• What books on your shelf are begging to be read?
Leif Enger's Virgil Wander. Pale Colors in a Tall Field by Carl Phillips. Stephen King's On Writing. There is no end to the list.
• How often do you doodle? What do your doodles usually look like?
I doodle when I talk on the phone (which is pretty rare) or on Zoom calls. It's typically little 3D boxes or simple daisies that turn into unwieldy messes.
• When you're alone at home, do you wear shoes, socks, slippers, or go barefoot?
socks in spring, summer and fall, and both socks and slippers in winter. All this because the floors in most of my living space are hardwood, which I've come to realize that I do not like. They are slippery and cold and incredibly difficult to keep clean. Blergh
• What's something valuable that you accidentally dropped and broke?
many years ago, possibly the first year I was married or maybe even the year before that, I bought a handmade mug at Ann Arbor's Art Fair. It was deep navy blue, a little oversized but not too heavy, and fit my hand perfectly. It had a flattened handle - it looked more like a thin strip of clay rather than a cylindrical shape, and had a flat spot on the top that sort of cradled my thumb. The mug itself looked like a flat piece of clay had been rolled once, so it had a sort of seam that was raised. I liked to hold it with my hand through the handle but grasping the mug itself in my hand. I don't know if I'm explaining it well? It fit my hand perfectly and held just the right amount of tea for my preference. I loved that mug.
And then, one day, it was on the counter, and I plunked down a cardboard box to open it, and nudged it off the side with the box. It fell to the floor and shattered. Not in a piece or two, glue-back-together-able, but completely demolished.
I cried, as I cleaned it up. Careless, dumb, and filled with regret.
• When you leave a room, do you turn the lights off behind you or keep the lights on throughout your house most of the time?
I often walk around in complete dark. Always turn off lights after I leave the room - with the exception of the kitchen, which has a small over-counter fixture that I will leave on now and then. Otherwise, I'm in an island of light in a sea of dark. I think it's headaches that made me this way; too much light can be a demon.
• Which is the greater tragedy: an innocent person imprisoned or a guilty person set free?
an innocent person imprisoned, for sure. That's why presumed innocent until proven guilty is a foundation of law in this country.
• Are people trustworthy?
no
• If you could redecorate your home at no cost, what would you wish to do?
1. expand what is now the closet in the office into a laundry room
2. expand the office into what is now the laundry room, creating a closet on the far wall which adjoins with the dining room
3. fill in what is now the doorway into the office, and make a new doorway 90º away (on the wall where the laundry room door is now)
4. replace every interior door, and both the front door and the door to the garage
5. add an exterior ("small") door to the garage
That would do, to begin with anyway.
• If you had the opportunity to start your own business, what would you start?
I would make my eBay business into a real, going concern, refocusing my stock in one direction (likely hard to find books) and ease off all the random categories, which sell reasonably well but are more of a challenge to list. I would be thrilled if that was my job.
• Are you more inclined to "build your own empire" or "unleash the potential of others"?
build my own empire, for sure. I might've been "management material" at an earlier point in my career, but now I recognize and embrace the fact that I'm best doing my own thing really well, rather than trying to help others succeed.
[from The Complete Book of Questions; the title quotation is by Zhuangzi, from The Complete works of Chuang Tzu]
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