Q: How do you FEEL about food. Why do you eat?
A: Sometimes when I take a bite of something and it tastes really good, I
think I can truly understand the whole thanks-giving attitude. I feel like
jumping up and down and yelling "yum yum yum!," and so I often do so (rubbing
my tummy all the while). It really makes me appreciate that this food is
going to become a part of me. On the other hand, sometimes I feel as though I
can't find a thing in the world which I would possibly want to make into a
part of me ("there is enough of me already," I think), and I feel that eating
is a curse. Eating is very destructive, for the food. It is very creative,
for me. Food brings home the realization that I must destroy to create, and
that I am doing so every day.
Q: What is your biggest flaw?
A: I've been told that I ramble. I can never seem to leave a message in the
twenty or thirty seconds allowed by many peoples' answering machines; my
friend Jason was nice enough to buy an answering machine that has no time
limit, but he never listens to my messages (just calls me as soon as he hears
my voice on the machine). I think this is also related to the fact that I am
introspective and self-centered. I think that I am a swell guy for giving
people a quarter or a dollar on the street; if I had any real empathy, I would
stop leaving such annoying messages.
Q: What is your hangup with your mother?
A: She tends to make fairly quick decisions about people. The day after
meeting one of my friends for the first time, she will tell me that the person
is rude or dishonest or not worth having as a friend. Or sometimes it works
the other way; she really likes the person, and can't understand my own
relationship with that person. It was very difficult for me to break up with
my last girlfriend, because she and my mother were (are) very close. Even
months afterward, she was telling me that I had made a mistake. It was
aweful, especially because I was starting to see someone new and my mother
didn't like her as much.
Q: 3 favorite authors
A: This changes from month to month, or even more often. Right now: Ray
Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, and Orson Scott Card. Bradbury was the author who
first taught me that stories could be about me, yet pretending to be about
someone else. Vonnegut has taught me that there is always something to laugh
at, to look forward to. Card has proven to me that there are mystical and
spiritual thinkers in every culture (even Mormon).
Q: What are the hallmarks of success in life?
A: One hallmark of success in life is that you are not deemed successful by
your peers. Most Hollywood people I see or hear about don't seem very happy.
Nor are people very happy who are fixated on these mass-culture personalities.
I think it is possible to be happy (which is my measure of success, though it
is often fleeting) through withdrawing somewhat from mass culture. Your life
will never be what the commercials or actors or politicians say it should be
(if it was, they wouldn't be able to sell you anything anymore), but it can be
great if you are comfortable with it.
Q: What is your biggest mental fuck-up?
A: Pot and Acid. I sometimes like pot, though I go in cycles of liking it and
not liking it (which I think is sort of natural). And I really like acid a
lot, though it is not a trip I take lightly. But pot and acid together send
me into this weird, dark place which I don't like at all. I am pretty sure
that this is a remnant of a bad trip (I remember which), because I used to
really like the mix. Since then, though I have proven to myself too many
times that it is simply too white-knuckle of a ride for me.
Q: What is your favorite animal? Describe it.
A: As far as domestic animals are concerned, I like cats a lot. Dogs are
great and very loyal and playful, but cats are smarter and more able to take
care of themselves. I also like rats, which are very smart, but I can't let
them run around because they would chew everything up. But my favorite
animal, the one with which I identify, would be a bear. I sometimes feel like
a bear, sleepy after a 12 or 13 hour hibernation (sometimes even longer).
Q: How long do you usually know a girl before you kiss her? Jump her? Dump her?
A: It really depends upon how I meet her. If we have mutual friends, then it
is easy to scope out the scene and get to know her for a while. It may even
besome time before the interest between us is realized. Other times, the
first glimpse is filled with desire. In the first case, kisses and more have
to overcome the structure of the relationship you have already built; in the
second case, you are able to jump into a hot and heavy romance from the start.
I think I prefer the slow get-to-know-you romance, because that is how I have
gotten to know all of my best friends. My lover should be my best friend. I
have only had one one-night-stand in my life.
Q: How old were you when you first kissed? Had sex? Smoked Pot?
A: I very young when I first kissed at a kissing-party type thing. I was
sixteen when I first kissed someone and really meant it. I was seventeen when
I first had sex. I was nineteen when I first smoked pot.
Q: Do you use recreational drugs? What? When? Still?
