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April Prompts - Part 1
May. 9th, 2022 10:41 pmI have plenty of things I’ve done to write about, but first here are the first set of answers to monthly prompts from April.
1. If your 5-year-old self suddenly found themselves inhabiting your current body, what would your 5-year-old self do first? Probably cry in despair.
2. What inanimate object do you wish you could eliminate from existence? The telephone.
3. What is your favourite way to waste time? Reading. Or doing puzzles. Or playing games. Or making fun of British / Canadian spelling.
4. Do you have any pets? What are their names? Now, what are the names you actually use for them? No pets. I have, however, always wanted to have two Siamese cats who I’d name Mocha and Java.
5. How much of your body would you cybernetically enhance, if you could? I’d love cybernetic eyes. And I wouldn’t be averse to new, better-functioning joints.
6. What songs do you know only the chorus to? I think I knew at least a verse or two of most songs I know. Maybe something in another language like “Frere Jacques” or “Cielito Lindo.”
7. Which fictional character would be the most boring to meet in real life? Bilbo Baggins. He’d always be going on about adventures he had years ago and all the famous people he knew.
8. Are you an organized person? What techniques and tools do you use to keep yourself organized? Organized? Hah! I have a place for everything and everything is, generally, somewhere other than in its place.
9. How quickly do you adapt to new technology? It depends on whether or not it’s a technology I got because I thought it would be useful or one that was imposed on me. The latter is less of an issue since retirement. So really, it comes down to motivation.
10. What scrambles your brain every time you think about it? That the earth, moon, and sun are the right sizes and locations to make solar eclipses possible.
11. What is something that really annoys you, but doesn't seem to bother most other people? People cussing loudly in public.
12. Has anyone ever saved your life (literally, not figuratively)? No.
13. If, when you die, you found out that you have to spend eternity as a minor character in a TV show of your choosing, what TV show would you choose? Northern Exposure. Roslyn was full of interesting people. And I could listen to Chris in the Morning on the radio.
14. What is something everyone agrees we should change, but somehow it never changes? The American healthcare system.
15. What is the weirdest text or email you've ever received? I get a fair amount of pretty incoherent spam. The religiously motivated ones are probably the strangest. As for texts, taken out of context, I suspect “Your order GLUG is ready” is pretty weird. (It’s related to the system a used bookstore near me uses to tell you when they’ve gone through your books.)
16. What sport could you play the longest in a televised game, without anyone discovering you're not a professional athlete? Maybe archery? At least I remember how to hold a bow. (I did intramural archery in high school.)
17. What fictional (TV/movie/book) character(s) have you had a crush on over the years? This one is easy. Archie Goodwin in the Nero Wolfe series by Rex Stout. He’s clever and a good dancer and has a well-paying steady job.
18. What was the worst shopping experience you've ever had? I was trying to buy a winter coat a number of years ago. The women’s department at Macy’s in San Francisco had no outerwear and the coat department had no coats above a size 14. Obviously, they didn’t believe that fat people should ever go outside.
19. What still makes you cringe when you think back on it? I’ve had a few public melt downs here and there.
20. What do a lot of people have very strong opinions about, even though they know very little about it? How the U.S. government works.
21. Who in your life is the worst at using technology? The gentleman with whom I conducted the world’s longest running brief meaningless fling is surprisingly inept at using a lot of technology.
22. What was the biggest realization you had about yourself? That I’m an ambivert. That is, whether I find being around people draining or energizing varies, based on the circumstances.
23. What memory of yours feels real but is most likely false? There was a severe storm, which I remember as a hurricane, right after we moved into our house. My Dad said to my Mom, “If the house stands through this, I’ll know we made a good purchase.” As a three-year-old I didn’t find that reassuring. The reason I don’t think this is accurate is that I can’t find any record of a hurricane hitting Long Island in the right time frame.
24. Do you prefer popular music or relatively unknown music? There is some of each I like. I listen to a lot of “ethnic” music, e.g. Afropop and Bollywood and Klezmer, which I suppose would be considered relatively unknown.
25. If you were given the ability to reform how your country’s leaders were chosen and how they serve, what would you change? I’d make primaries in all states be the same day, so Iowa and New Hampshire don’t have outsize influence.
26. Records, tapes, CDs, MP3s, streaming: which did you grow up with? What is good and bad about each? I grew up with records. By the time I was in junior high, I had a tape recorder and taped things off the radio. (We actually had a reel to reel recorder before that, but we used it mostly to record our family making music and telling jokes.) CDs came along much later. I liked the convenience of having a CD changer, so I could put 5 CDs on and not have to change records or tapes.
27. If everyone said what they were actually thinking, what would happen to society? The murder rate would go up enormously.
28. Did (or does) your family take seasonal vacations? Only in the sense that we took longer trips during school vacations.
29. What technology from a science fiction movie or TV show would you most love to have? Teleportation. I am fairly sure I was promised that by the 21st Century. I also want a flying car, but I don’t want other people to have them.
