1. When were you happiest?
There are two types of happiness: A as in Accomplishment – attaining something through your own effort and skill – like when I passed my finals with top marks, when my very first term paper got graded a 1.0, or when I was asked to read my stories aloud and the audience didn't run away. In one word: Flow. B as in Balance. As in equanimity, serenity, tranquility. Not a low, not a high either. A quiet warm evening in a court yard watching the ants. That rare moment in which there is no thought because it's all been said and done. In one word: Peace. Easy to please.
2. What is your greatest fear?
Being uncontroversial. Seriously. I always think there must be something wrong with agreeable people – like their eyesight, or something.
3. What is your earliest memory?
I'm sitting in the kitchen in the afternoon, painting with finger colours. My mum prepares some tea. We both draw a house; mine is very expressionist, hers is green.
4. Which living person do you most admire, and why?
I honestly don't know. There are a lot of things I admire in people; a sense of purpose, or a good manners, or a gift for writing incredibly terrific, almost terrifyingly good prose, or … but they're still people. I was going to say Virginia Woolf, but she isn't quite so alive, is she, which is also the issue I am having with Sylvia Plath, Sarah Kane, Geoffrey Chaucer, Marie Curie, Stanislaw Lem, or Charles Darwin. It's hard to put the living onto a pedestal: They just keep twitching until they fall off.
5. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Cowardice.
6. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Cowardice? ... Or stupidity, they're often indistinguishable.
7. What was your most embarrassing moment?
If I had kept counting I'd be better at maths. Speaking of maths... but I am not so easily embarrassed, usually. I'm all for being embarrassing – I prefer a foot in my mouth to a head up my arse.
(By the way, there is a huge difference between feeling embarrassed and feeling ashamed. Embarrassment is what you feel after exposing your dick, shame is what you ought to feel after exposing you are a dick.)
8. Aside from a property, what’s the most expensive thing you’ve bought?
Wow, give us a sec, I am a property owner? Oh please, let it be a house at the Alabama coast south of Mobile. No, seriously, the most expensive thing must have been, all things considered, my university degree. (Yep, you can buy these over here.)
9. What is your most treasured possession?
At the moment, my Mac. Or rather, the stuff on the hard drive. Yay for computers, all the way.
10. What makes you depressed?
Loneliness, arbitrariness of judgement and futility of effort. In short: Life in Germany.
11. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
My beard.
12. What is your most unappealing habit?
Being cynical and scathing towards perfectly sweet people just trying to be nice? No, I guess it's biting my fingers.
13. What would be your fancy dress costume of choice?
Black tie and chapeau claque.
14. What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Why should I feel guilty if it's pleasurable?
15. What do you owe your parents?
Some money I took from my mum's purse when I had lost my bus pass. Two years in a row. Mum, your daughter's a thief, but I bet you knew that already.
16. To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?
To anyone I offended unintentionally, but that would take ages and I hate compiling lists. So if you're offended, consider it to have happened on purpose and keep sulking. It'll give your life some sense of direction, at least.
17. What does love feel like?
Like a word with four letters and too much media exposure. Also, like a home-cooked meal and a glass of egg-nog.
18. What or who is the love of your life?
Alabama, clearly.
19. What is your favourite smell?
The first whiff of salt before you get to the sea.
20. Have you ever said ‘I love you’ and not meant it?
No. Why?
21. Which living person do you most despise, and why?
I may be reluctant to love, but I also seem to be entirely incapable of hate, no matter how much I try. At the moment, though, I do indeed harbour a good deal of antipathy towards my professor – technical equipment and woolly questions, my arse!
22. What is the worst job you’ve done?
University.
23. What has been your biggest disappointment?
University.
24. If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Not a thing, despite (or because of) everything. There you go.
25. If you could go back in time, where would you go?
To 28 CE and make sure Brian got the job as the big honcho. The world would be a better place if religion were taken a little less seriously.
26. How do you relax?
Usually quite well, thank you.
27. How often do you have sex?
About six times a week. How often do you lie?
28. What is the closest you’ve come to death?
0.2 millimetres of steel vs. being a chickenshit.
29. What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
More sunshine.
30. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I shouldn't have to answer this question as I am a) too young, b) too tired, and have c) just slain a spider that was abseiling on my head. I'll give it another try sometime down the road.
31. What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Being the cute little bunny will only get so far. But far enough sometimes.
32. Tell us a secret.
I am a cute little bunny. Now piss off.
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