So having said that, what else? Nothing I really want to talk about... so I did another search for "Survey Meme" and found the following Random Survey/Quizlet at bzoink (beware of pop-ups), created by will2dye4:
Meme! Yay!
...ate something? I just had a Krispy Kreme doughnut. It made my tooth hurt.
...called someone? I seldom ever dial a phone, it's a weird phobia I have. So let's see, what number did I last dial? According to my cell-phone, the last time I called out was to phone my sister on the 13th, to see if she was coming to Yountville with us as planned (she was not).
...sent someone an email? Yesterday I sent an email to Cookie Dough, and another one to my Daddy. I don't send a lot of emails, either. Considering how much I like writing, you'd think I'd be more communicative.
...regretted doing something? That doughnut was fairly regrettable. But for a real live "I really wish I hadn't done that," irredeemable-and-avoidable-stupid-action regret? I can't honestly think of one.
...felt truly happy? Yesterday, when Grandmother told me how much she appreciates everything I do for her. And I felt truly happy earlier in the day when I pondered the satisfaction of getting so much work done on my novel. I am truly happy fairly frequently, even when I'm depressed... though I tend to not remember those moments when I'm depressed.
...cried? Let's see... the day I found out my boss had been reading my blog where I'd said regrettably nasty things about him and had a bit of an emotional breakdown (here's a link to the story of that event); and though I regret saying the hurtful things, I don't regret what came of it, so I didn't count that as a regret above.
...laughed out loud? Something else I do frequently... but a real good belly-laugh? Probably while watching television, some commercials really tickle me.
...gave someone a present? On Monday, I gave my former boss a CD I'd burned for him of Ella Fitzgerald songs I thought he'd like. Now that I'm broke, burned CDs are my favorite gift to give!
...laughed at someone else's expense? I tend to not find that sort of thing funny, and if I do, I'm too much a gentleman to let it out. No, I take that back: when my niece does something stupid, and then discovers it was a stupid thing to do, I feel it my avuncular duty to laugh at her so she remembers the lesson she learned. And then she reacts amusingly, too, so everybody wins.
...went to church? On Sunday. I go most Sundays. But I'm having a hard time coming up with a more descriptive phrase than "going to church." It gives people the impression that I go there to worship, while in fact I only go there to escort the Grandmother. But while I do frequently enjoy the sermons, and do spend a good deal of my time there praying and meditating, I am not a Christian and feel dishonest allowing people to believe that I am a Christian.
...were really scared of something? Last time I looked at my bills-pile. My car registration is coming due, and it's horribly expensive because I forgot to pay some parking tickets; and I still owe my dentist a last payment for that root-canal, and we're halfway through the month so I'm going to have all my regular bills (car, insurance, health-care, cable, eeek) due in another two weeks, and one of my credit cards is over limit, and I have less than three hundred dollars to my name, and even if I sell everything I have to pay next month's bills, there will be a month after that, and what if I can't find a job, and eeeeeeeeek! Scary shit, Vern.
...contemplated suicide? Same as above. I'm having my depression again, and I find that when I'm depressed, suicide always presents itself first as a solution to all of my fears and worries. But while I always think of suicide, and sometimes even contemplate various methods, I never want it. It's a permanent solution to temporary problems, and would be wildly inconsiderate to those who love me and even more inconsiderate to those who depend on me. I hope that by talking about it, always letting people know when I start thinking that way, I will be able to keep it in perspective as a symptom of an illness rather than coming to believe that it is a true desire. A lot of depressives and manic-depressives have committed suicide over the years because of an inability to tell the difference between a chemical urge and a true need, and I don't want to be one of them.
What if...
...you were the last person on earth? I would be very lonely. I would probably give in to my suicidal contemplations rather than spend the rest of my life completely alone... though I would definitely go through all the stuff everyone left behind, first. I suffer from insatiable curiosity about people's stuff, and have to force myself to not go through dressers and medicine cabinets when I'm in someone else's house.
...everyone found out your deepest, darkest secret? I hope they'd tell me what it was. I don't think I have a deep dark secret.
...AIM didn't exist? Who? What? Oh, instant-messaging. I don't like instant messaging. It moves too fast, and all those abbreviations drive me mad. I'd rather talk on the phone, it's easier... and you know how much I dislike talking on the phone.
...microwaves didn't exist? We used to wonder what was so special about microwaves, and now we wonder how we lived without them. But I remember how we lived without them: we had to reheat our coffee and leftovers on the stovetop, and TV dinners took forty-five minutes to an hour. We don't really use our microwave for anything else, so it's not really a big deal.
...we drank all the world's freshwater? We'd all have to pee, really really bad. And a lot of species of fish would go extinct in the space of one afternoon. Then we'd have to find a way to filter the salt out of salt-water, or the urea out of our pee. Or just wait for it to rain or snow or something. Fresh water isn't really all that hard to come by, it's just that people have the bad habit of overpopulating places with a limited local supply.
Do you consider yourself to be...
...religious? No. I distrust religion on principle, the way I distrust fad diets... lazy-minded people get hold of a good thing and corrupt it into evil.
