courage and grace is a formidable mixture

from 132 Best Questions 

 

• If you had a full year off with pay, what would you spend your time doing?

   traveling, writing, and designing one hell of a kitty chalet

• If you could make one change in your life, no matter how impossible it seems, what would that change be?

   I would have a rewarding, fulfilling, good-challenging job that pays well

• What are you building?

   a home gym and a retirement fund

• Think of someone who cares deeply for you. What would they say your purpose is?

  to be happy, peaceful, loved, and loving

• What are you avoiding doing because it’s hard or scary? 

  leaving my job.

• What’s been the best part of your day so far?

  as I write this answer, it is the day after Christmas. Today I had a socially-distant visit with my college bff and her daughter, the PNut. We opened presents and talked (as much as one can through masks). It was so lovely to spend some time together after so long!

• Complete this sentence with anything other than your job title:

     I am a: ninja

• Think back to a time that you felt transformed. How did you change and why?

   I fell in love as a grown-up. It is hard to express. Henry James put it so well, though, in The Portrait of a Lady:

"'It has made me better, loving you..., it has made me wiser, and easier, and brighter. I used to want a great many things before, and to be angry that I didn’t have them. Theoretically, I was satisfied, as I once told you. I flattered myself that I had limited my wants. But I was subject to irritation; I used to have morbid, sterile, hateful fits of hunger, of desire. Now I am really satisfied, because I can’t think of anything better. It is just as when one has been trying to spell out a book in the twilight, and suddenly the lamp comes in. I had been putting out my eyes over the book of life, and finding nothing to reward me for my pains; but now that I can read it properly I see that it’s a delightful story.'"

• What are you pretending not to know?

  that my left shoulder is severely fucked up

• If you achieved all of your life goals tomorrow, what would you do next?

   enjoy what I have

• If you had no deadlines, what project or task would you focus on right now?

   writing a novel

• What do you want to be the best in the world at?

  insouciance

• What are you most grateful for?

  at the moment, chicken soup

• What advice would you give yourself 3 years ago?

   take a pill

• ...3 years from now?

   enjoy what you have

• What’s on your to do list that’s important, but not urgent?

  learn how to dance, for real

• What’s something you keep telling yourself you’ll do when you retire, or when you “have the time”?

  learn how to wear eyeliner

 

[from here; the title quotation is by Marlene Dietrich]