A: Yes, but as I mentioned it before it goes in cycles. Right now I am sort
of wrapping up a caffeine cycle (which usually goes well with a pot cycle, but
then what doesn't go well with a pot cycle = acid). I am getting tired of
pot, and I don't like the way ecstacy or alcohol makes me feel the next day.
I am really jonesing to go out into the warm spring weather and have a day
trip. Soon...
Q: Have you ever been married/lived with someone? Who worked? Who cooked? Who
cleaned?
A: I lived with a bunch of guys in college and a slightly different bunch of
guys after college. We all worked, though we all also went through unemployed
spells. We all cooked, except Mike who still seems to live off of Taco Bell
and other shit like that. No one cleaned, unless the pot was absolutely
necessary for another meal. Soon I will be living with my lover and two other
friends, in a two-girl-two-guy household. None of us are neat freaks, but I
hope the kitchen doesn't become the disaster that the last one was. Messes
are meant to stay in one's own room.
Q: Do you know how to cook? Do you like to cook? What are the things you cook
best?
A: I do know how to cook, or else I would be dead of starvation. I even like
cooking, though it is more fun when it is a couple-of-times-a-week-for-many-
people thing rather than an -every-day-just-for-me thing. I have done both,
and the latter brings out my creativity. As far as what I make best is
concerned: potato dishes of all sorts, cheesy pasta, asparagus (actually, most vegtetables are pretty easy, I just like asparagus). I'm getting better at making
salads like my mother, which are the best I've ever eaten. And I'm not too bad
with cakes and muffins either. I don't do pies or casseroles.
Q: Have you ever used any of the following: gel, hairspray, mousse, eyeliner,
cologne, deoderant, conditioner, zit cream, aftershave
A: I hate putting shit in my hair, except the leave-in conditioner which I
recently got. I have used zit cream, but I find that it just makes the
problem worse later. Better just to clean your face and live with it for a
little while and it will go away. I don't use soap with any perfumes in it,
and I can't stand perfume or cologn on most people: it is way too strong of a
smell. (Some people wear just a little bit, and that can be okay.) Now, I
don't even use normal deoderant anymore; I use that crystal stuff and have
buzz-clipped my armpit hair. Sorry to be so graphic, but you asked.
Q: What was the most crazy thing you ever did as an adolescent? College
student? Working stiff?
A: Ug. I threw a party at my parents' house while they were away. I was
really drunk and a lot of stuff got stolen/broken. It was awful, and I
thought about running away to rid myself of the consequences. It was way out
of hand. But I learned a lot about how I choose my friends from that
occasion, and so I am the better for it. That was in sophomore year of high
school. During my college years, when I was living in Japan, I had several
bouts where I got as drunk as I ever hope to be in my life. I found out that
pretty much anything can be gotten away with in Japan with the excuse that you
were drunk and you are sorry. I also discovered that other drugs are so rare
there that it is very easy to walk around really stoned or really frying and
pass it off as being particularly drunk. Since public drunkeness is not an
offense there, it was actually a more comfortable place to be fucked up in
public than in the US.
Q: If you were a fruit or vegetable, what would you be? If I were, what would
I be?
A: I would be garlic. Strong flavored, like my strong feelings. There are
enough people who love garlic with a passion to offset those who can't stand
it. It may not mix well with all other dishes, but when it does, it does so
well. You would be rose hips. Sure, rose hips aren't exactly a fruit or
vegetable, but they are sort of a food item. I feel that you live your life
at a substantially faster pace than I, and it might be taxing for me to try to
keep up all the time. On the other hand, coming out of my slow pace is
definately good for me from time to time. So you are rose hips: healthy in
small doses.
Q: If you were at a party, and across the room you saw a very handsome man and
your girlfriend chatting quite animatedly, what would you do?
A: Well, I would probably be jealous. And I would probably be proud. There
are many reasons why I am going out with my lover, and it is a source of pride
for me when other people recognize how interesting and fun she is. On the
other hand, I can't escape the feeling of possiveness, the feeling that _I_
should be the one getting attention from her. I think it is somewhat
childish, and I wouldn't act on it. But I would talk to her about it later.
Feelings may be awkward and 'childish,' but it is very important to listen to
them and get them out, rather than repressing them and leading to a big
explosion of emotion which is difficult to trace back to any specific events.
