20 Questions

Wow, I really didn’t expect to take this long to get around to answering everyone’s questions. The last couple of weeks have just been hectic, and so it got put off…and put off…but no longer!

Rather than do these one set at a time, I’ve combined them into sets of four, so here’s the first 20 questions. I’ll get the others answered in the next couple of days. If you haven’t submitted questions to me, please feel free to drop five in the comments section.

From tigerbright:

1. If money were no object, and your loves would be fine with any decision you made, where would you choose to live, and why?

With both money and approval, I’d likely move to England. I’ve always
felt that I should have been born there, and I’d love the opportunity to
live there, at least for a while. (Of course, I’d like to assume that
part of money being no object is being able to fly back to the states
regularly enough to see certain people on a regular basis. *grin*)

2. What fictional world would you choose to live in, or would you prefer this one, and why?

When we wish to live in a fantastic universe, it’s always because we
imagine that we will be one of the heroes. I’m not sure that living
in a world with, say, real superheroes, or actual magic, would really
be all that great if you were still just an ordinary mundane person.

And given that this would likely be the case, here is just fine. After
all, this is the world the people I love live in.

3. What core beliefs sustain you?

That people are, by and large, fundamentally good people who have good
intentions. That one will ultimately be rewarded for doing what one
believes is right. That one of the best things you can do, every single
day, is make an effort to make someone else’s day a little brighter.

Most of all, that love is a resource that is infinitely renewable, and
thus should never be horded.

4. What’s something you’ve done that you really liked doing, that you didn’t expect to enjoy?

Hrm. Very little comes to mind, as I tend to be a bit of a hedonist
and only do things that I reasonably expect to enjoy, as a rule. (At
least with regards to my leisure time).

I guess I’d have to say flying as a form of travel. The first trip
I ever took on an airplane was when I came up to Boston in 2002, and
I’ve logged quite a few miles since then. I really do find it a
pleasant way to travel to far away places, aside from all the hassle
of dealing with airports.

5. What one thing have you done that you would have regretted *not* doing?

Went to OVFF in 2001. If I hadn’t, it’s unlikely that I’d have gotten
together with kitanzi when I did, or possibly at all, and my
life would be infinitely poorer as a result.

from cadhla:

1. What is the best thing about living in Atlanta?

Springtime. There’s just something really amazingly special about
right now, when everything outside is warm and soft and green. I
know New England is famous for its Autumns, but I don’t think anyone
can compete with the southeast in the springtime.

2. What is the worst thing about living in Atlanta?

It’s much too far away from you.

3. What first attracted you to filk?

Filk is pretty much a logical combination of two things I already
loved: science fiction and music. But what has really KEPT me
coming back is the community. I really love the way it brings
people together to share music, which is why I ultimately prefer
sitting in a circle to sitting in a concert audience.

4. If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?

I would get rid of hatred, bigotry, and intolerance. (And, to my mind,
those really are one thing, just different manifestations and degrees).
All the conflict and the fighting over ideology is just utterly pointless,
and it makes me weary to my soul.

5. What is your favourite flavour of ice cream, and why?

Anything rich and chocolate. I love all kinds of flavours of ice cream,
honestly, but when I want the ultimate in comfort food, I want cold
chocolate melting in my mouth and coating my throat.

from fleetfootmike:

1. What have the political events of the last few years done to your desire to live somewhere other than in the US?

Well, it’s certainly intensified it, but my desire to live “somewhere
other than the US” has always been markedly specific. I’m sure that
Canada and Australia and Norway and the like are all very nice places
to live and full of very nice people, but the place that I’ve always
longed to call home is England.

Nothing I’ve seen from exposure to British culture has made me
reconsider the notion, either.

Politics being what they are, I expect it will start to swing back
away from the current position sometimes soon, though sometime soon
is best described as “sometime in the next 20-30 years”. I hope
it will be sooner.

2. If you could choose, whose guitar-playing ability (fannish or famous) would you most like to acquire?

Oh, gosh. If I had to pick just one, I’d probably pick Mark Knopfler.
I just love the expressiveness of his playing, and the sort of lazy
groove that he does so well.

Within our own circles, I’d pick Jeff Bohnhoff, who is so absurdly
talented it’d be easy to hate him, but he’s so incredibly nice you
can never manage to work yourself up to it. 🙂

3. Now I’ve at least begun to introduce you to it: which is the richer sport in terms of the depth of skill, strategy etc: cricket or baseball?

I really don’t know that I could make a comparative analysis at this
time. Thanks to spending the afternoon in your living room watching
the match and getting explanations, I at least *understand* what’s
going on in cricket now, but I’d probably need to spend a bit more
time absorbing it before I could say I really had a feel for *why*
you do certain things the way you do.

