Category: Friday Fives

1. What is your favorite type of literature to read (magazine, newspaper, novels, nonfiction, poetry, etc..)?
Probably magazine non fiction, followed by modern metafiction.

2. What is your favorite novel?
A Fan’s Notes followed by The Great Gatsby.

3. Do you have a favorite poem? (Share it!)
Yes Robert Frost MENDING WALL (*see below)

4. What is one thing you’ve always wanted to read, or wish you had more time to read?
More Salmon Rushdie including The Satanic Verses. He is quite deep but very entertaining.

5. What are you currently reading? Slab Rat by Ted Heller and The Great Cover Up by Barry Sussman.

* Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say '.Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

1. Do you like talking on the phone? Why or why not?
I used to. But my last three jobs have involved talking on the phone all day and as a result I tend to avoid or ignore the phone, at least while I am at home.

2. Who is the last person you talked to on the phone?
Michelle

3. About how many telephones do you have at home?
Three

4. Have you encountered anyone who has really bad phone manners? What happened?
My Grandpa is terrible on the phone. Not bad manners, per say, and with his bad hearing, it is totally understandable. He just can’t talk on the phone for more than a minute or two before either ending the call or passing it on to someone else. It is kinda cute. I work in customer service in a call center and bad phone manners are the norm. People just don’t seem to get the fact that they are talking to a person on the other end sometimes. So, while they are calling up a customer service representative they are also eating, disciplining children, working around the house or the car. I talked to one guy once who was trying to mow the lawn while talking to me on his cordless. I asked if we could schedule this for a more convenient time. He stopped mowing. The victories are small when they come, but still sweet.

5. Would you rather pick up the phone and call someone or write them an E-mail or a letter? Why or why not?I am not a great letter writer. I think it is the whole idea of the formality of a written and mailed letter that tends to put me off. With family and distant friends and relatives I tend to rely on email. For immediate family and friends, the phone works great for checking in.

1. If you had the chance to meet someone you’ve never met, from the past or present, who would it be?
Mark Twain or Ambrose Bierce. I love a good story teller.

2. If you had to live in a different century, past or future, which would it be?
1850s London

3. If you had to move anywhere else on Earth, where would it be?
Iceland. Reportedly a very nice place.

4. If you had to be a fictional character, who would it be?
Gatsby

5. If you had to live with having someone else’s face as your own for the rest of your life, whose would it be?
hmmm. Interesting. I wouldn’t mind looking in the mirror every day and seeing old school Elvis. Or that kid from That 70s Show – Ashton Kutchter. It must be rough going through life looking like that.

Special Sunday edition.1. What is one thing you don’t like about your body?
I need to get in shape period. I have a tightness in my back from lack of exercise and I don’t like that much.

2. What are two things you love about your body?
I have great eyes and my curly wavy hair, after years of fighting it, has become one of my favorite things.

3. What are three things you want to change about your home?
Paint in the livingroom, kitchen, dining room. But to hell with all that. I need to move further West.

4. What are four books you want to read this year?
What Should I Do With My Life by Po Bronson> Delano by John Orozoco> No One’s Even Bleeding by Lenny Castellenata> Lake Effect by Rich Cohen.

5. What are five promises you have kept to yourself?
Wow, this is hard. To finish college; to be more courageous at work; to learn chess; to never lose my keys or wallet; to floss regularly.

1. As a child, who was your favorite superhero/heroine? Why
Green Lantern. He seemed to be “more real” than the other heroes. Except for maybe Peter Parker of Spiderman fame, he seemed puzzled and uneasy about his powers.

2. What was one thing you always wanted as a child but never got?
An electric go cart and a set of Legos ® (My mom and dad were more of the Tinker Toy/Lincoln Log set.)

3. What’s the furthest from home you’ve been?
Geneva, Switzerland or maybe Northern Italy while serving in the Army and stationed in Germany.

4. What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to learn but haven’t yet?
To speak Spanish and if I can take two instead of one ? to play the guitar.

5. What are your plans for the weekend?
Saint Patrick’s Day Weekend, which involves a parade downtown tomorrow morning. I am not making any promises, but perhaps I will commandeer a float and make like Ferris Bueller and sing to the crowds.

A day late but nonetheless:1. What was the last song you heard?
Rhett Miller “Point Shirley”

2. What were the last two movies you saw?
Home video – “Barbershop.” At the theater: “Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers.” I don’t do many theater outings. I almost always months behind.

3. What were the last three things you purchased?
Since I am unemployed, purchases aren’t happening at an alarming rate. Easter candy, recent Rolling Stone issue, Warm Mist Humidifier.

4. What four things do you need to do this weekend?
Sunday is Clean Sheet day! Run to hardware store for new handle for tea pot. Empty out the cat box. To the zoo for a picnic!

5. Who are the last five people you talked to?
Julie, Shelly, Ed, Mark, Sage

1. What is your most prized material possession?

Probably my dad’s rings that were left to me when he died. I can keep him with my all the time, that way.

2. What item, that you currently own, have you had the longest?

I have very little stuff left from my childhood. I did a terrible job as a teen and in early adulthood keeping track of stuff. But I have all my boy scout stuff, some of it I have had since I was ten years old. I also have a book I bought in second grade from scholastic books. That is probably the thing I have kept the longest.

3. Are you a packrat?

Yes. Every three or four months I must tear apart my bedroom and files and just jettison cargo. I seem to hold on to every scrap of paper for far too long and I hate to get rid of a book. Ever.

4. Do you prefer a spic-and-span clean house? Or is some clutter necessary to avoid the appearance of a museum?

Clutter isn’t only good, at our house it is a fact of life. A house was meant to be lived in, not looked at. I hate folks who have to keep a house so clean and tidy they are forced to live in a tent in the backyard to keep from enjoying it.

5. Do the rooms in your house have a theme? Or is it a mixture of knick-knacks here and there?

My bathroom has a fishing theme that for some reason or another has evolved over the years. The rest of the house has no set theme. I wouldn’t say knick knacks, persay – that evokes images of a granny’s house, but there are photos and things on the mantle and other shelves.