Thursday, April 12, 2007

C'est Moi

Am I lucky that my readers are such Nosy Nellies or what?! Thanks for the questions folks – I’m going to answer them in two batches, lest you get tired of reading my witty rejoinders.

Questions from Zulhai:

How and why did you become a yogi?
Well, my first answer, that I LOVE to be the only black person in a room, is not exactly accurate, so I’ll tell you the real story.

In a past life, I was a psychotherapist working exclusively with battered women. It was stressful and draining and traumatizing. (It was also inspiring, empowering, and fulfilling, but since that’s not the part of it that sent me to yoga, it’s not very relevant here.)

Anyway, I was stressed out and looking for a different form of exercise, and I kept hearing about ashtanga yoga, so I thought I’d give it a try. Not to be overly cheese-filled, but my first class was kind of like coming home. I have been doing yoga fairly regularly since, except when I wasn’t. (described here)

What are you reading for fun?
Because I believe in blog integrity, I will tell you even if it makes me feel a wee bit sheepish. I just finished a book called The Mountain’s Call. I’d like to report that I just read a book from the yearly 10 Best Books List or somesuch, but the truth is I want my fiction to be wholly not of this world. Therefore, I tend toward fantasy and historical fiction (not romance).

If you were to ever get a tattoo, what would it be?
I have two tattoos, but if I were to get another one (which I won’t because I feel like that would cross the line into tattoo-mania) I would most likely get some combination of Zane’s, SRH’s, and my initials.

What would your perfect garden look like?
Here’s something my mother did to me as a child: she made me really appreciate a beautiful yard full of flowers and trees. Here’s what she did not do: give me a love of gardening.

Therefore, my perfect garden would look like my mom out in my yard working to make it pretty.

Are you going to try and sell the house again?
No, no, a million times no. We are settled for the next few years at least.


Question from SRH:

Okay, Miss grumbling-about-my-not-mentioning-our-12th-anniversary. What did we do for our first actual date then? No fair asking me either.
You know that I have no idea what we actually did on our first date. I’m sure it involved food and sex. Am I right?

(Okay, the good girl in me right now is cringing that you all might believe that I slept with SRH on our first date. I didn’t. But it’s way better than the story I can’t remember.)


Questions from aeronwen:

How did you choose Zane's name?
I didn’t actually pick Zane’s name – SRH did. We had it narrowed down to two choices: Zane and Finn. I was so “over it” after my horrific labor experience that I made SRH choose.

However, the process of narrowing the list down to two choices was really difficult. At times I wondered how SRH and I had ever successfully lived together when he was so, so stupid.

What's your favorite quote?
I have many. Right now I’m partial to, The dream is real, my friends. The failure to realize it is the only unreality. Toni Cade Bambara

What's the coolest thing you own and why is it cool?
Although this will surprise no one, this is the point where I official cop to being “not cool”. I can’t think of anything cool that I own. My new kitchenaid ice cream scoop? Nah, no one will appreciate the beauty of its ergonomic utility. The four dollar necklace that I got from Santa this year? No, it’s not especially en vogue. It’s too delicate and cheap. My growing collection of greatest hits cds? (Cyndi Lauper, the Commodores, Counting Crows, LL Cool J) Nope, those just show that I have advanced to a certain age.

Using no more than 10 nouns, describe yourself.
Nouns are hard! But here it goes: mother, partner, mulatto (ha ha! what a horrific term, but it’s technically accurate), woman, feminist, blogger, yogi, learner, friend, bad ass.


Questions from Thea:

How can you not like graham crackers?
I believe that I have covered this quite thoroughly, but it bears repeating. Graham crackers are the work of the devil.

If you won the lottery, how would you spend the money?
I’d move to the Pacific Northwest and buy a reasonable house. SRH would get a new car and probably a new computer.

We’d travel. A lot.

I’d write every day, and pay someone to publish me. I’d also make an endowment to support core work at local domestic violence programs and innovative initiatives for ending woman abuse.

My mom would have no bills and a salary, and Zane would go to the best OT in the city. I might also invest in one of those mondo-big Rainbow Play systems. He’s a good kid. He likes to climb.

Also, we’d all have really cool shoes.

Giving specific locales, what is your dream vacation?
The problem is that I haven’t traveled that extensively, so specific locales are hard for me. But I really like the mountains and hiking, and I dream of going on a Country Walkers vacation.

How many licks does it take you to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop?
It’s like you’re killing me with the food stuffs, Thea. I HATE tootsie rolls. Therefore, I have never gotten to the center of one. I have found that the tootsie roll nastiness actually permeates the entire pop, so I have rarely gotten past 2 licks. Bleck!


Question from Lsig:

Aside from your totally awesome friends, what do you miss most about your college life?
The hookers and blow? No, that wasn’t me?

Okay, I really miss going out dancing. I never do that anymore. I’m always going to bed early and not drinking. Dancing was one of the best parts of college. (As an aside, one of the most popular dance songs of our college years was playing in my dentist’s office the other day. Remember this?)


Okay, that seems like enough for now. That was totally fun to do. More to come, so I hope you guys enjoyed it, too!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you don't care for the word mulatto, my friend is fond of "Halfrican American." Try it on, see what you think. And if you could possibly help me come up with such a similarly clever Half Filipino phrase, that would be awesome.

Thea @ It's Me Vs. Me said...

no grahams and no tootsie pops?? I feel like I don't know you at all...

zulhai said...

Why is the word Mulatto bad? It reminds me of cafe expres and beignets. Kind of Old World exotic, like Quadroon,Octroon, Demi-monde.
In Hawaii we say Hapa, from Hapa Haoule, which is the pidgen term for half white. The word for negro is Popolo, which is a type of berry.
Anyway, I say we get a t-shirt saying "Mulatto Women of America: genotype of the future"

Anonymous said...

If we lived closer, we'd totally have to go dancing. I miss it, too.

S said...

So what you're saying is you don't like graham crackers...






(LOL, j/k)

Sue said...

That was fun. I'm looking forward to the rest of the questions!

Zany Mama said...

riley-
I am embracing the "Halfrican American" label as we speak.

Although I haven't come up with something for you yet, I'm quite sure it's going to come to me shortly.

thea-
This is precisely why I am reluctant to do memes (although this post is not a meme) - they always reveal my weird food issues. Maybe some day I'll do a post of all the foods I dislike.

Then no one will respect me.

zulhai-
I have always felt that mulatto hearkens back to days of antiquated race classification - and since some say the origin of the word is mule, I haven't found it particularly useful.

On the other hand, should you decide to get those t-shirts made, I would wear it ALL THE TIME.

Maybe we can come up with some similarly wonderful t-shirt for Riley.

lsig-
Yes, why don't you live closer. It totally bums me out that you don't.

aerowen-
I'm not stating that I don't like graham crackers. I'm stating that they are evil, vile, and should be banned from consumption by innocent preschoolers.

And I'm not that fond of them. :)

sue-
Glad you liked it. I will admit, that it was a super fun, easy post to write.

Anonymous said...

If mulatto were derived from mule, it would be "mulito", or "mulero." And in fact, it wouldn't make much sense. Grammaticaly it doesn't really work. If you wanted to say someone was like a cat, for example, you can't say "gatado."
According to wikipidia, it is one of those hispanic words derived from Arabic, like ojala is from O Allah, and aranja is from naranj (orange). The original Arabic word is something like mullawadi, which translates as "son of a non-muslim (or foreign) mother," which makes more sense.
Atmikha