the happiness boost came before the trips, stretching out for as much as two months beforehand as the holiday goers imagined their excursions

1. What do you feel more often: gratitude or envy? What are you most grateful for?  

    pretty sure I more often feel gratitude. Envy is a young person's issue, based in competition and
skewed self-perception; I'm just not that materially-focused anymore. 

    I am most grateful for my family. Figuring out what's important and gravitating toward it is a lifelong process. Priorities change, possibilities become more or less prevalent or likely, and life is full of disappointments and good surprises, both. The constant there—for me—has been the reliable presence of my family.

2. If you were locked in a time machine set for a single one-way trip to the past or future and had 10 minutes to dial in the time and place, when and where would you go? 

    I wouldn't do it. No one-way trips to the past for me. Life is complicated enough just going one time through. 

What if it were to be a round trip that would include any family and friends you wanted to bring along and safely return everyone in a week? 

    early 2017, to fall in love all over again, more slowly and mindfully, definitely better and a little wiser 

3. Would you like your partner to be much smarter and much more attractive than you? 

    smarter, for sure. I can learn from, be intrigued by, and bounce off a smart person more readily than someone who's wowed by me.  

    Anyway, what does "more attractive" mean, really?? 

If so, what is it about you that might hold his or her interest and love? 

    none of this is quantifiable. What in the world are people doing, making their dates take IQ tests before they meet up? Are they going on one of those "rate me" websites, to test their own attractiveness in order to compare it to their maybe-dates? Do I really have nothing to offer someone who is "objectively" more attractive than I am? Does someone with a less intelligence or education or experience have nothing to offer me? Are romantic relationships really all about measuring up, being equal, or "deserving" something? 

4. If you could kill people simply by imagining their deaths and saying the word "good-bye," would you use the power? Assume they'd die a natural death and no one would suspect you. 

    I would use it one time. I'd be suspected anyway, though, no matter what—and I'd still use it. 

5. Would you rather be very successful professionally with only a tolerable private life, or have a great private life but an uninspiring professional one? If you feel your private life is more important to you, do your priorities reflect this? If not, why not? 

    in case it's not already apparent, I'd rather have a great private life than "be very successful professionally." If I wanted the latter, I'd have worked toward a different career, and really pushed to excel. Instead, I've found something that is reasonably remunerative, intellectually interesting, and fairly low-stress. I'm good at it, I've made some friends who make the work days seem less like work, and I've gotten into a groove where the work is plentiful enough to keep busy without a constant need to seek more.

    I work to live, and don't live to work.

6. What was your best experience with drugs or alcohol? 

    I went out with a friend from a former job. We went after a couple of hours at the tattoo parlor and were only going to have a couple, maybe stay at the bar for an hour, because we hadn't had much to eat yet that day. Famous last words! We had several, including a few rounds sent by admirers. We could barely fit them on our little table for two. Conveniently, a window seat (a small front alcove with a bench built in, faced with a larger table with 2 or 3 stools at the other side) opened up, which we snatched. Then we were joined by a friend of my friend, a man I knew by sight but who'd apparently forgotten our previous meetings. 

    We three drank and talked and drank some more, staying at the bar until closing time. It was one of those rare nights when everything seems to come together. We were comfortable, congenial, extremely drunk, and having a marvelous time. None of us ran out of money, time, or—apparently—bladder capacity.

    When the bar closed, we said goodbye to our boozy comrades and walked together to the nearby after-hours food place. We ordered a heap of unlikely, unhealthy, and somehow ferociously delicious food. I recall playing "bongos" on various surfaces. All in all, it was an incredibly fun night. (Previously detailed here.)  

...your worst? 

    Clint (a.k.a. Rowdy) and I drank too much, then engaged in a then-illicit activity (one of a handful of times that I ever, and for sure the last!). VERY shortly after that ended, I started to kind of lose

consciousness. I had the sensation of waking up, over and over—and with some awareness that I'd just done it and was about to do it again—for about half the night. He sat with me, fed me saltine crackers, talked to me and soothed my absolutely freaked-out soul. It was an extremely awful experience that resulted in a lost day or so and some lingering short-term memory loss. Pretty sure I'm over all the physical effects, thank God. I was deeply afraid I'd fucked up my brain in some unfixable way. (This all was vaguely alluded to here and here)

7. Would you rather vacation somewhere new with a friend who knew the ins and outs of the place or with one who, like you, was seeing it for the first time? 

    it would be much more fun to be seeing it for the first time, together. That's the joy of exploring!   

8. While arguing with you on the phone, a close friend gets angry and hangs up. If he or she does not call back, would you call them? If so, how long would you wait? 

    I'm a hang-er, and have not often been a hang-ee. The last few times it's happened, I've been glad that the other person has confronted it. 

    The concept of "hanging up" the phone is almost entirely lost on younger people. Will that phrase be replaced, or is there no good term yet for "press the red button"? Hanging up on someone has a connotation of added abruptness that "beep" just doesn't convey. 

9. If you could end cigarette smoking by releasing a pathogen that would kill every tobacco plant in the world, would you? What—if anything—about doing this would trouble you? 

    no, it's not the plant but the people, who will find a new substance to use. 

    See, e.g. the Common Carp, and other invasive species. Introduced to new environments for various reasons (like the demand for fresh fish to eat), these species "take over" and cause environmental harm. A substitute for tobacco could be infinitely worse for the environment—and for people—than the substance being eliminated. That's not a net gain.

10. What would you do if you found out that your closest friend was a heroin dealer? 

    laugh myself silly. My friends tend to be needle-averse, besides having an abhorrence for recreational drugs. It is literally unimaginable. 

 

[from The Book of Questions; the title quotation is by Laura Vanderkam, from What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend: A Short Guide to Making the Most of Your Days Off]