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January 2023 Prompts - Part 2
Feb. 10th, 2023 08:59 pmLast night’s storytelling show went very well. You can still get tickets to watch the recording at the Better Said Than Done website until Sunday night and you get until March 12th to watch it. (I was the fourth of six tellers.)
And here's the other set of January prompts.
1. What was the first vacation you went on as an adult? (IE – without parents, etc) When I graduated from college, my father asked me what I wanted as a graduation present. I immediately said, “Plane ticket, Eurail pass, spending money” and went to Europe for about a month. My parents kind of wanted me to take a tour, but I wanted to do things on my own (armed with a copy of Europe on $25 a Day) and everything worked out fine.
2. What streaming service do you use the most? I use YouTube a fair amount and Amazon Prime. I’ve had a trial of Apple TV + which I need to cancel on Monday.
3. What is your favorite outdoor activity? It’s between walking and astronomy. (I love eclipses.)
4. Have you ever been to the emergency room? A few times.
5. Favorite brand of chips? As a child, I loved Wise onion and garlic potato chips. Nowadays, I suppose what I buy most often is Fritos.
6. Favorite place to eat at the mall? I’m sure the intent of this was food court food, but there are a couple of excellent restaurants at Tyson’s Corner Center. I think right now Seasons 52 is my favorite because they have a great ahi tuna salad, but there is also a lot to be said for Coastal Flats.
7. Do you enjoy leftovers? Sure. If I liked something the first time around, why wouldn’t I like the leftovers?
8. Which do you prefer, desserts or appetizers? I like both better than I like main courses. Appetizers are probably more my speed.
9. Do people spell your name wrong often? Both my first name and my last name get mangled fairly regularly.
10. What is your favorite meal of the day? It depends on where I am. I particularly love traveling in Asia because noodle soup for breakfast is awesome. In general, I like eating breakfast out, because it feels decadent to me. But, at home, I am most likely to make a good dinner.
11. Do people more often mistake you as being younger or older than you are? I think they usually think I am younger than I am because my skin is fairly unwrinkled, except that my hair is now grey enough that it throws them off.
12. What would you like to experience this year? I have a whole list of goals. In general, my answer to this is seeing something I’ve never seen before.
13. What advice would you give to a class of young adults? Nothing except death is irreversible. Changing your mind about what you want to do, including leaving a job or giving up on something you thought you wanted to do, is not failure.
14. What kind of people irritate you? I hate people being judgmental and expecting everyone else to live by their rules.
15. What are you most concerned about? Trying to get my life more organized.
16. What about self control did you learn this week? I can’t think of anything, frankly.
17. What do you feel nostalgic about? Hmm, mostly food items.
18. What were you once seeking that no longer seems important? A lot of material possessions.
19. When is the last time you were too hard on yourself? I’m hard on myself all the time. Yesterday I got annoyed at myself for how long a lesson on Duolingo took me.
20. What are some things you should let go of? Top of the list is my laziness when it comes to housework. Or possibly my guilt over that laziness.
21. What material possessions make you happy? Probably the top of the list is the portrait I have of my grandmother, wearing a very elegant dress of her own design.
22. How much personal time do you need daily to function at your best? I need a lot of time to myself to recharge my batteries. At least a couple of hours a day.
23. What part of your life has surprised you the most? I’ve been able to go to a lot of fabulous places. This is surprising because as a child I used to lie on our front lawn and watch planes on the flight path to JFK and never imagined I would ever be on any of them.
24. What music did you love as a child? My father brought home records almost every week and I particularly liked it when he brought home comedy music, like Allen Sherman and Tom Lehrer. (Most of what he brought home were Broadway cast recordings.) By the time I was in around 4th or 5th grade, I listened to pop music on the radio. There was a DJ called Cousin Brucie whose show I always listened to. Some performers I remember liking include The Beatles (duh), The Jackson 5, and Neil Diamond. My favorite album of my early teens was Tapestry by Carole King.
25. What do you know about your genealogy? I know a lot. I’ve traced both of my parents’ families back to at least the early 1800’s, though I do have some brick walls. Every puzzle I solve opens up at least three or four more.
26. Have you ever been blindsided by something someone told you? I’ve already told the story about the Canadian sapphire miner in Madagascar who told me he once fucked a goat. I’ve also had a few occasions where a stranger sitting next to me on a plane told me a lot more about a relationship than I would ever tell someone I didn’t know.
27. What is a positive habit you’d like to cultivate? Getting more exercise.
28. What are your favorite "little things" in life? Bubble baths, chocolate, listening to bird song.
29. When was the last time you had to hold your tongue? Probably during a game of code names.
30. How do you feel about traveling to and possibly inhabiting other planets? I don’t expect it to happen in my lifetime, but I’d be all in favor of it if I got to choose who got a one-way ticket to another planet.
