he stopped by the place of peanut-earning just before 'No Friends May Visit' takes effect, thank goodness... - and our goodbye hug was punctuated by an actual bone-crack in my back. So awesome!)
   2. Make provision for what I have, I suppose, after throwing the majority of it the fuck away.
   3. Try to make arrangements with Gilligan for that 3-hour tour. To literally sail off into nowheresville (well, except that the freakin' Harlem Globetrotters might show up) seems an attractive way to exit.
6. What if you could take one thing back. What would that one thing be? What is something you said, something you stole, something you did wrong?
   only one thing? Thinking of it strictly in terms of 'if I'd known then what I know now', I wouldn't have responded to the first message from Brian from Mad-town. If I hadn't done that - besides avoiding what happened with him, of course! - I'd also have been saved what happened with Ulysses for the [yes, seriously] four succeeding years.
7. Other than emergencies, do you think the cell phone is more intrusive than convenient?
   'the cell phone' doesn't really exist anymore, in the separate, obtuse sense. It's too ingrained into the cultural framework. If it's intrusive, it's because we've made it so. All of us. ALL of us. We've made it, allowed it, encouraged it, to be so. We've forgotten that they have an "off" button. We check them all the time. We use them as a substitute for natural human interaction. Just like we do with Facebook.
   Just like we do with blogs.
8. You are stuck on an island forever due to a plane crash. Like Lost without Harley or anybody else. But you find all the water, food and shelter you needed. What would be the three other things would you want with you?
   iPod. Hand lotion. And Kindle.
9. We've decided you can change one thing about the world. What would that one thing be?
   no more crying over men (i.e. broken hearts).
10. What if a million dollars fell off a back of a truck. Would you keep it?
    if there were absolutely no way it could be traced back to me, Hell yeah. I'm not proud. I'd farm some of it out to the friends I could trust (all 4 of you) and keep the rest in a pickle bucket in the closet. We could pay the fuck out of some bills, couldn't we?

[from The Cat, who got it here; title quotation by Frank Lloyd Wright]