...smart? I'm brilliant. In fact, I am a low-end genius, with an IQ of 143. But I still do stupid shit all the time.
...funny? I do think so, and people tell me so all the time. But I find if I try to be funny, I'm not.
...handsome/pretty? No, I don't believe I'm either handsome or pretty. I'm okay, reasobably attractive and maybe even cute from certain angles, but I do not rely on my looks for anything.
...computer-literate? Not as much as I'd like to be. I'm pretty good at figuring things out, but once you get into the terminology and the really involved shit, I just shrug helplessly.
...a Democrat? No. I don't even think of myself as a "liberal" anymore. I think the Democratic Party and the word "liberal" have lost their meaning. I'm more of a progressive socialist (with a lower-case S, it's not the same thing as a Socialist, which has unfortunate Soviet connotations).
...a Republican? I used to be registered Republican, back in the Reagan/Bush-Senior era. They had a glamor and a gravity that I admired, and their conservatism was allied with the preservation of personal wealth and a healthy economy, which I believe is a good thing; but when I got a little older, I saw that it was all just window-dressing for corporate piracy. Now the Republican Party throws hokey pseudo-hillbillies into the public eye, and its conservatism is allied to the preservation of traditional values and morality, with which I do not agree in the slightest. And it's still just window-dressing, fairly transparent window-dressing at that, for the greed of amoral corporate raiders. Abraham Lincoln is probably spinning in his grave.
...poltically moderate? Political moderation is more dangerous, in today's climate, than radical liberalism or neo-conservatism. There is no room for moderation, anymore. I believe in moderation in all things, but the political climate of the US has been forced into this divided-camp paradigm in which moderation has devolved into center-seeking and vote-pandering. Moderation will not be achieved by center-seeking, it must be achieved by consensus-building, and consensus will not happen until the pendulum swings so far out of the center that moderate people become fully disillusioned with the rhetoric of whatever side they're on.
...moody? That depends on how you define "moody." Moodiness is usually defined as being in a bad or gloomy mood all the time; but if by "moody" you mean that I have all sorts of moods and run the gamut of moods without warning, then yes I am. My moods change ten times a day.
...generous? Again, not as much as I'd like to be. I have the urge to be gracious, giving, and generous, but then I am struck by the fear that if I give too freely of my time, energy, and goods, I'll be left with nothing. So I try to be generous, which isn't as good as being naturally generous, but is better than being completely selfish.
...rude? Never intentionally, I hate rudeness. Still, I will sometimes do something rude without thinking... 'not thinking' is what makes rudeness possible in the first place.
...irresponsible? A little. Once I take on a responsibility, I am quite responsible; but I will do almost anything to avoid taking on responsibilities.
If money were no object...
...what kind of car would you drive? A Jaguar, I think a nice new S-Type in Topaz with the Champagne Contrast Piping interior. But if money were really no object, I wouldn't do much driving, myself: I'd have a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, preferably in chocolate-and-gold two-tone. And one seriously hot chauffeur.
...what are the first five things you'd buy? A penthouse apartment (with furniture of course, but those are multiple rather than single things), the biggest diamond I could lay hands on, a silver fox coat, a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud in chocolate-and-gold two-tone, and a pug puppy.
...would you invest in the stock market? No, I would have people who do that for me.
...would you donate money to charities? Again, my people would see to that. But I would be more likely to set up a scholarship foundation, as well as attend fundraising galas, than donate money directly to charities.
...where would you go on vacation? All the way around the world, starting from San Francisco Bay and heading west, with stops at every port that looked interesting, on every continent including Antarctica, in my own fabulous yacht. One of these yachts, I think, something in the two-hundred-foot range.
Could you live without...
...TV? Probably, so long as Tom Welling agreed to come over to my house so I could revel in his beauty at least once a week.
...the computer? I could, theoretically, but I'd really rather not. How could I participate in all these mindnumbingly useless blog memes without my computer? And what about my porn? And I never would have become a writer without a computer, I didn't ever think to write until I was given access to one.
...a microwave? Easily. In fact, our microwave broke down a couple of years ago, and I really didn't miss it. We got it repaired, of course, Grandmother uses it for all sorts of things like baking potatoes and warming leftovers, but I really only use it to reheat coffee.
...wine? I haven't had a sip of wine in over ten years, so apparently I can live without it, quite easily. I miss it sometimes, though, all the glassware and terminology and snobbery.
...love? Depends on what you mean by "love"... your general agape or familial or fraternal love, I don't suppose I could live without it. But romantic/erotic love? I've lived without for quite some time. I don't recommend it, though, it's kind of painful. But not as painful as rejection, so here I sit.
?
Now it's your turn. And if you aren't going to do the meme (or even if you are), go read the latest at Worst Luck, and leave a nice comment so that I won't be tempted to tweak with it any more. In the meantime, I'm going to go watch television for a while and think about the next section, in which Varajian & Spevik come to an understanding and Danny is arraigned for Murder 2. Have a lovely day!
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