A Small Victory

blogger insider, vol. 2

This week my blogger insider pal was PixelFish of Yrth(pronounced "earth," not "yerth"as I found out today). Here's her questions and my answers. My questions to her have been answered and are now appearing on her (un)blog.

1. Which Muppet do you identify with the most and why?

Fozzie Bear. He's a bit goofy, a bit serious, always searching for someone to pay attention to him, and he tells reallybad jokes.

2. You are the last woman on earth, and it is your job to perpetuate the human race, whether you like it or not. (Doesn't that sound swell? No?) In any case, your choice of potential mates is between atman, Superman, Wolverine, and Captain America. Which one do you

choose?

While I would go with Wolverine if the issue was simply sex, I'd have to go with Batman for procreation. You run the leastlikely chance of contaminating the future gene pool with mutant/alien genes with him.

3. I noticed that you've started a project about censorship awareness and banned books. Which books most shaped your life? What books do you remember fondly from your childhood?

My favorite books from childhood, books which I still read now and again, are Half-Magic

by Edgar Eager and The Witch Family by Eleanor Estes. Those books set me on a love of adventure and magic that I still have. The books that shaped me came later on, in high school, most notably 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Adlous Huxley. I think it was sometime after I read those books that I started being cynical. I view cynicism as a good thing, so I am thankful to those authors.

4. You're visiting your local zoo (or your favourite zoo). Which animal exhibit do you absolutely have to visit? (For years, I could never visit a zoo without its giraffe exhibit being closed. This crushed me more than I can mention.)

I'm at the Butterfly Zone in the Bronx Zoo. I could stay in there all day, it's so beautiful, so amazing, so peaceful.

5. If you were required to be stuck permanently in any one decade of the last century, which decade would you pick?

I guess the 1950's. My parents make it sound like it was so much fun. I want to be the kind of girl that always has a long cigarette smeared with pink lipstick hanging out of her mouth, wears scarves around her neck and her boyfriend's leather coat and holds up the handkerchief before the drag race starts. My boyfriend would look just like James Dean.

6. Pretend I'm a shrink holding up some of those Rorschach blot cards.

Tell me the first word or phrase that you think of for the following pictures:

a: 2 old people balancing midget clowns on their heads

b: 2 people tied to chairs, back to back, trying to escape

c: a crab sticking out of an odd-shaped vase

d: 2 my little ponies a little shaken up after a day spent carting kids around a merry-go-round

e: jigglypuff

7. What's in your fridge?

Orange juice, pink grapefruit juice, 2% milk, chocolate milk, Arizona green iced tea, Poland Springs water, 9 juice boxes of Sipps iced tea, a door full of condiments and salad dressings, american cheese, genoa salami, munster cheese, a bag of lettuce, something in a container that I'm not quite sure what it is, cream cheese, 3 bottles of Corona, 2 bottles of Mike's Hard Lemonade, 1 bottle of champagne, 1 package brownie dough, 1 package sugar cookie dough, butter, Lenders bagels (plain and cinnamon raisin), margarita mix, baking soda, leftover chili, snack pack puddings.

8. What made you decide to create a personal webpage? How long have you been on the web? What other webfolk inspire you, if any?

I had been searching for somewhere to vent my misguided opinions. I came across an article on weblogs on plastic and started reading a few blogs. I realized that was what I was looking for, so I made one. It was cheesy and silly at first, and I like to think that it is still a bit cheesy and silly. It started out as just a way to vent my frustrations at the world, but it also became a journal, a place to put my writings, a hobby, an obsession and most of all, a means of communication. I started the site the end of February, 2000. I am inspired in some way by every weblog I read. Everyone has something to say and a different way of saying it. Sometimes I am inspired by words and sometimes it's a design that gets me going.For sheer personal inspiration around here, there are so many people that do so much for me, and they know who they are, but Candi and Melissa were the first blogs I read daily, the first people to link me and the first friends I made through blogging. They still inspire me.

9. Did you ever make up a game as a child that only you and your siblings (if you have any) or childhood friends played? Describe this game briefly. (Ergo....not hide and seek, because nearly every kid plays that. I made up this game called Crocodile Pit. My brother Paul was the crocodile. It basically involved not letting him bite us on the legs. Very complicated.)

We played a game called "Levitation." One person would lay down on the floor. The rest of us would sit around her - one person at her head, one at her feet, and everyone else on the sides. We would put two fingers underneath her body. We had to pretend this person was dead. The person at the head would tell the story of how the girl died, line by line. Each girl in turn would repeat the line, one by one, until we got back to the head girl. We did this untilt he story was over. Next, the head girl would say "We are now going to levitate (Cindy or whoever) and raise her from the dead." We would close our eyes and concentrate. When the head girl counted to 10, we would then take all lift the girl up with our two fingers. When she was about an inch off the ground we had to let go and see if she floated. No, it never worked. We came up with this after my mom took our Ouija board away.

10. What is the accomplishment in your life that you are most proud of?

I suppose I should say my children, which is partly true. I am really most proud not of having of them, but of how I raised them, what we overcame together (especially with my daughter and her learning disabilities) and the people they have (so far) become.