a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot

1 If you could accomplish only one thing in the rest of your life, what would it be? 

    to be content 

 

2 If you could completely eliminate one of your pet peeves, what would you get rid of? 

    I'm torn between two big ones: 

        - calling or texting just to chat, when I'm known to be working 

        - lawnmowers, chain saws, etc., before 9:AM 

 

3 If you could win any competition in the world, what would it be for? 

    the joy is in the playing. 

 

4 If you had to repeat one alcohol or drug experience you've had, which one would you relive?  

    this night at the biker bar with my friend and her friend, about which I've written a few times

 

5 If you had to name the best purchase you've ever made, which one would you choose? 

    at the moment, it's a tie between my 3 pairs of gorgeous slides (blue suede pictured here, burgundy velvet pictured here and here, and the black velvet that are just like the burgundy) ... and Bob Marley, the cactus

 

6 If you could change one thing about your home, what would you make different? 

    it would be located a little further out of town, in a valley with at least two exits, and surrounded by an acre of prairie flowers on each side, surrounded by a 20-foot brick wall with razor-wire and ground glass embedded in the top

 

7 If you could teach a person any single thing, who and what would you choose? 

    someone I know well is a really good cook - but cooks with way too much salt. Holding back a little (or a lot) on the salt can sometimes (often) make things taste more like themselves, you know? And too much salt can start to taste like a chemical rather than a flavor-enhancer. I still like their food, and still eat it as often as I can, but with the knowledge that I'll need an extra bottle of water to recover from a dry mouth and slightly queasy tummy later.

 

[from If...Questions for the Game of Life; the title quotation is by Alan Bennett, from "Baffled at a Bookcase" (London Review of Books, Vol. 33 No. 15, 28 July 2011)]