Karl T.

THE RULES:
1. Leave me a comment saying anything random, like your favorite lyric to your current favorite song. Or your favorite kind of sandwich. Something random. Whatever you like.
2. I respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. Include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be asked, you will ask them five questions.

arliss asked me:

1. You suddenly acquire an income more than adequate to meet your needs. Liberated from the need to earn a living, what profession or avocation do you pursue?

2. You spent part of your childhood in the south. What makes you nostalgic? What are you glad you escaped?

3. You're having a celebration. How large a party is it, and who do you invite? Do you include people from work and the neighborhood and the grocer from the corner store? I don't need a guest list, just an idea of how large or small your celebration would be.

4. If you could change one national government policy, what would it be?

5. One week with unlimited funds; what do you do?

And I answered:

1. The answer to this one terrifies me with how easily it slipped into my mind: I start a church. I turn no one away: no denominational requirements. I invite pastors, priests, rabbis, imams, bodhisattvas, anyone who will help. And we preach love, forgiveness, love, resistance to evil, love, mindfulness, love, tolerance, and a bit more love. Until they came to take us away.

2. What makes me nostalgic: The sounds of thunder in the summertime (rare out here, but much more common there). The sound of a young black waitress asking an older white man in a wheelchair, "What can I get you, baby?" (I do not know whether they were previously acquainted -- I've been away too long to differentiate the 'baby' one uses with strangers from the one used with friends and family.) Talking to you; hearing the softness of those North Carolina vowels, coupled with the natural warmth of your voice. The sight of fireflies, so common in the east Tennessee summers, unheard of in my portion of California.

What I'm glad I escaped: The almost-ritualised homophobia, and the air of casual menace that Southern males project towards people they see as interlopers. The deep mistrust of intellectual pursuits, although there's quite a bit of that out here in supposedly-enlightened California as well. The 95F/95% humidity summers. The American exceptionalism, the feeling that somehow the landed white males are superior to everyone else by God's grace.

3. The door is open, and all are welcome. But I've only invited about a dozen people. If the grocer happens by, we'll greet her from the porch and invite her and her kids in for a bite. I live in a household of five, so we can switch off the hosting duties -- I can go hide in the back room as it's necessary, without fear that people will feel unwelcomed.

4. Universal health care. Right bloody now. Emphatically including medical and psychiatric care for the veterans and victims of this clusterfuck of a war. As important as it is to end the war, and as much as I'd like to do it, this trumps it by a long way.

5. Unlimited? Pay off a staggering number of bills. Contribute another staggering amount to the bank accounts of various charities and associates (friends in the fannish community, Buffistas, etc.) anonymously if possible. Rent a truly silly minivan and drive my entire household and their mates up to Harbin Hot Springs and laze around for a week. Wire money to any of my far-flung family-by-choice (Buffistas and otherwise) who want to join us. Give my mother enough money that she can retire comfortably.


Go nuts, y'all.

I was given T by cindywrites. Thus, in alphabetical order:

Talmud: Thank you to the old Hebrews for realising that it's important for interpretation to evolve while parts of the text stay fixed.

tenderness: One form of the principle by which I try to live my life: Don't be mean. Pretend that other people are just as vulnerable in their soft spots as you are.

throat: My uvula is swollen this morning, and it's a spooky feeling, like I'm going to choke on part of my own body. Truly weird and discomfiting.

toenails: As much as Bull Durham is filled with cliches, the toenail-painting scene is a wonderful and mischievous look at sensual love and gratification delayed and redirected.

together: I fear that our society is going to have to rediscover what the word 'solidarity' means, before we can make any more progress.

touch: So important, so twisted by people who want to turn it all into sex or all into sin. Comfort and safety.

travel: I'm getting to be too old to tour Europe for a month with nothing but a backpack. But I still want to do it.

treasure: Too much of the noun, not enough of the verb.

Turkey: o/~ Istanbul, was Constantinople, now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople ... o/~

turtle: Sometimes I want to pull my head in and just wait until it's all over. But turtles also always remind me of alterjess, and joy from unexpected places.

When you see this on your friends list, quote Firefly.

River: It's just an object, it doesn't mean what you think.