30. April 30 is "Hairstyle Appreciation Day". How would you describe your hairstyle? There appears to have been some sort of accident here.
1. If your 5-year-old self suddenly found themselves inhabiting your current body, what would your 5-year-old self do first? Probably cry in despair.
2. What inanimate object do you wish you could eliminate from existence? The telephone.
3. What is your favourite way to waste time? Reading. Or doing puzzles. Or playing games. Or making fun of British / Canadian spelling.
4. Do you have any pets? What are their names? Now, what are the names you actually use for them? No pets. I have, however, always wanted to have two Siamese cats who I’d name Mocha and Java.
5. How much of your body would you cybernetically enhance, if you could? I’d love cybernetic eyes. And I wouldn’t be averse to new, better-functioning joints.
6. What songs do you know only the chorus to? I think I knew at least a verse or two of most songs I know. Maybe something in another language like “Frere Jacques” or “Cielito Lindo.”
7. Which fictional character would be the most boring to meet in real life? Bilbo Baggins. He’d always be going on about adventures he had years ago and all the famous people he knew.
8. Are you an organized person? What techniques and tools do you use to keep yourself organized? Organized? Hah! I have a place for everything and everything is, generally, somewhere other than in its place.
9. How quickly do you adapt to new technology? It depends on whether or not it’s a technology I got because I thought it would be useful or one that was imposed on me. The latter is less of an issue since retirement. So really, it comes down to motivation.
10. What scrambles your brain every time you think about it? That the earth, moon, and sun are the right sizes and locations to make solar eclipses possible.
11. What is something that really annoys you, but doesn't seem to bother most other people? People cussing loudly in public.
12. Has anyone ever saved your life (literally, not figuratively)? No.
13. If, when you die, you found out that you have to spend eternity as a minor character in a TV show of your choosing, what TV show would you choose? Northern Exposure. Roslyn was full of interesting people. And I could listen to Chris in the Morning on the radio.
14. What is something everyone agrees we should change, but somehow it never changes? The American healthcare system.
15. What is the weirdest text or email you've ever received? I get a fair amount of pretty incoherent spam. The religiously motivated ones are probably the strangest. As for texts, taken out of context, I suspect “Your order GLUG is ready” is pretty weird. (It’s related to the system a used bookstore near me uses to tell you when they’ve gone through your books.)
16. What sport could you play the longest in a televised game, without anyone discovering you're not a professional athlete? Maybe archery? At least I remember how to hold a bow. (I did intramural archery in high school.)
17. What fictional (TV/movie/book) character(s) have you had a crush on over the years? This one is easy. Archie Goodwin in the Nero Wolfe series by Rex Stout. He’s clever and a good dancer and has a well-paying steady job.
18. What was the worst shopping experience you've ever had? I was trying to buy a winter coat a number of years ago. The women’s department at Macy’s in San Francisco had no outerwear and the coat department had no coats above a size 14. Obviously, they didn’t believe that fat people should ever go outside.
19. What still makes you cringe when you think back on it? I’ve had a few public melt downs here and there.
20. What do a lot of people have very strong opinions about, even though they know very little about it? How the U.S. government works.
21. Who in your life is the worst at using technology? The gentleman with whom I conducted the world’s longest running brief meaningless fling is surprisingly inept at using a lot of technology.
22. What was the biggest realization you had about yourself? That I’m an ambivert. That is, whether I find being around people draining or energizing varies, based on the circumstances.
23. What memory of yours feels real but is most likely false? There was a severe storm, which I remember as a hurricane, right after we moved into our house. My Dad said to my Mom, “If the house stands through this, I’ll know we made a good purchase.” As a three-year-old I didn’t find that reassuring. The reason I don’t think this is accurate is that I can’t find any record of a hurricane hitting Long Island in the right time frame.
24. Do you prefer popular music or relatively unknown music? There is some of each I like. I listen to a lot of “ethnic” music, e.g. Afropop and Bollywood and Klezmer, which I suppose would be considered relatively unknown.
25. If you were given the ability to reform how your country’s leaders were chosen and how they serve, what would you change? I’d make primaries in all states be the same day, so Iowa and New Hampshire don’t have outsize influence.
26. Records, tapes, CDs, MP3s, streaming: which did you grow up with? What is good and bad about each? I grew up with records. By the time I was in junior high, I had a tape recorder and taped things off the radio. (We actually had a reel to reel recorder before that, but we used it mostly to record our family making music and telling jokes.) CDs came along much later. I liked the convenience of having a CD changer, so I could put 5 CDs on and not have to change records or tapes.
27. If everyone said what they were actually thinking, what would happen to society? The murder rate would go up enormously.
28. Did (or does) your family take seasonal vacations? Only in the sense that we took longer trips during school vacations.
29. What technology from a science fiction movie or TV show would you most love to have? Teleportation. I am fairly sure I was promised that by the 21st Century. I also want a flying car, but I don’t want other people to have them.
30. April 30 is "Hairstyle Appreciation Day". How would you describe your hairstyle? There appears to have been some sort of accident here.
