I can’t distinguish between what’s platonic and what isn’t, because it’s all too much and not enough at the same time

1. If you could have one piece of jewelry belonging to someone you know personally, what would you pick? 

    feh. If I want it, I can buy it for myself. I'm not going to snatch something of someone else's. 

    Also, my friends and family tend more toward the dangling and eye-catching, while my taste in jewelry is a single stone in a stud earring or on a chain. 

 

2. If you could ask your best friend one question you have never had the nerve to ask, what would it be? 

     "what is it about me that makes me worthy of friend-ness?" 

 

3. If you could guarantee the happiness of any single person in the world because they most deserve it, who would it be? 

    this is a dangerous question. It presumes that happiness is The Goal, and that some people don't deserve it. Anyway, happiness isn't as perfect as it seems to be. There are lumps in it.

 

4. If you could have had your mind changed on one issue or decision in your lifetime, what would it have been? 

    the value of staying in shape, when I was in my early 20s. Newly married. I was eating well-made food designed just for my taste, or being treated to dinner, often (meaning, I was a little spoiled). I was lazy, satisfied, and convinced that I'd "earned"...whatever. A treat. Ice cream at the fantastic place in town. Parmesan breadsticks with the pizza order. Crispy M&Ms. Years without intentional exercise. 

    I'm paying the price now, and it sucks that it could have been avoided.  

 

5. If you could receive more affection from someone you know from now on, who would you want it to be from? 

    I'd like to be missed, and to be told that I've been missed, by someone who's not capable of saying it. To be fair, they probably think that it wouldn't be welcome. We haven't talked in a year or so, and things had been a little weird before that, even. Still, we've known each other since we were kids, and always had a connection, and could pick up where we left off if we both gave it some effort and humility.

 

6. If you could have the vocabulary of any person you know, who would you pick? 

    Hal Hartley. The dialog of his movies is phenomenal.

 

7. If you could be caressed by the hands of any person you have known platonically, whose would they be? 

    the animal-brained lawyer, or one of my other attorneys—and, of course, that all depends on the definition of "platonically" 

 

[from If2: 500 New Questions for the game of life; the title quotation is from Jack Kerouac]