Colleen was kind enough to interview me when I commented on her interview post! If you want me to interview you, just leave a comment and let me know.

1. Why did you want a tattoo, and how did you decide on the design?
I think I have always wanted to decorate myself. I would actually get a lot more tattoos if it didn’t cost so much! It took me a long time to decide on my design, and the reason I got the one I did is because I played stringed instruments growing up. I played violin as a kid and double bass as a teenager, and the f-holes from Le Violon d’Ingres called to me. I also especially like that it’s integrated into my body as a whole, not tacked on as an afterthought. After I chose the design, I waited close to a year before actually getting it done.

2. You mention that you want approval on your about me page of your blog. Do you feel that you’re seeking approval when you blog? And if so, by whom?
I think I am always seeking approval, but I blog as much for myself as for anyone else. I enjoy having a record of my thoughts, and I keep up with my blog far more than I ever did with the diaries I had as a kid. That’s probably why I obsessively back up my database - I’m afraid of losing what I’ve written! However, I do love the praise I get sometimes about my quicklinks posts…I never tire of hearing that people like those. I do need to post more good links though, I haven’t been doing that much lately.

3. If you could move anywhere in the world, where would you live?
If money was truly no object, I think I would like to live in Japan. With a ton of cash I wouldn’t need to worry about things that might be culture shock - I could hire somebody to do that stuff for me! And living in the land of Hello Kitty and all things kawaii would just be fantastic. In terms of realistic places to live, I’d probably like Toronto. I’ve only been there once, but it was very attractive to me - there were outdoor activities in the heart of the city, and all kinds of fun stuff around. And of course there’s the bonus of being able to get married, minus the linguistic difficulty of finding a different profession.

4. Who do you miss most in your life?
My friends. I mean that in a very general sense, because I have gone through “cycles” with friends, people who have come into my life and left again. I don’t think I have any lifelong friends that I’m still in contact with; the closest it might come is a girl I knew in high school who I still e-mail on occasion, though we weren’t ever really best friends. But I have had people in my life who meant a great deal to me, and I have lost touch with them, and that makes me sad sometimes. In fact, my really good friends, my best friends, are all people I’ve met online and some of whom I’ve never even met.

5. Do you have any regrets?
I do regret an affair I had a couple of years into my relationship with my wife. We separated temporarily, and fortunately she took me back, because I’ve never loved anyone so much in my entire life. But that affair caused a lot of heartache over the following few years and I don’t think we’ll ever get over it completely…not for a long time anyway. She knows I’ll never do it again - and I won’t - but the pain will take a long time to wash away. (I almost said I regretted not finishing college the first time around, but I truly love my job and my life wouldn’t have taken this path if I hadn’t dropped out when I did…so I’m not sure I really regret that anymore.)

Not that I need to generate extra content, but I’m going to do that question month thing. You are welcome to ask me questions. I may or may not acknowledge them, I may or may not answer, it may or may not be public…it may or may not be the truth! I reserve the right not to answer any questions that might incriminate me. Mostly I just want to see what people ask me even though I am scared to.

Anonymous comments are enabled and all comments are screened. If you post anonymously and want a response, give me a way to contact you - use a temporary SpamBob.net account if you need to.

(Comments are turned off here at Amanita.net; go to this LiveJournal entry.)

I don’t know why, but it seems like 2007 is going to be the Year of the Positive for me. I have been feeling happier than I can remember in a long time. I think it probably started with seeing a therapist in January - something I hadn’t done for several years. I love my therapist, because I genuinely have revelations with her. She has taught me to realize things about myself that I hadn’t known before, which means the $100 I pay her weekly is money well-spent. I have learned positive things about my relationships, things that take away a lot of the hurt that I was feeling, things that make my heart light. And I have even taught myself about weight loss, loving my body, and being joyful. It feels like all of these positive things are so fresh and new, like they’ve all just happened…but they’ve been happening since the beginning of the year, and it’s already March, and things are still going well. I have some problems with anxiety still, but the negative self-talk has decreased. My therapist had me start reading Taming Your Gremlin, and I haven’t gotten more than a few pages into it but I’m still learning. I’ve barely even cracked the “anxiety workbook” she had me buy, but I find myself eager to start on it.

