now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!

1. List 5 things you have not experienced that you would like to experience before you die.
   
   1. breakfast in bed
   2. long walks on the beach
   3. kissing in the rain
   4. fidelity
   5. Canada
2. Will you try to accomplish any of these things within the next year? sure
3. What do you feel controlled by? gravity
4. If Jesus appeared to you and told you that the moon was made of green cheese would you believe him? there are a whole lot of premises there that would need to line up in order for this question to be answered honestly, directly, and non-facetiously. I don't think that that's going to happen tonight. I'm calling 'Free Space.'
   
   “The only ones who ever come here from your lands are the minstrels, and the lovers, and the mad. And you don't look like much of a minstrel, and you're—pardon me for saying so lad, but it's true—ordinary as cheese crumbs. So it's love if you ask me.” 
   [Neil Gaiman, from Stardust]
5. What is one thing you are sure of? nothing stays the same
6. At what part of the day do you feel the most alert? 10:30 PM
7. Have you ever played in a band? yes, from 4th grade on I was in concert band, and from 7th grade on I was also in marching band, and from 9th grade on I was also in halftime shows, and from 10th grade on I was also in pep band.
   It's not the cool kind of "being in a band" but it was enormously formative to my education and my personality, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
8. Have you ever stared into the ocean thinking 'early creatures crawled outta that'? um, no. Maybe if I'd lived on the oceanside?
   I have stared into the river thinking, 'this was here hundreds (or thousands) of years before me, and will be here (God willing) thousands (or hundreds) of years after I'm gone. What am I, relative to all that?'
9. If not, what do you think of when you are staring into the ocean? 'mmm, me likey salt water'
10. Do you like the mental challenge of chess or other games? not really. It's one way I know I'm not a Gold. (If you know what I mean, then you know how firmly I mean that.) I think that chess is simultaneously dull and needlessly complex, and other games of that ilk are meaningless exercises in arrogance and exclusion.
    I do like Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit, but I also understand why people sometimes won't play with me.
11. Do you ever think of where your atoms were before they were in you? ...I hadn't, before. Thanks for nothing.
12. Do you ever think about where your atoms will go after they have been in you? wow, this line of thinking seems guaranteed to keep me up tonight
13. If you didn't know that people couldn't fly do you think that you could? no. "It's a simple question of weight ratios!"
14. Are you someone that others call when they're having a problem and want to talk about it? I have been, and in some ways still am. In a sense. Yes.
15. When it comes to literature, do you see beyond the writing and into the meaning intended by the author? I think it's harder to see beyond the meaning intended by the author to catch the writing itself. To be able to step back from the story (while still reading the story, after all) and see the beauty (or directness, or harshness, or what have you) of the words themselves. To see the leaves and twigs that the trees are made of, and not just the tree and rows of trees and the forest, as a whole.
16. Is there anything you can take apart completely, and then put back together, and have no left over parts? um, sure. I generally don't take something apart unless I'm damn sure I can put it back together again.
    Ha!—except for relationships. I seem to be pretty good at disassembling those, ostensibly to look more closely at them, and then discovering that there were essential pieces missing all along. Does that count?
17. What are your feelings about the death penalty? I think that it has a place in the justice system, and ought to be retained as a possible sentence.
    I know, I know....
18. If there was a god and you could ask him/her one question what would it be? will this headache ever end?
19. Do you believe that life will be found on other planets? yes
20. What is something worth suffering for? family
21. If you could put an extra eye on your body anywhere you wanted, where would you put it? having had vertigo, to greater or lesser degrees, for half a year, I can firmly say that two eyes are entirely enough
22. Are you in touch with the earth and nature? uhm, yeah. Sure.
23. Would you rather live simply or extravagantly? I would really rather live in a simple manner, somewhat more extravagant than that with which I've become accustomed
24. Have you ever been camping? yes. It's not something that I enjoy.
25. Is your heart open when you meet someone new? that depends on the circumstances. When I meet a new colleague at work, for instance, my heart remains in protective custody. When I meet someone that I know of, through friends or something like that, I can be pretty open. If I'm meeting someone with the intention of "having my heart open," though—getting set up, for instance—then I'm almost certain to be unbearably awkward and dorky.

[this is the first quarter of the fourth part of the 5000-question meme; the title quotation is from Monty Python and the Holy Grail]