How is it SUPPOSED to work?

[grebjack]

Kaffe Diem, I don't know why you're spending so much time on me, and I can't tell where you're going with this wide variety of questions, but I'm gonna jump in.

Can you give me one word that describes your passion?

Kids. Kids are fun. Kids are endlessly fascinating. Kids are infuriating. Kids are vulnerable. And I think it's true that societies should be judged by how they treat their young.

I wonder if people might call you a bit of a social butterfly...

I can't recall anyone ever calling me that (or "witty" for that matter), but I know it is the case that other people think of me as outgoing when I think myself a bit shy. But on the butterfly thing, I don't flit around much. The five people I would describe as close friends have been my friends for 29, 28, 28, 24, and 24 years.

When you first meet someone who eventually becomes a friend of yours, what is your first physical contact with them? When might the first physical contact with them occur? (ie. When introduced, when you next meet them, never?)

Not sure about this one. If I am formally introduced to someone when I meet them, I often shake hands. I touch people - students, friends, strangers in grocery stores - to get their attention. I tend to hug friends when I see them after a long time. I'm trying to think about the three people I would describe as my closest friends here, 'cause I met them all recently enough to remember it, and one is my boss - I know I shook his hand on first and second meeting and he high-fived me when I accepted the job. We hug, usually inspired either by my thanking him for something or him coming to apologize for something. Another of these three friends I don't know if I've ever even shaken her hand. She may have belayed me on a ropes course and I've borrowed her clothes and I've given her daughter piggy-back rides and we carried two toilets into the building together yesterday afternoon, but I may actually have never touched her. I can't recall...

When you meet someone, how long might it take for you to realize that person will become a life long friend?

I think a pretty long time - a year or more. It's the sort of thing I'm only conscious of in retrospect.

Would you rather go to a beach, a coffee shop, or a symphony?

Depends on my mood - right now I'd rather the symphony (to hear some loud Prokofiev or Tchaikovsky), but last week when it was grey all week, I was really craving the warmth of the sun on my face. I go to the coffee shop a lot more than the symphony or the beach - it's just less of a production - something I can do on a moment's notice.

I'd bet your mom and I could have great conversations about you

God help me! In my defense, if I left school promptly at the end of the day to go to my local writer's group, hibernated for a week with my sewing machine for the local community theater, or was an active participant in a nearby astronomy club, my mother would think I had a healthy set of avocations. But because I write with the kids on my school newspaper staff, because the last set of costumes I made was for the school's spring play, and because my astronomy club is a small clan of nerdy students, that makes those activities "work" and me a "workaholic." I don't see what the difference is.

What is the most embarrassing situation you have ever found yourself in?

Ugh. I was a bed-wetter as a kid. Pediatrician said it would just stop on its own by the time I was five... then he said by the time I was seven... you get the picture. It didn't stop before I was old enough to go to a sleepover party, fall asleep WEARING the only pair of jeans I'd brought with me, and wake up with the singularly horrifying realization that there was no way I was getting out of that place without everyone in the house knowing I'd peed on myself.

Somehow these questions are related to the likely demise of my marriage?