Infrequently Asked Questions, Part 4

You can check out the first, second and third (Ex-centric) installments by clicking the appropriate links.

From Kate, who was channeling James Lipton:

What sound or noise do you love?

I love all the little noises people make that you’re not supposed to notice them making. Like when someone first wakes up next to you and kind of snarls softly because they’re mad at the morning for coming, or the guy sitting next to you on the train with headphones on, muttering to himself, and you just know he’s been having the same phantom argument with his father for ten years. It’s unreal what a voyeur I am.

What sound or noise do you hate?

When people’s fork tines scrape across their teeth while they eat. Oh god, I can’t stand that. Get your lives together, guys! The Ex and I actually had serious Relationship Talks about this.

And, of course, what is your favorite curse word?

My favorite curse word is actually one that doesn’t get a lot of play these days. “Cocksucker.” I just love how round it sounds, and how you can sort of spit it out. But you can’t use it as a pejorative because it implies that there’s something wrong with oral sex and/or male homosexuality. Which, for the record, are two great things that I really, really like.

From clily22:

When you write on your friends’ Facebook walls do you make sure that your message is punctuated properly and the grammar is perfect? Do you use emoticons and <3s and LOLs and such?

How I write here is basically how I write everything except fiction: lots of “like”s and “dude”s, the occasional highbrow adjective, “who”s and “whom”s in order. But I rarely capitalize in emails, and tend to use lots of acronyms. Especially “omfg,” which I also say in real life with embarrassing frequency.

What place in the world do you want to visit the most (that you haven’t already been to)?

I’m not big on wanderlust. Between my homebody lifestyle and having been lucky enough to travel absurdly much in my teen years, I’m pretty set on travel dreams. But if I had to go somewhere, maybe Warsaw (which is the new Bucharest, which was the new Prague). Or maybe to Switzerland to get drunk and weep on Nabokov’s grave.

If you could only use five adjectives to describe yourself, what would they be?

The other day, I found a survey I took when I was 19 that asked me to describe myself in five words. My description: “Quite the inept dancer, eh?” I still stand by that. But if they all had to be adjectives, maybe: “creative, careless, loyal, prickly, and effusive.”

Norwegianette asked:

Are you team pie or team cake?

TEAM PIE! Last year, I declared an official Summer of Pie, and made about forty different kind of pie in two months. Brought ‘em to every social occasion. I gave all my friends Bingo cards so they could cross off every kind of pie they’d tried that summer. First person to bingo got — you guessed it — a pie of their choice.

Any tips for relating to people with whom you really don’t have very much in common at a place you’re interning and hoping to work some day?

Bring ‘em food. Is that shallow? People usually think I’m weird when they meet me (and they’re not wrong), so the first thing I do when I’m obligated to develop a relationship with someone is figure out how they take their coffee and what kind of treats they like. It shows that you’re thoughtful and they’ll feel obligated to talk to you. Once you get to talking, you’ll find some tiny thing you have in common and can build a relationship from that.

Do you have a really funny hair dresser disaster story to share?

Oh god. I get my hair cut like once a year, if that, but because I’ve always worn it long, it drives me crazy in the summer. Near the end of junior year of college, it was driving me so nuts that I just took scissors and hacked a few inches off the ends. It didn’t look great, but curly hair hides a multitude of sins, so I didn’t think about it ’til I got it cut a few months later. When the hairdresser looked at my hair, she immediately asked: “Did you just … switch to some new kind of medication or something? Your hair is really ragged.” I explained what had happened, and she immediately excused herself to go to the back room. Over the course of my visit, at least half a dozen different hairdressers came by to “help shampoo” or “borrow scissors.” Apparently my homemade haircut was such a mess that every stylist in Seattle had to come personally mock it.

Suppose a person enjoys reading good books, but somehow has never read any of the books you’ve read; Which three books would you recommend to them?

Ooooh. I think a book-loving person should email me to tell me what their other favorites are so I can make an informed recommendation! But off the top of my head: if you crave a laugh-out-loud, intricately farcical romp, PG Wodehouse’s Quick Service; if you want to despair of humanity but laugh quietly to yourself while you do it, Evelyn Waugh’s Handful Of Dust; if you like grim funny, dystopian stories that will change the way you think about the English language, I’d pick up Pastoralia or CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders. As you can see, I have no time for books that don’t make me laugh out loud.

Would you ever want to be on TV?

Only if I’m getting interviewed. Or get to be a taster for a challenge on Top Chef.

A serious, blog-related question by sandyb, whom I adore:

I guess my question is: have you, throughout this process, ever fallen out of love with your blog for any reason?

I haven’t. I’ve gotten frustrated with the challenge at times (“Oh my god, how many of these bally things do I have to do? Why couldn’t I just do a 24 before 24 like everyone else?!”). Other times, I’ve been disappointed in myself because I’ve felt my writing wasn’t up to par for a few weeks, or people weren’t especially fond of entries I’d been very proud of. But whenever I’m feeling down on myself for my writing, I go back and read things I wrote a few months before. Inevitably I tell myself, “Dude, you were at the top of your form back then! Why can’t you write like that now?!” And the writing I’m so wistful for now is almost always something I beat myself up over when I first wrote it, which reminds me that self-doubt passes. I mean, sure, when it passes, it’s just replaced with more self-doubt, but at least there’s some movement to the cycle!

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Hey, look, I made words happen! And now I am done doing that! Hope y’all are having gorgeous days.

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