 Reader Questions |
|
I sent a request to my notify list for reader questions. I'm going to make my way through them gradually. Here goes! Hez: Well, since it's almost Halloween, how about you write about your first Halloween memories? What was your first time Trick-or-Treating like, what was your favourite costume, did you attend any Halloween parties? I think I was a bunny and a ballerina when I was little. I know there are pictures somewhere. Most of my Halloween memories consist of the few years that my parents decided that Halloween was Satanic so they didn't let us go trick-or-treating and I threw lots of tantrums. Once they came to their senses, I remember dressing up as a princess with some of my friend's awesome costume jewelry. I loved that costume. The same friend and I decorated her house for a kick-ass Halloween party at her house in the 8th grade, which I believe is how an original classic song "Don't Feed Spiders Turpentine" was composed. We were distressed when a giant bowl of popcorn was thrown by one of the boys and all of the little paper bags filled with sand and little candles were lit on fire and thrown by another. It was Halloween Gone Awry, and we still talk about it to this day. Amy: How about the story of your first kiss? The gross-out factor, what you were wearing, where you were, etc. I think my first kiss was in a shed with a boy I was "going with." It's kind of a blur. I think I was twelve, and I was probably wearing a very ugly circa 1987 outfit. I think we both had braces. I know we were in the dark, because back then I think it was far too embarrassing to kiss unless it was pitch black in the room. We kissed at lots of parties in dark bathrooms, store rooms, closets, and sheds. He was a nice boy, and we "went together" in both 7th and 8th grades. I am blushing at the dorkiness of it all, actually. I'll try to scan some pictures if I think about it. Ty: Have you always lived where you live now? I was born in Washington, D.C., because my dad was working there at the time. When I was six months old, my parents moved back to Louisiana (where they're from, only from Cajun country) and bought the house where I grew up and where they still live. I lived in Florida for one year as a teacher, and I "lived" in North Carolina, Colorado, and Orlando during summers in college, but mostly, I've just lived here. Do you identify as a Southerner? Yes. I always loved the book For the Love of Robert E. Lee. Garnet is a teenager in the South in the 60s and she is mortified about it. She loves John F. Kennedy and wearing black and cannot deal with her racist bitch of a grandmother. But as the book progresses, she ends up thinking, you know what? It's not so terrible here, and not everyone is hateful, and there is hope for us all. And she becomes proud. And I am telling you, I never really got into the weird flashbacks about Robert E. Lee, but I loved Garnet, and that book changed the way I thought about who I was and where I'm from. Do you think it has formed you (behavior, personality, taste)? How? I am definitely a product of this place. It's hard to break it down into behavior, personality, and taste. Overall, it's hard to pinpoint things about me that are inherently Southern because I know people all over the country who share exact traits and attitudes and ideas and they are from places like Chicago and Philadelphia and California. But I think there is a strange Southern tendency, especially among women, if I may generalize, to exist in this simultaneous mode of wanting to welcome and please and host and accommodate -- while also shrugging in a "well, fuck it!" manner if someone doesn't like the way we talk or dress or cook or act. It's a strange dichotomy, and I don't know that it's a "Southern" thing, but I know a lot of people here who are like that. Maybe it is why we are all somewhat crazy. What about you "gives it away" to people who meet you? My accent, although it always morphs a little depending on whom I'm with. Like, I know that since I was rooming with a bunch of non-Southerners in Austin, I probably subconsciously de-twanged a little bit without even realizing it. What do you hate about being from/in the South? The illiterate racist rednecks ... and what seems to be the worldwide perception that we're ALL a bunch of illiterate racist rednecks. Also, the mosquitoes are RIDICULOUS. What do you love about it? I like the casualness and that we seem to collectively lack the sticks up our asses that I've encountered in other places. The sense of come one, come all, and the more the merrier. Everyone always wants to invite everybody and there's always room for more and plenty of food and drinks to go around. At the same time, I feel like we're our own best kept secret. It's like my dad says -- let people think terribly of us! Let people hate the South and make fun of Louisiana! They'll stay away and we can have it all to ourselves. He's joking, but on some level, I appreciate the joke. It's kind of like -- people don't know how great a lot of the South is, and let them think what they want. We know who we are and what we have here and fuck any people who think they're better. Also, the weather. The summers are hot as almighty fuck, but the rest of the year makes up for it. I love not living in a place where it gets bitterly cold and stays that way for months on end. And if I could not go down the street for a beignet or some crawfish etouffee, I would certainly cry. If you had to leave for a compelling reason (a fantastic job offer, a lover who wants you to move to Alaska with him...) what would you miss most? The people and the weather. Seriously. Once, my friend and I were headed home after a trip to a bitterly cold New York at Christmas, and while we had a great time, it was with relief that we said on the plane what has now become a catchphrase: "Let's go back to the South. Where the weather is warm and the people are nice." I could say a lot more about my feelings as a Southerner and as a Louisianian, but I'll stop for now. (I said a lot about it in this entry from 2000.) If you could look at all potential lovers impartially and unemotionally with a checklist in hand and evaluate them by a set of criteria (a list of things you want and appreciate in someone you are involved with, things that would keep you interested) what would those criteria be? (Intellectual, personality-wise, physical, whatever) I hate to just revert to things I've already said, but this entry pretty much captures the answer to this question.
© Copyright 2003 elb |
(Can you tell what DVDs I'm making my way through?) |
