look, I hate good-byes, too. But sometimes, we need them just to survive

Describe your ideal date night. 

    I truly loathe the phrase 'date night', though I've grudgingly come around to the idea of making a space for it in a busy schedule. 

    For me, though? The ideal? An early-ish dinner, fairly casual and probably ethnic (or less casual, and steak). A walk, maybe browse a bookstore. A movie, either at the theater or at home. Hot, buttery, salty popcorn. A few bites of exceptionally delicious ice cream. No phones, tablets, laptops, headphones, speakers, or notifications. Talk. Laughing. Hugs.

 

Have you ever accidentally Replied All to an email you shouldn’t have? 

    no, I have not. The financial institution was bad for this, and it made me a little paranoid about it. I reality-check any email I'm sending to be sure it's going to the right place.

    At the library, the contagious email problem was the failure to include attachments. My last boss was notorious for never attaching the meeting packet to the board of trustees. Embarrassing!

 

If your family had a reality show, what would it be called? 

    "PSP, LBL" (Polite, Shy People, Leading Boring Lives)

 

Is there a fantasy you’d like to come true? 

    true love

 

What do you consider your biggest strength as half of a couple? 

     sensitivity, generosity, words that are needed to hear.

    For that matter, my greatest weaknesses are sensitivity, giving, and saying things that are not needed to hear. 

    I believe that the strengths and weaknesses of each partner are reinforced, intensified, counterbalanced, and colored by those of the other partner (as well as innumerable outside influences). My value and detriment to a relationship were different when I was with a clinical psychologist than they were in my dalliance with a package-delivery courier or my liaison (loving these euphemisms) with a nightclub bouncer/infomercial producer. Sensitivity had different value, as did the nature of generosity, and certainly the appropriateness and type of things to be said (or left unsaid).

 

Is there a family secret you think you’re not supposed to know? 

    I only recently found out that a person to whom I was once related by marriage died by suicide. At the time, I had been told they'd had a heart attack. We'd not been terribly close during the marriage, though I was sad to hear that they'd died. I'm just confused as to the source and purpose of that deception, which now seems not only pointless but mean.

 

What was going through your mind the last time you were intimate with someone? 

    Cuckoo, cuckoo 

    Regretfully they tell us cuckoo, cuckoo 

    But firmly they compel us 

    To say, 'Goodbye', to you 

    So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, good night 

    I hate to go and leave this pretty sight 

    So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu 

    Adieu, adieu, to you...

    Figuratively speaking.

 

What would you do if you were invisible for a day? 

     trip a couple people—numerous times. Stick my finger in the dessert. Empty a wallet or two.

 

[from here, divided and adapted; the title quotation is by Rachel Caine, from Fall of Night]