Becky's game

1. What is your name?
My name is known...

2. How old are you?
Old enough to know better.

3. Do you know me from Adam?
Yes, you're his son.

4. How can you tell the difference between me and Adam?
It's not that hard; age is a pretty good indication.

5. If you could truthfully change your answer to 1, 2, or 3, which would you pick and what would you like to change it to?
I wouldn't change a thing.

6. Name three people that you love, just the first that come to mind:
Me, myself, and I. Points if you know who they all are.

7. Now three more:
Becky, Rachel, and Kirstin.

8. Who didn't you list that you should have? Is there anyone you'd like to, but can't? Say something cryptic about them.
My family, which is a lot stranger than I give us credit for; and all the wonderful Bryn Mawr ladies I hang out with, who make perfect (or almost perfect) sense to me.

9. Name one thing that fascinates you about each of these people.
Me, that I am weathering the shocks of relocation so well; that myself and I are doing likewise; Becky's ability to feel and think so deeply while going about ordinary life tasks; Rachel's ability to find things in her room ;); and I agree with Rachel, Kirstin's ticklish aura. My mother's consistant ability to believe far-fetched things that the rest of my family says; and the BMC cadre's ability to have fun no matter where we are, particularly when discussing inappropriate topics in public.

10. And something that irritates you...
That me, myself and I have become somewhat lazy this past year and find it hard to settle back into the routine of intense work; Becky's tendency to be ultradramatic; Rachel's sudden violent mood swings with no apparent cause; Kirstin's tendency to jump from one obsession to the next; my family's ability to argue over trivialities; and the BMC group's inconsistant ability to organize themselves for adventures.

11. Name three people you really dislike:
Whoever put the campus bookstore in a Barnes and Noble, so that I get tormented by all the good books I could have spent my money on instead of wasting it all on that stupid textbook; IT for making it inconvenient and expensive for me to hook my computer up to the network; and the person who decided you'd have to pay for printing at W&M.

12. Anybody you'd like to name that you can't mention publicly? Say something cryptic about them.
Can't think of anyone offhand...apparently my dislikes about people fade quickly when I'm not around them anymore.

13. Tell me something you admire about each of the dislike people. Yes, you have to. Why doesn't that override the dislike?
Considering I don't know any of these people personally, that's hard to say. But I understand why each of them made the decisions they did, even though they annoy me personally.

14. What is your favorite color? Do you know why?
Blue, particularly the turquoise varieties. And no, I don't really have a reason for it.

15. What is something about yourself that you secretly think is pretty sexy?
My eyes.

16. What is something about yourself that you secretly worry is pretty repulsive?
My teeth.

17. What is something about me that you secretly think is pretty sexy? Or at least attractive? ;)
That grin and expression on your face you get when you're feeling attractive and pleased.

18. I'm not gonna ask the opposite. Instead, tell me a memory you have involving music.
You think I can pick just one? Mmm, one that just came to mind was the one time (out of all the times we performed it) I was doing my solo/duet in "Imagine" with Carol, and we just really...clicked. It was the most amazing experience ever, just this energy, not all those typical skittering thoughts of trying to balance your volume and shape your tone to match. Lovely.

19. Imagine yourself married. Do you see someone you know as your spouse, or someone imaginary? Do you like this fantasy? Does it discomfort you?
I guess I tend to see someone imaginary as my spouse, because I haven't had any even quasi-romantic relationships in real life, and I know it would be such a long process that I couldn't even quite get there in a realistic frame of mind. I do rather like this fantasy; it gives me hope. Or at least a bit of clarity in what I want.

20. Tell me a story about a time when you were truly frightened.
When I was young, my older brother and I went out to investigate the water pipes in the swale, first lying to...someone--my younger sister? my mother?--about what we were going to do. So we got there, and parked our bikes, and I went in first but not very far, and he came in after, and then when we went to try and get out he found that he didn't really have enough room to turn around, and was sort of stuck. At this point I started to panic a little, thinking that we might not get out, what would happen if we didn't come home, maybe they'd find us because I could see our bikes out the crack of the hole in the drain but then we'd be in so much trouble; and to make matters worse, there was a big white spider crawling around somewhere much too close for my comfort. Of course my brother got himself out, and we went home, but I think that experience has a lot to do with my aversion to exploring places we might get caught.

21. What's something you wish you knew how to do, but don't?
This is probably a bit vain, but I wish I knew how to braid my own hair in those fancy ways like they do at the Ren Faire. Though now that my hair is cut and layered I probably wouldn't be able to braid it.

22. What are you most likely to be famous for?
For hanging around with wonderfully talented people who became famous. Or infamous. ;)

23. What do you think influences your daily life the most: your parents' financial situation or their relationship to each other?
Now that I'm at school, with probably the least money I've had and more expenses, I think I'm particularly aware of their financial situation; also because my mother is always emphasizing it, a bit, and urging me to do better. But every so often I notice something about their relationship to each other, especially when it seems that they are annoyed with each other, or with the other's request, or something.