With baseball, on the other hand, I have the advantage of having been
a student of the game and its history since I was a small child. There’s
a lot of subtle things about the game that even a casual baseball fan might
miss that I pick up on, just from having been so close to it for so
long.

4. If you could go back and rescue one item from the fire, what would you grab, and why?

A teddy bear named Amadeus. When deidrecorwyn and I were
first living together, her father had to undergo heart surgery, and
we rushed down to Macon from North Carolina, as it was uncertain
if he was going to make it. We were sitting in the waiting room
in the ICU, because they were only allowing one or two visitors
at a time into the room, and deidrecorwyn looked like
she really just needed something or someone to hold onto. I spotted
the teddy bear in the hospital gift shop while on my way back from the
restroom, and bought it and gave it to her.

5. Would you switch to a Mac?

Sure. I like Macs just fine, and wouldn’t object to using one.
(Of course, I’d still want a PC around to play city of Heroes on,
but I would not mind using a Mac for my primary internet computer,
for instance).

My first home computer was an Apple ][ and I didn’t actually own
a PC until 1994.

From jerusha:

1) You’ve had to tell the “Autographed Cat” story dozens of times. Do you have another nickname with a story behind it?

Not really. I go by “Doc” on irc and on muds, which was a combination
of a nickname I had in college among certain circles, and the fact that
it was short and easy to type.

I don’t ultimately seem to be the sort of person who collects nicknames.
I’m just me.

2) What foods say “comfort” to your hindbrain?

Banana pudding. Pecan pie. Hot dogs and cheese wrapped in a croissant
and baked. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting. A good rare steak.

3) I know you have cats; are you cat-inclusive or cat-exclusive (i.e. would you have other species of pets in addition to cats, or would you only ever have cats)?

Cats are my preferred pet, but I am not averse to other animals. I’ve
kept both mice and fish as pets, and I like snakes except that I hate
the idea of feeding them (having kept mice as pets, there’s something
in me that recoils at the idea…I know it’s nature, and I have no
problem with it in the abstract; I once watched a snake devour a
sacrificial mouse during a ZooAtlanta outing with plaid_dragon
last year, and it was fascinating, but I wasn’t the one who gave the
mouse to the snake (and it was already dead…but I digress)).

I like dogs, but prefer not to have to take care of them; they are
not low-maintanence pets. And I’ve heard enough ferret stories
from kitanzi to never ever want one of those loose in
my house.

But by and large, animals are good. I like animals. Cats are just
my favourite.

4) If you were going to learn a new(-to-you) language, what would you pick? Why?

I’ve always joked that I want to learn Flemish, because it’s terribly
unuseful.

I’ve always thought that Russian is a very beautiful sounding language.

But probably, the most useful language I could learn is Spanish, as it
is the most commonly used second language in the area in which I live.

5) You’re being sent back in time to the 1950 Worldcon. You will be there for one hour, moderating a panel titled “The Future”. You have a one foot cube that will transit with you that you can pack with props. What do you bring?

An iPod, a laptop computer, a PalmPilot, a digital camera, and a
mobile phone.

To me, portable media and communication are the biggest technological
achievements of the last 50 years. The entire *world* has changed in
ways we can really only begin to appreciate, having lived through it
all.

jerusha‘s sixth question to me was “hey, whatever happened to the questions I asked you LAST time this meme went around?” Ooops! Here are the long-awaited answers!)

1) How did you end up living in Atlanta?

I met deidrecorwyn at a convention in 1989, and ended up
moving to Athens, GA, to be with her. Eventually, I ended up getting
a job in Alpharetta, and moved to the Atlanta area to be close to that
job.

2) If you were custom-designing the weather, what would your ideal climate be?

I want proper seasons, neither too hot nor too cold in the summer and
winter, but warm enough to go out and enjoy lazy summer days, and cold
enough to get proper snow in the winter, but not so much snow that it
becomes a nuisance.

I’m fairly well aware that there really is no such place.

3) What would your ideal (but real-world-feasible) mode of transportation be? (i.e. not teleportation, unless you’ve actually figured out the physics to make it work, in which case – share!)

If money is no object, I’d love to have my own airplane. The main problem
with traveling by car is that it takes too long to get anywhere. I love
train travel, but in the US that doesn’t really get you many places, and
it takes too long to get there if it does…I know the idea is that the
trip is part of experience, but I generally can take only so much time
away from work. (Then again, if money is no object, maybe that’s not
a problem either.

4) Do you play instruments other than guitar? If not now, might you in the future?

I personally find it debatable that I play the guitar, but others seem
to enjoy what I do. *grin*

I don’t presently play another instrument. I’d love to learn to play
the piano, and I wouldn’t mind being able to play the drums, though I
am not sure I’m coordinated enough to really get the hang of it.

5) What’s your favorite flavor? (Perhaps unwisely, I leave “for what” up to you…)

Pretty girl. 😉