I Fall into What Category? – Lola's Curmudgeonly Musings

Quick update:

I just wrote a short explanation on what’s been happening and why I haven’t been writing when…… I lost it, as in the draft, not my sanity (which is tenuous in the best of times, which this isn’t).

So…..Let’s try again. Shall we?

Very brief explanation: When I was finally ready to get back to posting a few weeks ago, my laptop died, as in completely, as in no amount of begging, jiggling cords, or cursing would resurrect it, and so I am left with only my old phone as the only method with which to write, and as witnessed by the loss of a post just seconds ago, it’s not the best route for writing anything more than a sentence or two. Plus, my Swype function is doubling every other word, so instead of getting the word write, I’m getting writewrite. Apologies if I don’t catch allall of the errors (like the one that I’ve deliberately left in this sentence).

I’m hoping to bring my old desktop back online soon, but that requires so much more than just plugging it in. So until then, this is all that there is, and it ain’t much.

Hope you are all staying safe and healthy out there. Remember: Hoarding toilet paper or any other commodities doesn’t make you smart; it just makes you an a-hole.

More later just as soon as I can. Peace.

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Thursday afternoon, sunny and beautiful, 72 degrees.

I’ve decided to do another one of those surveys that I had in my drafts folder. Don’t really know why, but it just seemed like a thing to do. So here goes . . .

If you could . . .

Travel anywhere, where would it be? My dream is to take a very long vacation trip to Europe, beginning in Ireland, traveling all over the UK, and then other cities in Europe, including Prague, Venice, Rome, Amsterdam, and the South Coast of Iceland, among others.
Meet anyone, who would it be? This is hard to narrow to one. The people I would most like to meet are prolific authors such as Margaret Atwood or Stephen King or J. K. Rowling so that I could talk to the about character development. I would like to meet the Dalai Lama and the Pope, not because I’m religious but because I think that the conversations would be incredible. I would also like to meet Peter Jackson, just because . . .
Bring anyone dead back to life, who would it be? This one is very, very hard. Personally, I would bring back family members like my parents, if only to be kinder and more involved with them. I would bring back Caitlin, of course, but only if she could be healthy. And I would bring back Sylvia Plath and William Shakespeare, because, again, I would love to have conversations with them.
Be anyone for a day, who would it be? I would like to be president for a day, or maybe a week, because so much in this country needs to be fixed.
Get anything for free for the rest of your life what would it be? This one is easy: books, books, and books. And after books, makeup, just for fun. And third would be shoes/boots, even though I never leave the house.
Change one thing about your living situation what would it be? I would fix our financial situation; I’m not talking about being rich or winning the lottery, but just being comfortable enough not to be worrying about finances all of the time. The stress from this situation can be paralyzing. The other thing I would want to change is the distance from my kids.
Have any superpower what would it be? Not invisibility. Not flying. Not super strength. I would rather have the ability to time travel. Can you just imagine the things that you could see and do? Or I would like to be a true medium, if there is such a thing.
Have one living person back in your life that is not a relative, who would it be? Mari. I miss having her in my life on a daily basis. Also, Kathleen and Rebecca.
Change one thing about the world what would it be? I would fix global warming, because so many things are related to this: food production, fresh water, viability in certain parts of the world. In my mind, this is the most pressing problem facing humanity.
Repair one relationship, which would you choose? My relationship with my youngest son. I would give anything to be able to know how to fix this as it is a constant, deep source of personal pain.
Have your dream house, what would it look like? I would have a log house with wooden beams and lots of big windows, a large kitchen, at least two bathrooms, one of which would have a claw-footed soaking tub, four bedrooms, one big enough for a king-sized bed, a room just for my books, a wrap-around porch, a greenhouse, a writing shed, and an in-ground pool with an attached hot tub.
Change one thing about your physical appearance what would it be? I would probably change my arms, which sounds weird, but I’ve always wanted to have Linda Hamilton arms from the second Terminator movie. I think that toned arms are very sexy, but even when I was working out all of the time, I couldn’t get my arms to look the way that I wanted them to look.
Change one of your personality traits which would you choose? I think that I’d get rid of either my self-doubt or my tendency to obsess over things that cannot be changed. But I should probably change my body dysmorphia. See, that obsessive stuff again . . .
Refine or perfect one thing that you think you are good at, what would you choose? I would like to be a more productive writer, as in actually doing something with my writing. I think that I have genuine talent as a writer, but I am not productive in the true sense.
Forget one event in your life which would you choose? I would love so much not to remember a few things in my life. You might think that I would like to forget holding Caitlin as she died, but I never want to forget that or forget her short life. In contrast, I wish that I could forget the one time in my life in which something happened because I had too much to drink. That memory still comes back to haunt me, and to this day I do not like to overindulge because of that loss of control.
Erase an event from history (make it so it never happened) which would you choose? Nazi Germany and all of the other historical genocides, like Rwanda, Cambodia, Armenia, Darfur, Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and many, many more. Killing people simply because they are others has been such a blight on humanity, but it keeps happening.
Meet one notorious person from history, who would it be? This one is hard. I’m fascinated by psychopaths, but from a distance. Would I really want to spend a few hours with Bundy or Manson? Honestly, I don’t know.
Live in any country/city, where would you choose? Ireland. It’s always been Ireland, and I have come to realize that this will never happen, and that still breaks my heart a little.
Change one law in your country, which would you change? Hard to pick just one: I would make the anti-stalking laws better defined and easier to enforce; I would make marriage equality a law of the land; I would make the Equal Rights Amendment part of the Constitution, but most of all, I would protect a woman’s right to choose nationally, eliminating all of those draconian state laws. If you know anyone who has died from an illegal abortion, this will always be a hot button issue.
Have any job in the world, which would you choose? I have always wanted to work for a publishing company; I mean, I’ve wanted to do this since I was a teenager. I got a publishing degree and then never got a job to go with it. Why? I can only blame myself.
Have anything appear in your pocket right now, what would it be? Again, hard to pick just one, and small enough to fit in a pocket is particularly hard: my Uncle’s ring that we lost years ago; a gold walnut that my mother had that I wasn’t able to find after she died; a Thai princess ring that my dad gave me, which I lost when I was young; a star sapphire that fell out of a different ring that my dad gave me—I guess it’s mostly sentimental pieces of family jewelry.
Meet any individual who exists in film or print, who would it be? Yoda, from Star Wars, or Aragorn, from the Lord of the Rings book, or Tyrion from HBO’s Game of Thrones. Again, just think of the conversations that you could have, and even though Tyrion was created in Martin’s books, I love Peter Dinklage’s portrayal.
Change one thing from your childhood, what would it be? I always wanted siblings, but I suppose that wasn’t really up to me. If not siblings, then I would have liked to be bi-lingual. Why did I never learn Tagalog?
Get rid of one thing in society, what would it be? Social media. It’s destroying actual social interaction. It’s too easy to be cruel when you live virtually. It’s too easy to forget how to deal with people in real life if you never move away from your screens.
Have a different career, what would you choose? Medicine or law, both of which I seriously considered. Or, marine biology. It never occurred to me when I was young and choosing a field that I could train in a career other than English because you can write no matter what career you have. I know that now. Hindsight.
Eat only one kind of food for the rest of your life, what would it be? Dessert: pies, Tiramisu, cheesecake, pudding, but only if it didn’t affect my blood sugar. A close second would be fresh fruit.