nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it

1. What room in your house best reflects your personality? 

    when you live alone, and if you're doing it right, each room will reflect at least some part of your personality. Also, being a move-r rather than a stay-er, makes this question less applicable to me. Nothing that I have, no setup that I've created, is permanent. 

    For descriptive purposes only, then: in this house, at the moment anyway, my office best reflects my personality. It is small, there's a lot of photographs on the walls (a dozen? Maybe 20?) all of water, it's messy, and there are a few too many plants. It's a multi-purpose room, being an actual working office and also the place where paper goes to die, containing most of my remaining books, and also housing my distressingly large stationery collection. It has some issues, mainly that the door used to have a mirror so it's both nail-marked and light faded (ugh), there were some rather large nail holes in the walls when I moved in, and the carpeting is stained with what looks like actual wood stain. The room needs serious, tender rehabilitation—just like my personality.

    [For what it's worth, I had planned to include a couple of photos to illustrate all this, but frankly the room is a disaster area of a mess and contains some stuff that is both private and impractically difficult to move. You'll just need to imagine it.]

2. When you travel, do you pack too much or too little? 

    yep, every time—either too much or too little, never just what I needed. Having a Kindle, though, has saved me many times: no more lugging several extra books just in case. I tend to over-pack underclothes and under-pack tops. Bottoms are usually workable. Shoes can be complicated too, especially if I'm going to have the opportunity to work out. That also exponentially increases the quantity of shirts, shorts, and socks required. It's a challenge!

3. What are your best or worst childhood memories of going to a zoo or circus? 

    this prompt makes me laugh. Most of the world doesn't live within easy distance of a zoo, and circuses are not exactly thick on the ground either. 

    When I was growing up, there was a very small zoo, more like an "animal collection", in the bigger city to the southeast. There are pictures of family visits there with my mom's favorite sister and her family, but I don't actually remember anything about it except that we called the place Monkey Island. One of my grade school classes (maybe 6th?) visited the larger zoo near the state capitol. As an adult I've been to a couple more, notably in the big city on the Flat and in Toledo, Ohio.

    The only circus experience I've ever even been near was detailed in this post from (gulp) 20 years ago.

4. On a scale of 1 to 10, how computer savvy are you?     

    7

5. When you fly, do you prefer to arrive at the airport extra early or get there just in the nick of time? 

    early but not crazy-early. I'm not an enthusiastic flier and anticipate it with some trepidation but experience it with quiet stoicism. However, I do enjoy people-watching, and there's rarely a better place to do that than airports. It was far more emotionally rewarding in the days of loose security, because one had more access to other travelers both coming and going, but it's still pretty fantastic. The highs and lows of the human experience are enhanced by time pressure, bureaucracy, crappy food at exorbitant prices, poorly designed seating, hauling ungainly luggage through ridiculously unsuitable circumstances (crowds, lines for food, tiny restroom stalls...), and so on. It's a lot to go through, and weirdly fun to watch.

6. Was there ever a time when it turned out you were right, in spite of many others who thought otherwise? 

    yep, when I initiated the divorce. That was a wholly unpopular decision that was supported, in truth, by a couple of friends only. My therapist thought I was nuts (but of course did not say that), my family was shocked and furious and hurt, and the majority of my friends were, let's call it 'disbelieving'. But I was right, and I knew it—or I couldn't have thought about it, much less done it, in the first place. And it was objectively right, too. Neither of us ever expressed any wish to undo it, which is all the proof I need.

7. Do you say "goodbye" quickly, slowly, or not at all?

    I'm a goodbye-er but it seems to be a dying art. People can't, or won't, take the time anymore. ...except that it's a meme in the place where I'm from.

 

[from The Complete Book of Questions : 1001 Conversation Starters for Any Occasion; the title quotation is by W. Somerset Maugham, from The Razor’s Edge]