Every year, we have the Friends of the Library book sale. On the last day of the sale, you can get a paper sack full of books, any kind of books, for $6 which is an amazing bargain.
Conveniently, the sale falls right around my birthday so I usually get a bag or two from a family member as a gift, one that will tide me over for the year to come. This year I only got one bag (going for quality over quantity) which filled yielded about 30 books. Among them, I got a John Irving, three books of poetry, seven books for Emerald, "Walden", a couple of best sellers, a manga, and a seventy-year-old gem.
One of the books, though, I got specifically for this blog.
It is called "The Book of Questions" by Gregory Stock, Ph.D.
As a sort of extension of the "Memories from a Mother's Heart" that I did years ago, this will hopefully scrounge up some thought provoking discussions and personally enlightening self-discovery. Probably not, but you never know.
And we're off!!
1. For a person you loved deeply, would you be willing to move to a distant country knowing there would be little chance of seeing your friends or family again?
-I want to be the type of romantic that would throw abandon to the wind and say, "Of course! I will follow my heart anywhere!"
But I am not. I am burdened with the knowledge of the reality of having two high-needs children, one medically frail and the other developmentally and intellectually delayed. It is damn stressful raising them and the parents (me) need bolstering and support from family. I have to have people I can trust to watch the kids, to take care of them when I am sick or want a date or just need a dang break. Family is important; family is needed.
2. Do you believe in ghosts or evil spirits? Would you be willing to spend a night alone in a remote house that is supposedly haunted??
-I think whether or not I believe in these things has no bearing--if they do, who cares that I believe in them; if I don't, who cares then? It affects very little.
I might spend the night in a remote house if I weren't afraid of the very real possibility of some freak coming in and raping/murdering me, but as for the haunted aspect? That wouldn't bother me.
In the end, I believe in demons and malevolent spirits; I believe in things we don't see and can't understand; don't actually believe in ghosts.
3. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven't you told them yet??
-Not really the type of person that keeps things bottled down inside. People more or less know what I am thinking at all times because I have no dam that keeps it from all just pouring out and spilling all over the floor at their feet. Honestly, I wouldn't regret not saying anything because I don't think I have anything left unsaid.
Maybe "Mike, please take care of my cats and don't give them away just because I die".
4. If you could spend one year in perfect happiness but afterward would remember nothing of the experience would you do so? Why or why not?
-Well no shit I would. It's not like I am consigned to a lifetime of never being happy again. Just because I wouldn't remember it doesn't mean that it didn't happen and I didn't experience it. And while I was living it, I would be perfectly happy. So yeah, 100% on board.
5. If a new medicine was developed that would cure arthritis but cause a fatal reaction in 1 percent of those who took it, would you want it to be released to the public?
-Ask me when I am suffering from arthritis.
6. You discover your wonderful one-year-old child is, because of a mixup at the hospital, not yours. Would you want to exchange the child to correct the mistake?
-That's tricky. I would want to meet with the other parents and lay all of it out. Maybe they have been great parents and love their child with my DNA as much as I love and care for my child with theirs. In that case, if they were amenable, I would keep the child I took home; we would sign paperwork to make it all official, and then we would stay in one another's lives. Be friends; let our wonderful child be friends with theirs.
It gets more complicated if they are awful. If they are, I would try and keep both babies at all costs.
7. Do you think that the world will be a better or a worse place 100 years from now?
-My optimism says we are making advances toward better humanity all the time. We are becoming more conscientious and loving and more accepting and tolerant and peaceful.
It doesn't always feel like that. Change happens so microscopically and there is still so much shit that we are wading through. I just choose to focus on the beautiful and the good.
8. Would you rather be a member of a world championship sports team or be the champion of an individual sport? Which sport would you choose?
-Team, soccer or basketball. I hate all eyes on me, but comrades and teammates give me strength and confidence.
9. Would you accept $1,000,000 to leave the country and never set foot in it again?
-Probably. Can I take my family? My kids? Then yup. Hell, I would move to Mexico or Canada and have my parents and siblings visit all the time. Set them up in nice digs near the border. Make sure they are still near.
10. Which sex do you think has it easier in our culture? Have you ever wished you were the opposite sex?
-I think men have it easier, but that's coming from my stance as a woman. The feminist movement still has a long way to go toward equality. I want to feel safe walking alone down a dark street, to wear whatever I want without getting harassed, to be valued and admired for my brains and not my ass. I want a society where my daughter's bra strap showing in school is not a sexualized, demonized thing, and where one day she can make every bit as much as male counterpart. And where the antiquated and crap arguments that people used to use to keep women just beneath men would just damn die away.
I have never wished I was a boy. I don't have any desire to sport male genitalia.
So that is post number one! Lets see if I stick with this, or abandon it like so many other fleeting fancies of mine!
---Andie
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