Sunday, November 15, 2009

A Questionaire


Oh, hi! I'm glad you're here because I have some questions for you. However, let me preface the questions with a little anecdote I just thought of.

I once participated in a week-long social experiment that was kind of like that Stanford prison experiment that studied the relationship between prisoner and guard, except it studied what happens to people who try run a political campaign without established leadership. Anyway, I learned a lot of things about human nature, like that people generally agree with the bully, especially if he or she is always wrong. Not sure why. What I learned about myself is that I ask a lot of questions.

During my week as a laboratory rat, I was in a group of 8 people who were supposed to be interacting, PLUS one "tracker," who was supposed to be taking meticulous notes on everything we did. At the end of the week, the tracker reported to us on our behavior. Our tracker said, "Jesslyn, at one point this week you asked 47 questions in a one-hour period." Seriously. That's like a question every 72 seconds. That barely gives someone time to answer before it's AGAIN WITH THE QUESTIONS. Always the questions.

So, anyway. I have some questions for you. Please answer them in the comments section. Make your answers as long or as short as you like. I'm really interested. I'll answer them too, because I would never ask you to perform any feats that I myself have not first proven possible.

1. What is one thing about your daily life that mystifies you?
Two things about my daily life puzzle me, and they both have to do with fingernails. First, Odessa's fingernails grow at the rate of about a quarter of a mile an hour. Literally. Well, not literally, but it feels like literally.
Secondly, my fingernails have been really dirty in the past couple of months. Why? I'm not doing anything differently than before other than eating a bunch of pomegranates, and while you do really have to get in there with a pomegranate, I'm not eating THAT many pomegranates. To look at my fingernails, you would think I've been working all day on a potato farm.

2. What is something that you really like that you suspect might not be very cool?
Where to start? I should ask Bryan because if I had a nickel for every time he rolled his eyes at the book I was reading or the show I was watching on Hulu, I'd have at least $10, and would go buy myself a scented candle or something. Here are three:
a. Ugly Betty, a terrible show which I watch for reasons unknown even to me.
b. A book series for preteen girls by Louise Rennison which includes such austere titles as Are These my Bassombas I See Before Me? and Startled by His Furry Shorts.
c. Bryan considers my singing Tiny Dancer to Odessa before bed as grounds for an investigation by Child Protective Services. Okay, so I easily tolerate Elton John, and even know all the words to Rocket Man. Plus, I dare you to put on an Indigo Girls album released before 1996 and see if I can't sing harmony to every single song. Because I can. Don't test me.

3. Who--living or dead--do you think has their priorities in order?
Even though Walt Whitman might have been a perverted old codger, "All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor." I appreciate tact, but I appreciate honesty more.

4. What do you wish was different about your life?
I wish I was really neat and organized. And the ceilings in my house were higher. And that I was good at decorating my house. And that I had really great clothes. And that I could lose this extra 20 pounds that's been just hanging around since Odessa was born, borrowing my toothbrush and stealing gum out of my purse and giving me unsolicited financial advice.

5. What's the worst smell?
At risk of giving you too much info about my life, I'm just going to lay this one out there. It might not be the most disgusting smell (like cat pee ossified in your heating vent or dog diarrhea or drunk person puke), but I hate this smell the most at the moment because it's what I have to deal with on a regular basis.
So, I had Odessa, right? And I started lactating, right? And while I'm glad to be able to feed my child, etc., I have these two bras that I had before Odessa was born that are sort of foamy inside (notice I didn't say "padded," because they're so totally not) because, let's face it, I didn't blossom into womanhood until I started nursing, and I used to need a little help in the décolletage area. ANYWAY, they still basically fit me, and I wear them every so often, and yet, when I do wear them, I smell them all day long. They've obviously come in contact with some breast milk and that milk has gone sour, and the smell will not come out of these bras. These $70 bras that still totally do their job, only they smell like the business end of a dairy cow. Gross.

So, you may begin the quiz....NOW!

3 comments:

  1. OK, I'll go first...
    1) How even after a particularly long night of agonizingly bad sleep due to my son's inability to sleep through the night... he is still completely and irresistably adorable when the sun comes up - it must be evolutionary.
    2) The fresh smell of clorox clean-up (TM) in my kitchen and/or bathroom... but especially the kitchen.
    3) My husband - hands down.
    4) I wish that I was perfect and that I could do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to... also I wish I was more punctual yet more easy going... there's more, but I need to get back to work.
    5) B.O. that smells like mexican food - blech.

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  2. 1) how many choices i have about how i want to live my life, even on a day-to-day basis- and how, while i should appreciate this and feel blessed, most of the time it just stresses me out.
    2)nearly everyday when i am teaching i say or do something in an attempt to relate to my students,who are all 10 years younger than me, and therefore proove my cool-ness.... the reaction i get invariably prooves me wrong.
    3)probably my friend rosa. she lives in a small wooden hut in a village in paraguay with no running water and her priorities are things like getting the clothes washed, milking the cow, weeding the garden, and taking a good nap. please refer to answer number 1.
    4)i wish i had a benefactor. some anonymous person who would just send me a check every month with a little note that said something like "here. do whatever you want. make it count."
    5)mexican food that smells like BO?
    (that and my own morning breath, but dont tell anybody i said that)

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  3. 1)that there are Never, NEVER enough hours in the day to get what I'd like to get done, done; nor do I have the get up and go to do most of them.
    btw- pomegranates are BOGO at Publix now Jesslyn :)
    2)I honestly love to pick at Jeremy's back pimples like a monkey. I also enjoy getting Ava's preposterously large boogers out of her littly bitty nose. At last- you can breathe little one!
    3)My father has his priorities in order, almost to a fault, and it drives me crazy, mostly because I'm jealous of his diligence, but also because his list can take precedence over pleasant spontenaity sometimes- my specialty!
    4)I also wish I was really neat and organized. And more creative. I honestly know I used to be more creative but somethings gotten in the way in there. I blame school. School can be bad, mmmkay.
    5)Hands down, stagnant pools of water. I used to encounter them alot out in the field, especially by peoples houses for some odd reason, and they almost always spawned masses of mosquitoes which just compounded my displeasure.

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