now ask yourself, are you really prepared? Uh!

1. If you promised to never lie again in your lifetime, in what area would it be the hardest to uphold the promise? 

    white lies. 

 

2. If you had to name your worst character trait, what would you say it is? 

    blindness to other peoples' needs and intentions 

 

3. If after you die your spirit could protect anyone in the world, who would you pick? 

    one of my niece's children, who needs all the help they can get 

 

4. If you were to act out all of the seven deadly sins, what specific things would you do for each of them?

    that phrasing made me snort, as if it's performance art.

    • Vanity/Pride: plastic surgery, the details of which are either patently obvious or better kept as a secret

    • Sloth: finally pull the trigger on buying the couch I've had my eye on for a couple of years but is out of my price range by $2000+, pre-tariff cost. And then plant myself on said couch for the indeterminate future

    • Gluttony: I've been fantasizing about a hot fudge-mocha milkshake, typically about 1/3 of the way into a long walk in the sun

    • Lust: [redacted]

    • Avarice: why, I would sell my soul to the devil and practice law in the traditional sense, of course

    • Envy/Jealousy: pretty sure that three years with Nick satisfied any acting out in this category that could possibly be accomplished

    • Wrath/Anger: physically shove oblivious/arrogant students out of my way while walking on campus, when they take up the entire path—sometimes by LYING on the SIDEWALK. (How do these people survive in the wild? Do they drive down the middle of the road? Why are they lying on a sidewalk, for crissakes? Has no one ever told them to mind their manners? How have they never been shoved before??)

 

5. If you were to recall one situation in your experience where you would rather not have known the truth, when would it be? 

    there are many examples of my unwillingness or inability to handle the truth in romantic situations. Who likes being upset? Who seeks out harsh, sometimes unexpected realities?

    A harder example, though, was finding out that my job was being eliminated with no warning and no kindness. It felt like driving along at normal speed, only to have a wall thrown down before me. I had no choice but to hit it, head on, and it crushed me.

    I mean, the job sucked, and I had already been trying to find something else. But the way that all happened, it was a major blow, and took a long time to recover. 

 

6. If you wanted to prove your trustworthiness to someone you know, how would you do it? 

    by being trustworthy. I'm not sure there is any other way to do it, except behaving in a way that does not inspire distrust.

 

7. If a psychic offered to tell you anything you wanted to know about your life, what is the thing you would least like to know about? 

     there are plenty of subjects that would not interest me overmuch, and that I certainly would not pay to ask. What would distress me, though, or make me angry? I suppose I would least like to know about my relationships with other people. Having some knowledge of how destiny makes it all turn out would likely change how I would go on, literally creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.  

    The inverse of that is being told which lotto numbers to buy. I'm sure that wouldn't change me at all. 

 

[from If: Questions for the Soul; the title quotation is from "Don't Ask Her That" by Shaggy {feat. Nicole Scherzinger}, from Clothes Drop]