Q: Do you think there is life after death? On other planets?
A: I do think there is life after death, because I've know people who died and
I am still living. But I do not really think that life continues for me after
death. I believe in a sort of re-incarnation. The various parts that have
made (carbon unit: oliver) will be re-distributed throughout the ecosystem and
go towards making new plants, animals, people, and earth. On a more abstract
level, who I am is disseminated throughout culture via the way I interact with
other people. I can 'live on' through the influence I have on people (which
can be a blessing or a curse). As far as life on other planets is concerned,
I am sure it exists. Life as we know it is an extremely complex pattern which
incorporates matter and energy of many sorts. It would be hubris to think
that equally complex patterns do not exist elsewhere, but they may have very
fundamental differences with our own. Perhaps they even co-exist with our
own...
Q: Are you psychic?
A: It depends. I think people radiate energy which most humans have lost the
ability to pick up on. Animals can sense it, and so can those who see auras.
I have a deep link to my lover, to the point where we often know what the
other person is thinking or about to say. I have a strong intuition about
some things, which I try to trust and follow; but it is easy to confuse this
with just havng strong feelings about an issue with no real idea of which way
to go on it. As far as being psychic is concerned, I think everyone is to
some extent; it is a lifelong process to learn how to understand this sense,
though.
Q: Are you psycho?
A: Just as with being psychic, I think everyone is psycho. A friend of mine
gave me a mix tape with a song called Psychosexual. That is how I feel
sometimes. Most of the time, though, I feel perfectly normal. Its the rest
of the world that is all fucked up.
Q: Do you think you have any sort of understanding of what it would be like to
go completely insane?
A: No. I have thought about it before... I would like to hope that I could
eventually cope with something like Alzheimers, but I probably wouldn't be
able to remember all the methods I came up with to cope. Taking several hits
of acid over a few days with very little sleep is the closest that I have
gotten to being insane, I think.
Q: Were you ever in the armed forces?
A: No. I would not join the armed forces and I would happily burn my draft
card. The only sort of force that I could justify joining would be a local
self-defense force. Even in that case, I would not be willing to go on UN
peacekeeping missions, though I am not always at odds with the reasons behind
UN troops being sent places.
Q: Did you ever kiss a girl who had big, hairsprayed bangs?
A: No. My first real long-term girlfriend (and my first lover) did have
bangs, and they were even permed. At least the perm kept her from wearing
shit in her hair, though. However, there were a hell of a lot of girls with
big hairsprayed hair who I did want to kiss when I was in high school. I
still blame a particularly attractive girl with big hair for my failure in
Triginometry.
Q: What was the most important scientific achievement in the last 50 years?
A: Computers, of course.
Q: What is the biggest problem all women have?
A: That they do not and probably will never understand men. I think that men
and women are different to the point that we could be classified as separate
species (except for that fact that a species is largely defined by the ability
to interbreed). Our motivations are different, as are our needs. Sometimes I
think that a situation may not be mutually beneficial for long. I often think
skeptically of marriage. However, I don't look skeptically at
Q: What is the biggest problem all men have?
A: That they do not and probably never will understand women. See above.
Q: What is the biggest problem with our society? (no more than 5 lines)
A: I think that the biggest problem in our society is that people want short
answers to complicated questions. The quick fix is everything.
Q: Do you prefer plants or animals?
A: Plants for scenery, animals (including humans) for company. If either is
lacking, I would miss it. I prefer neither over the other; both are necessary
for my health.
Q: If you won $1 million, what would be the very first thing you would buy?
The second? The last?
A: I would pay off my parents' mortgage, and hire someone to help them with
the upkeep of such a big house. Depending on how much money I had leftover, I
would try to buy a place for myself to live. "Buy land: they don't make it
anymore."
Q: How do people describe you?
A: Mostly Harmless.
Q: How do you describe yourself?
A: GSS/CS d--- -p+ c++ !l u+ e+ m++(*) s+/+ n+ h- f+ g+ w+ t++(-) r+(++) y++(*)
Q: Do you subscribe to any magazines/newspapers? Which?
A: I read Wired, the SJ Mercury News, and MacWEEK on the net. I sometimes
flip through New Media magazine. I am considering getting a subscription to
Scientific American.
Q: What are your favorite shoes?
A: My sandals.
-O
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