I’m just going to quote from Susan of ReadingWritingLiving about this meme that I found interesting so I took her up on it (only I’ll put “Susan” where she had her interviewer’s name). Her meme and answers to it are found in her post The Interview Meme.
This is a unique kind of meme that Susan brought to my attention. Specific questions are generated by people who want to know more about you, and then you answer them on your blog and invite other people to be “interviewed.” Okay, does that sound confusing? Well, these are the questions that Susan put to me. If anyone else would like to be interviewed, see directions at the bottom of this post.
1. If you could go back and deliver a message to your twenty year old self, what would you say?
Now, this is a really interesting question. I could go on and on about what an interesting question this is, because then I could procrastinate really answering the question, but of course, what purpose would that serve? I would still, of course, have to answer that question.
Hmmm, let’s see. OK, first of all, I might have to say, “Self, stay away from buying glasses in the near future. For the love of God and all that is holy, just DON’T DO IT!!, even though it does give you fodder for a blog down the road. What’s a blog? Ohhhh, never mind. You don’t even know what the internet is. Secondly, and try to remember this one. Write this down if you have to: in 4 years time, when you meet a lanky guy at grad school who’s getting a degree in exercise physiology and has a goofy name who you think is nice but a bit off in a fun way, in his case “a bit off” really isn’t in a fun way. Don’t date the dude and whatever you do, DO NOT MARRY THE MAN!! This is really more important than the big ugly glasses because you will lose most of the rest of your self-esteem in the 4 1/2 years of marriage to him and it will cause years of difficulty for you, but just DO NOT MARRY HIM!! Listen to that little voice inside of you that wonders why he’s estranged from his family (even though they are all nutjobs), why his family are all nutjobs, and why his mother is the whackiest nutjob you’ve ever met in your entire life. And finally, try to chill, dude. You’re not going into brain surgery so no one is going to die.”
2. If you lost your sense of smell, what three scents would you miss most?
1. My son after playing for hours, whether in the dirt, in the sand, or whatever, and then the clean smell after he takes a bath. That’s two but I’m cheating 
.
2. The ocean.
3. Fresh baked bread.
3. What is the funniest thing your kid has done in the past year?
Oh my, he makes us laugh nearly every day. The other day his dad did something he didn’t like and Nate yelled at him, “I’m calling the police on you, Mister!” which cracked both of us right up. There was also the time he went into the toy box with the intention of jumping out of it and surprising me but instead he fell asleep in it. That was funny and cute.
Lately he puts a plastic bag on his arms and walks around pretending it’s a parachute. Outside he’ll use a stepstool to jump off of it; that’s him “jumping out of a plane.”
But, bar none, the absolute funniest thing he did in the past year is actually something I blogged about so I’ll just lead you to that post. And he will hate me someday for sharing that moment with the world. It has to do with a shopping excursion and him, at the time, ummm . . . liking to say the word “penis.” You have to link to the post. You just have to. It’s at The “P” Word.
4. As an (adult) only child, I am always curious about why people make that choice. When I was a child I was unhappy that I didn’t have siblings, but now that I am an adult it actually feels a lot less complicated and I am fine with it. What led you to this choice?
What we tell people is that we’re too old, too tired, too broke, and that actually sums it up pretty well . If we had started earlier, maybe we would have been able to adopt another child, but then we wouldn’t have Nate and . . . well, I can’t imagine my life without Nate. You know? It starts to become a real roundabout thing too — I wouldn’t even want to go back in time and wish my infertility away because then we wouldn’t have Nate. But how incredibly selfish is THAT because my being Nate’s mom comes at someone else’s pain. Ugh. There I’ll become one of Those adoptive moms who we talk smack about.
Also, our circumstances changed after we adopted Nate. Health-wise — my husband went into the hospital and ended up with a quadruple bypass 5 months after we adopted Nate. Yes, we had both passed complete physicals and heart issues were missed, yikes! Maybe we could have adopted again — his prognosis was/is wonderful — but the recovery time did take awhile and it took some time for us to regain our footing as a family. Actually, to gain our footing as a family, period, because we had only just started the process and then WHAM! we were hit with that. At times, I thought I was going to completely lose it due to all of the stress; thankfully I did have some good support of family and friends.
But really — timing — our ages — and money really being the biggest things. And energy, HA!! Nate has enough energy for 3 kids at least, so there you go!! Frank and I are satisfied with one child, but a bit sad for Nate because I know he would like to be a big brother and he’s a very extroverted, people-oriented kid and would make an awesome big brother. But it’s just not to be.
5. What’s the best book you read last year, and why?
Just one? Ohhhh, I’m going to kind of cheat again and split this into nonfiction and fiction because I’m a brat like that. Heh.
Nonfiction: The Girls Who Went Away. I learned a lot from this book. It was at times hard to put down and at other times I had to get away from it because it was so heart-wrenching that I couldn’t stand reading the stories anymore and I needed a break from them. It’s a part of U.S. history that too many people don’t know. These women deserve a place in U.S. women’s history, should be a cause for feminists. Their stories are profound and poignant and sad and tore at my very soul. It was well-written and well-researched and also a very good read. Just an astounding book all-around.
Fiction: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. This was an absolutely mesmerizing book about 19th century China, it’s customs, women’s friendship, marriage. It was just beautifully written, very lyrical in its writing, I thought, and went into a culture that I really don’t know about. The information about the culture that was woven through the story was fascinating — footbinding, the inferior status of women, arranged marriages — just beautifully written about and tied into this story of love, friendship, hurt, reconcilation. It wasn’t an easy read, but I just loved it. Beautiful.
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Do you want to be interviewed? If so…
1. Leave me a comment saying, “I too am an egomaniac.”
2. I respond by asking you five questions. You will answer them, because you like talking about yourself.
3. You will update your blog.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
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By the way, I will get to the questions for you as time permits. Just keep checking back for them.
