Eclectic Questions

I very rarely participate in this sort of meme, but the questions over at Jenners’ blog (Life . . . With Books) were too much fun to resist.

There are a whole bunch of rules, but being a rebel (really just lazy, but rebel sounds cooler) I’m just going to answer the questions. If you would like to participate then consider yourself tagged in this meme (and you can always look at Jenners’ post to see all of the rules).

1. What’s the most played song on your iPod? (or CD collection if you’re old school) I have a playlist of songs that are all played about the same amount of time. These are my happy, pick-me-up songs – the ones that make me feel good about myself and pull me from just about any minor funk. The one that probably gets the most play is The Sound of Sunshine by Michael Franti. (I really wanted to go with a joke answer here, like I’m Sexy and I Know It, which also makes me laugh and has a hilarious but entirely inappropriate video – it didn’t make it onto my top playlist though.)
2. What do you miss most about your childhood? My girlfriends and the free time we had to just hang out and do whatever we wanted to.
3. What is your favorite poem? Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas.
4. Without thinking too much, what are 5 of your favorite books of all time?(Just list them as they come to you … don’t think!!!!!) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, The Gate to Women’s Country by  Sheri S. Tepper, Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone.

   

5. What was the last book you read? Tell me about it in 5 words or less. Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson: Anorexia, dysfunctional family, death, cutting.
6. Can you define irony and give an example? (This is self-serving as I’m struggling to do this with my son. I will so steal your answers if appropriate.) This would have been so much easier if you had asked us to define ironing – that chore I never do.
7. If you were forced to change your name, what would you change it to? Wouldn’t I want to keep that a secret in case I ever do have to change my name? Hmmm…well my second choice would be Lisa because some of my friends used to call me that as a nickname.
8. What author/TV show/movie/book/celebrity, do you have absolutely despise and avoid at all costs? Rodney Dangerfield – he is so annoying!
9. What movie was actually better than the book is was based on? I’m going to cheat a little bit on this one and say Lord of the Rings. I have tried to read the books and they are so dense with linguistic information that I’ve never been able to slog through them. Which is ironic since I love linguistics. (See, I can use “ironic” in a sentence, but still haven’t thought of a good way to define it.)
10. Beatles or the Stones? Beatles, because my love of their music has a longer history, and because I know far more of their songs. And now for a digression about my childhood that is only remotely related to the question. I always say that my childhood was right out of the 50s despite being set in the 80s. I lived at the end of a county road with forests all around; my grandparents living two houses away and the nearest person my age over three miles away. My parents listened to almost nothing but old music (from the 30s to the 60s) and we were only able to pull in reception for one TV station via the large antenna strapped to our roof, and heaven forbid if the signal changed and my dad had to go up on the roof to turn it – while we shouted back and forth “Better! Worse! No wait – that was it! Go back! Go back!” So is it coincidence or irony that Satisfaction started playing on the radio while I was typing out this answer?
11. What is your favorite quote? I went looking for one Plato quote and found several that are just fabulous by him. Reading these quotes makes me realize that I should probably pick up one of his works and read them (I do own at least one). The quotes are below:

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

Death is not the worst that can happen to men.

If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.

Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.

Never discourage anyone… who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

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