Answahs

Given the fact that I am still woozy and ill today, I asked Karl, who knows me better than I know myself, for a little help with these. I agreed with his answers.

KathyHowe:
1. I like best about myself the fact that I found the strength to assert my independence, and I'll never go back.

2. The more I think about reincarnation (I didn't have to ask Karl about this), the more I think that it is really the only possible solution. My children actually just naturally came to this life with a firm belief in reincarnation, which I have reinforced at every possible turn. The other day, I wrote in my journal this quote from Tommy: "God blows up the universe and then goes back to the Star Trek again."

And I think what he meant by this is that we are just going to do this and then start over again and again and again-- what else is there to do? Christian in particular likes to design what his future lives will be like (i.e. what creatures he will be), and because he wants me to be his mother in every future life, naturally, I agree to be, in turns: a T-Rex, a snow leopard, a dragon, an ant, and other things I cannot remember.

3. My pet peeve is people who try to control me, limit me, or tell me what to do.

Jay:

1. Favorite boardgame? Monopoly, followed closely by Scrabble and Risk.
2. Favorite City? Seattle, followed by Savannah and New Orleans.
3. Sweet or bitter?

Heith:

Q: What's the most dangerous thing you've ever done (it doesn't have to be physical danger.. but it can be)? Let my son leave with my husband to go to Cleveland when I was planning to move out while he was gone.

Q: Who would you say has had the biggest positive impact on your life? My ex-husband, because being married to him and then leaving him have been the defining events of my life. I have learned everything about who I am and who I still want to be from that marriage, hence that man. Sad, isn't it?

Q: What figure from history (any time period) do you most admire and why? You know, this even surprises me, but I think I'm going to have to go with Gertrude Stein. I am always thinking about the Paris of her time, and longing to go to Paris and pretend like Hemingway is just around the corner. But I think her life was successful: she was partnered successfully, she was brilliant and she knew it, she didn't apologize for any parts of her life: her appearance (mannish and round); her bluntness; her arrogance. She was a famous writer, who is not well-loved, but once you understand what she was attempting, she becomes brilliant. And she hung out with Picasso, for crying out loud, and saw him and saw herself for the geniuses they were. They were in the moment and they knew it. That seems so rare to me.

But I did not really realize that until you asked.