24. Do you have a religious or spiritual outlook? Where did you get it? What about it do you think is particularly engaging?
I definitely have a religious outlook, the seeds of which I think were planted in high school but put into the sun by our various discussions and religious encounters/mystical experiences. I think the depth of it surprises me, more so than the clarity and details of my belief; that there is a certain something I connect to much more easily when sitting in church, whether or not I'm really paying attention to the service, that...is very good for me.

25. Do you like to dance? When did you last dance?
I do like to dance, but the kind of music I like to dance to is not usually what is played in most dancing locales. I think I was dancing around the kitchen this weekend listening to Fruit and making a meal.

26. Who is the first person you remember being sexually attracted to?
Um...Tim Grebbs, probably, though I didn't recognize it as such at the time. We were in band, and someone knocked over a stand and it either hit me on the head or came very close, and he came to pick it up and touched my head and asked me if I was all right, and this sort of warm shock ran through me, and I was sort of happy for a long while afterward. Though I don't think I really liked him, normally. Hmm. I haven't really thought about this for a while.


27. Describe the last person that caught your eye in a crowd (in a good way).
This girl in one of my classes that I kept thinking looked familiar, but assumed it was the way you find people that remind you of people you know in places you know they can't possibly be. But when we went around giving our usual first class introductions, it turned out that she went to Bryn Mawr too, and gradated a year ahead of us!

28. Describe the last person that caught your eye in a crowd (in a bad way).
Hmm, I guess I haven't been paying much attention to the crowds, because I can't think of anyone.

29. How do you feel when faced with a homeless person soliciting money? What is your emotional reaction? What thoughts go through your head?
I feel...sort of panicked at the awkward encounter, and think that I should give them something but wonder if they really need it and if they're really going to put it to good use, but usually I don't have anything, or anything handy (since I don't want to get out my wallet right in front of them), and then I feel guilty about having money and not sharing, or feeling like I don't have enough to share, and guilty that I react so badly in general.

30. Are these questions difficult? What would you like to ask me in retaliation?
Hmm...I wouldn't say these questions are difficult, but they are very involved. And I think I'd like to ask you what you'd think you'd see if you looked into the Mirror of Erised (think the first Harry Potter).

31. If you were going to name your child after a literary character, who would it be and why?
*laughs* My kid would probably kill me if I named him or her after the literary characters I enjoy, or rather, the names that I find pleasing. I kind of like Jessamy, who was a character in The Icarus Girl. And for some reason now I'm blanking on others, but I know I've considered some that were definitely unusual.

32. What's the last book you read? What did you think of it?
Technically it would be my How to Design and Evaluate Research in Education textbook, which is as interesting as its title suggests. As for more entertaining literature, I reread the first Harry Potter since I had a copy I'm intending to wild release at some point and I was craving fiction. It was good, as always, though I did notice a hysterical and egocentric outburst that suggests Harry's general attitude throughout the fifth book is not as surprising as it seemed at the time.

33. What is your favorite fruit?
Strawberries, when accompanied by cream and champagne.

34. Tell me a story about one of your cousins.
I saw my little cousin Patrick over the summer and we were asking him things about preschool, and his parents asked him "Who is the president?" He answered, "George W. Bush." "Who is the vice president?" He answered, "Laura Bush", which made me laugh. They agreed that was the first lady and asked him again, and he said "Dick Cheney". And then my uncle, who is a middle school social studies teacher, said half his students probably don't know that.

35. Who is a person you still wince when you think about? It can be for any reason.
*laughs* Texas Becky.

36. Is there anything that is consistently irresistable to you? Can you imagine a situation in which you would not find this attractive?
Well, a certain someone who knows full well who he is, and that he is; and when he applies that charm and knowledge on others in what can seem a particularly selfish and heedless way.

37. Tell me a secret. It can be a current one, or an old one, but at some point the secretiveness of this should have mattered to you.
Shh. I love you. Apparently there is no spoon.

38. If you could erase one of your own memories, would you? Why or why not?
No. I think that lack...is somehow significant. Or at least, the importance of the journey is starting to make itself felt in my mind.

39. What about one of somebody else's?
That's not very nice. What if they liked that memory even if it was awful? What if it served as a reminder to them? It's not nice to play with people's heads...even though it can be oh so much fun. ;)

40. Describe a beautiful landscape that you have seen. Or a beautiful sky.
When we walked out of our hostel in Dingle (west coast of Ireland) and saw the green mountains and valleys cut through with stone walls and dotted with white sheep, and far off a blue ocean under the haze, my friends and I all stopped and said "Wow."

41. Do you like eggs?
Only scrambled.

42. How many of your answers were true?
Enough to be good, not enough to spoil the fun.