Friday, May 20, 2005
why the French make such great journalists
Tonight I want to play a game. A delightful game I heard about from Anne, who has kindly agreed to play it with me.
And I want you all to play too. Because being alone in the schoolyard is no fun! And lots of pouting will ensue if I have no playmates. In addition, some 45-60 of you people visit my site EVERY SINGLE DAY and just about NEVER comment!! So now that I've given you something unboring to do, you have no excuse.
Here are the rules:
The Official Interview Game Rules:
1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying "interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions - each person's will be different.
3. You will update your journal / blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
My five questions and their answers are as follows:
1) Apart from French and English, which language do you speak or wish you spoke? Why?
I wish I spoke Mandarin, because learning to speak Mandarin (or just about any Asian dialect) is like learning to play an instrument, and learning to draw, AND learning a language all at once. Tones are marvellous, complicated things. Chinese characters are most perplexingly beautiful, and writing them is so wonderfully soothing. Plus, more than a billion people in the world speak Mandarin or have some exposure to it, and since that's at least a sixth of the population of the world, it's worth learning how to communicate with them.
2) The day hell freezes over, what would you like to be doing?
Weeelll...this presumes I'm going to hell, right? It also presumes that there is a hell. So I'm just going to assume that you're talking about the end of the world as we know it. When that day comes, I want to be with some enticing person that I actually love, either having great sex or watching the buildings burn to the ground, preferably both. Listen to that Dave Matthews Band song "When The World Ends" and you will understand what I mean. When the end comes, I'll simply want to know that I will not die alone. The end of the world is just too big a moment not to share with someone else.
3) What's your poison of choice? How does it make you feel (describe the whole process)?
I take it you mean alcohol and not say, arsenic? My favourites are gin and tequila, but I would never drink gin straight and tequila is usually more about the buzz and the fun of licking salt off my skin than the taste anyway. So I'll give you a real cocktail I like, the Manhattan.
I am a big fan of this drink, because it makes me feel grown-up, a little edgy, classy, and quite serious about my liquor. I always ask for several cherries, because cherries are very important. I make sure I'm in a nice place, where the lighting is classy and not garish, and the bartender is clean-cut and usually male. Usually a gay man is my best prospect for a good Manhattan, but a girl wearing leather or at least one who doesn't call me "hon" will often suffice. The first sip is always a shock, because bourbon practically straight is pretty well intended for you to sit up and take notice (for the record, a Manhattan ought to be made from good bourbon [blended whiskey if I don't feel like arguing], sweet vermouth, and bitters, Angostura or otherwise).
After the first few sips, it's all pretty good. I sip it slowly enough so it lasts but hasn't gone warm (read: room temperaturey) by the time I'm finished. In the middle of the drink, I pretty much stop caring about the guys who are clumsily hitting on me and start coming up with witty rejoinders to their ludicrous pick-up lines. People-watching starts to become very interesting. If things are going well, about three-quarters of the way through I start to feel as though if someone eligible and interesting were to walk through the door and approach me, I would pretty much jump them without introductions. When I'm finished the drink, I am almost always in a forgiving kind of mood. Assholes do not bug me anymore. I am too sophisticated for them. I rarely need another drink after that.
4) Tell me a story. Use "Japanese car importers, hardwood flooring, and chewing the fat" in it.
There was once an odd girl who worked in a bookstore. One day she was at her desk at work, phoning customers to inform them that their orders had come in, when a strange-looking man walked through the front doors, looking very agitated and shaking his head repeatedly. He was slightly disheveled, brown-haired, and would have been almost attractive if it weren't for the enraged look of violence on his reddening face. It was raining outside and his black shoes made muddy puddles on the hardwood flooring. Before the girl could ask him if he needed help, he exclaimed in a loud and obtrusive voice: "Your fucking birds just screwed me over!"
The girl was astonished, for this was a children's bookstore and no one ever used the fuck-word on the premises, at least when they knew that other people were listening.
"Your fucking birds," he continuing, "scared the hell out of me and I ran my car into the fucking parking meter. What the fuck do you think you're doing with a bloody pet bird outside a bookstore? When the Japanese car importers I've borrowed this new convertible from find out that I've smashed the front panel to shit they will fucking lose it! Do you understand?? Capiche??!"
The girl fought back her laughter, successfully. "Uh...sir," she she said quietly, "that's not a bird. That's a noisemaker designed to reduce our pigeon problem. It's supposed to sound like a hawk. It's supposed to scare off the pigeons"
She stared back at his hard, cold eyes and glanced behind him quickly to look for help, but her coworker was chewing the fat with an important customer on the other side of the store, and couldn't easily be interrupted. There was no one for her to turn to for help. She was about to pick up the phone and call her boss in desperation when the man turned on his heel and walked back into the rain. Well, she thought to herself, I ought to have seen that one coming. Any man who drives a convertible in the rain has to be a bit strange in the head.
5) You've been awarded something you know you don't deserve. What do you do? (no judging)
Wait, I'm not allowed to judge, or you won't? If I am awarded something I genuinely don't deserve and I know it's not just modesty or self-deprecation speaking, I will usually accept it anyway. Take my university diploma, for instance. Ha, I'm (pretty much) joking. Seriously, I am much more likely to enjoy it while it lasts than I am to return it. Unless it's something big and easily traceable, of course. Awards are usually a matter of opinion. And if they think I'm great, then they can continue thinking I'm great until I've done something stupid enough to make them think otherwise. In most cases I will also try to adjust my behaviour so that I actually do deserve what I've been given. That seems like the best thing to do, really. Because rejecting an award is really just an insult to someone who thinks highly of you. Why not just prove them right?
That was fun, but now I haven't much time to write anything else.
Okay then, the highlights:
-Julie's last day at work is tomorrow. I got her email address so she won't be lost to me forever. We had a fun time today laughing and joking about the silliest things. She totally gets me. She too is a bit of a comic and a bit of a nerd. I like that girl a lot.
-motored through a HUGE pile of books on hold at work today - am really hoping the boss was impressed!
-I'm thinking that Karyn Dwyer is the cutest actress I have seen in ages. More exciting pics can be found here, here, and here.
And here's a really racy one. Damn, that girl!
-I have a huge rant to go on about bisexuality as a concept and in practice, but I'll leave that one for now.
Yeah, it's pretty much bedtime.
-N
