do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?

1. What will you dress up as this year for Halloween (if you celebrate it)? ninja!
   
   
2. Do you think of some people as not worthy of being your friend? yes, definitely. Not because I'm a snob or an ass, but a realist. Some people are jerks!
3. If you won $1,000 every week until you die, would you still go to school? Hell yeah - I'd go back! At least for a while.
4. Would you still get a job? yeah, probably. Something obnoxious and kind of irritating to other people. Like a 5-hour-per-week library job, maybe. Heh
5. What's the most difficult job you can think of? anything with kids
6. If you could decorate your room with any theme you wanted what would you pick? "dark gray"
7. Of the following bands which would you be most likely to check out: roxy music (70's glam); the magnetic fields (current indie rock); kraftwerk (experimental electronic rock) Roxy Music
8. You and your boy/girlfriend have been together 6 months or longer.... One day s/he wants to go to a strip club with his/her friends to hang out. It's guys/girls night out and you aren't invited. Would you be upset by this? in this enormously unlikely scenario: no. There are a dozen contributing factors to this, but I think that the main one is that I trust this person. That seems like an odd thing to admit, under the circumstances, but it's truth.
9. Can a person avoid dying if he or she does not believe in death? avoid ... dying?
10. If someone sings songs that they don't write and they don't play any instruments or mix the songs or have any creative input at all, are they a musician? yes - voice is an instrument
11. What does the world owe you? nothing. And the very idea makes me furious.
12. Do you read plays and books or just get the Cliff Notes? oh, it's all Cliff Notes for me
13. What do you want to get out of life? "Well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days."
    [Crash Davis, from Bull Durham]
14. Do you know what is really important to you? "I believe in coyotes and time as an abstract
    Explain the change, the difference between
    What you want and what you need, there's the key
    Your adventure for today, what do you do
    Between the horns of the day"
    
    [Berry, Buck, Mills, Stipe - from "I Believe"]
15. What trend has been getting on your nerves lately? snotty FB posts about shutting down from FB or putting away your phone. Do it if you like, but spare me your self-righteousness--and take a look at the word 'irony' in the dictionary, please.
16. Do you forgive yourself when you make a mistake? apparently not, judging by the reminders to do so lately. (Thanks, friends...)
17. What tiny little very small thing has made you hugely happy? someone that I love drives past me, really slowly, and smiles and waves. It is such a small thing, but it feels so good.
18. Can you read body language well? I think I do? But I could be totally wrong.
19. Do you look people in the eye when you talk? sometimes. Depends on the person, and what I'm talking about. Some subjects make it really hard. Some people make it really hard. Some circumstances... you get the picture.
20. Do you notice if they aren't looking you in the eye? Depends. I can be pretty intense, so I am typically not offended if someone is intimidated by eye contact with me. There are situations where that's not too much to ask, though, and I absolutely expect it. When it doesn't happen, then I'm disappointed or discouraged.
21. Are you alert to opportunities? maybe? I'm certainly jumpy and presumptuous enough.
22. Puppet Yoda or digital Yoda? puppet
23. Do you look like the person you want to be? what an interesting way to word that question. Hmm. No, I suppose that I don't. I'm working on it, though I could be working harder/more diligently. This is a good poke to get back on it.
24. Do you behave like the person you want to be? ha! Yes. Overall: yes, indeed. However difficult it is to believe, I live in good conscience.
25. Some children were asked 'how would you make your marriage work?' One child, Ricky, age ten, said: 'Tell your wife she looks pretty, even if she looks like a truck.' Is this good advice? beauty is in the heart
26. Do you visualize your goals and dreams? yup
27. 4x + 3 = 15 What is the value of x? x=3
28. Do you keep yourself organized? well enough
29. Does anyone really win an argument? yes. What the hell kind of question is that?
30. Have you ever had champagne? sure
31. Do you strive for perfection? no, I strive for excellence. It's a thing.
32. Name one thing you understand. the rules of evidence
33. Whatever it is, are you afraid of it? no
34. Do you dislike being told what to do? under most circumstances
35. If you had a cat, would you have it declawed? yup
36. Do you prefer lobster, clams, or crab meat? eeeeeew
37. What do you think about guys who don't wear underwear? I'm sure it's a personal thing, but it seems kind of painful
38. What do you think about girls who don't wear bras? whatever.
39. Do you ask for what you want? funny. In recognition of that insult--when Brian from Mad-town tore my soul open with a very simple comment: "you're too shy to ask for what you want"--I just FB stalked him. SNORT! Turns out he's married and has a couple of kids. Cute as heck. He looks like he's gained 50 lb. since I saw him, and maybe mellowed by a third. The mellowing, at least, is a good thing.
    This is a long way of saying that what I ask for is my own business.
40. What are you against? "I don't like playing ping pong
    I don't like the Viet Cong
    I don't like Burger King
    I don't like anything
    And I'm against...
    Well I'm against it
    I'm against it"
    
    [The Ramones, from "I'm Against It"]
41. How many notes does your diary have? there are 2500-some posts in my blog
42. Ace of Base or Enya? Ace of Base, for sure
43. What makes you feel awkward? pretty much everything that other people think is normal and natural, eventually
44. If you were going to switch to another diary website, which one would you go to? I think about Wordpress now and then, but inertia is a powerful motivator
45. Do you believe that certain books should be removed from high school libraries? yup. I'm firmly against the old, the broken, and the grungy.
46. How do you feel about gay and lesbian marriages? [poke, poke, poke] Apparently, I feel fine.
47. Can you rearrange the letters in your name to form any other words (check here if you aren't sure http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/)? either I broke the internet, or: no. Freaky, eh?
48. What is the sexiest moment in a movie? that depends on the emotional state of the viewer. In my current mood, it would be some star-crossed thing....
49. Do you have a favorite stand up comedian? I'm a sucker for Robin Williams and Phil Hartman, still.

[From the 5000-question meme; this is the second half of the fifteenth part. The title quotation is by Lao Tzu, from Tao Te Ching]