31. If you could redo a decade in your life which would you choose? Probably my teens. Not that they were awful compared to what a lot of other people went through, but that’s just a time of life with a lot of angst for almost everyone and I was eager to grow up and get away from home already.
And here's the other set of January prompts.
1. What was the first vacation you went on as an adult? (IE – without parents, etc) When I graduated from college, my father asked me what I wanted as a graduation present. I immediately said, “Plane ticket, Eurail pass, spending money” and went to Europe for about a month. My parents kind of wanted me to take a tour, but I wanted to do things on my own (armed with a copy of Europe on $25 a Day) and everything worked out fine.
2. What streaming service do you use the most? I use YouTube a fair amount and Amazon Prime. I’ve had a trial of Apple TV + which I need to cancel on Monday.
3. What is your favorite outdoor activity? It’s between walking and astronomy. (I love eclipses.)
4. Have you ever been to the emergency room? A few times.
5. Favorite brand of chips? As a child, I loved Wise onion and garlic potato chips. Nowadays, I suppose what I buy most often is Fritos.
6. Favorite place to eat at the mall? I’m sure the intent of this was food court food, but there are a couple of excellent restaurants at Tyson’s Corner Center. I think right now Seasons 52 is my favorite because they have a great ahi tuna salad, but there is also a lot to be said for Coastal Flats.
7. Do you enjoy leftovers? Sure. If I liked something the first time around, why wouldn’t I like the leftovers?
8. Which do you prefer, desserts or appetizers? I like both better than I like main courses. Appetizers are probably more my speed.
9. Do people spell your name wrong often? Both my first name and my last name get mangled fairly regularly.
10. What is your favorite meal of the day? It depends on where I am. I particularly love traveling in Asia because noodle soup for breakfast is awesome. In general, I like eating breakfast out, because it feels decadent to me. But, at home, I am most likely to make a good dinner.
11. Do people more often mistake you as being younger or older than you are? I think they usually think I am younger than I am because my skin is fairly unwrinkled, except that my hair is now grey enough that it throws them off.
12. What would you like to experience this year? I have a whole list of goals. In general, my answer to this is seeing something I’ve never seen before.
13. What advice would you give to a class of young adults? Nothing except death is irreversible. Changing your mind about what you want to do, including leaving a job or giving up on something you thought you wanted to do, is not failure.
14. What kind of people irritate you? I hate people being judgmental and expecting everyone else to live by their rules.
15. What are you most concerned about? Trying to get my life more organized.
16. What about self control did you learn this week? I can’t think of anything, frankly.
17. What do you feel nostalgic about? Hmm, mostly food items.
18. What were you once seeking that no longer seems important? A lot of material possessions.
19. When is the last time you were too hard on yourself? I’m hard on myself all the time. Yesterday I got annoyed at myself for how long a lesson on Duolingo took me.
20. What are some things you should let go of? Top of the list is my laziness when it comes to housework. Or possibly my guilt over that laziness.
21. What material possessions make you happy? Probably the top of the list is the portrait I have of my grandmother, wearing a very elegant dress of her own design.
22. How much personal time do you need daily to function at your best? I need a lot of time to myself to recharge my batteries. At least a couple of hours a day.
23. What part of your life has surprised you the most? I’ve been able to go to a lot of fabulous places. This is surprising because as a child I used to lie on our front lawn and watch planes on the flight path to JFK and never imagined I would ever be on any of them.
24. What music did you love as a child? My father brought home records almost every week and I particularly liked it when he brought home comedy music, like Allen Sherman and Tom Lehrer. (Most of what he brought home were Broadway cast recordings.) By the time I was in around 4th or 5th grade, I listened to pop music on the radio. There was a DJ called Cousin Brucie whose show I always listened to. Some performers I remember liking include The Beatles (duh), The Jackson 5, and Neil Diamond. My favorite album of my early teens was Tapestry by Carole King.
25. What do you know about your genealogy? I know a lot. I’ve traced both of my parents’ families back to at least the early 1800’s, though I do have some brick walls. Every puzzle I solve opens up at least three or four more.
26. Have you ever been blindsided by something someone told you? I’ve already told the story about the Canadian sapphire miner in Madagascar who told me he once fucked a goat. I’ve also had a few occasions where a stranger sitting next to me on a plane told me a lot more about a relationship than I would ever tell someone I didn’t know.
27. What is a positive habit you’d like to cultivate? Getting more exercise.
28. What are your favorite "little things" in life? Bubble baths, chocolate, listening to bird song.
29. When was the last time you had to hold your tongue? Probably during a game of code names.
30. How do you feel about traveling to and possibly inhabiting other planets? I don’t expect it to happen in my lifetime, but I’d be all in favor of it if I got to choose who got a one-way ticket to another planet.
31. If you could redo a decade in your life which would you choose? Probably my teens. Not that they were awful compared to what a lot of other people went through, but that’s just a time of life with a lot of angst for almost everyone and I was eager to grow up and get away from home already.