It’s amazing how positive I’m feeling. I am in charge of myself, and the way I react to the world around me is up to me. I worry less about myself! I used to think “you’re never going to get out of depression, no matter what tricks you try, it’s a horrible secret that nobody knows what a bad person you are,” but I told my therapist those exact things in one of our early sessions and…they’re gone. I hope this upward trend continues; I am waiting on a couple of results (CI test and Gallaudet admission) and I actually find myself thinking positively about them rather than expecting to fail. This is so good.

I feel like making up a meme-thing. Pick a letter, and tell me five places in the world you would like to visit, and why. It’s okay to post in the comments, or in your own blog - leave a comment and let me know where you’ve posted! My letter is S.

• San Juan, Puerto Rico - I actually have already been here (in October 2004), but I want to go back. We were only there for a few days, and there are so many things I want to see. We had fun getting around by bus and I loved the old city - I wish we’d had more time, so I want to go back.
• Sapporo, Japan - Okay, so I wanted to put Japan, but that doesn’t start with S. Sapporo is the youngest city in Japan, having been established in the mid-19th century. It’s somewhat isolated from the rest of Japan because it’s all the way north on Hokkaido, but it is presumably very similar to the rest of the country - which is very homogenous anyway.
• Stratford-upon-Avon, England - The area is beautiful, but a real draw for me is that this is the home of the Royal Shakespeare Company. When I think Shakespeare, I think RSC - I can’t help it. There is so much to learn in Stratford about the man who will probably always be the greatest playwright in the world.
• St. Petersburg, Russia - Ever since we had a Russian exchange student when I was in high school (she was actually from Kyzyl), I have been interested in Russia. I can still pronounce things written in Cyrillic, but my one year of high school Russian (also an exchange program) is long forgotten. I’ve heard that St. Petersburg is even more beautiful than Moscow, and of course I want to see the Hermitage museum, which I envision to be one of the greatest museums in the world - if I can only see two more museums in my life, I want to see the Louvre and the Hermitage.
• Sobibór, in Poland - This is totally weird of me, but I do want to see concentration camps. You can’t get a more powerful feel for history than that of being right there on-site. As wonderful as the USHMM is, it doesn’t have the bleakness of the real thing. So I’ll just be weird, because that’s a place I want to go.

Today at the conference I chatted for a long time with people I don’t know very well. We were working the booth for our employer, but we never see each other so we’re not familiar with each other. And the whole time I wasn’t sure if I was being socially appropriate. I felt like I was putting on a veneer of normality…pretending I was social when I’d really have been fine on my own. I often assume that the other person is laughing at me in their head, that I must look silly and be making a fool of myself. But I don’t know, because I think they thought I was fine. It’s very strange, and I think I do it a lot in social situations.

Okay, we are officially weird. A has gone into a Freecycling frenzy, and here are two recent listings:

OFFER: Four X-ray films of a cat
Well, these are four X-ray films of a cat. Perhaps you are an extremely creative person and want these for a project, or you want to play a practical joke on your doctor?

OFFER: Inflatable hot pink plastic poodle
Well, this is a multi-use item: scares cats and creeps out my 23-year-old sister. Perhaps it’s the festive bow and red eyes; perhaps it’s the haunting wheezing it makes when it’s squeezed. Has a loop on top for hanging as a…decorative item. Or for Halloween.

I hate how my ADHD affects my emotions. If something bad happens, I get over it fairly quickly because I forget about it. So if I have a fight with someone, I am ready to make up fairly quickly, and they usually are not. Fights that go on for a day or more just destroy me, because I am so far past it by then and I just want everything to be okay again. Sometimes the ease with which I get over things is beneficial, but mostly it’s not because other people don’t work that way. Combined with my low self esteem and tendency to catastrophize, the longer something goes on the worse I assume everything is. I hate it.

This is a tough post to write, but I’m up to the challenge. I thought about locking it, or filtering it, or something, but I’m not going to. I am, however, going to hide part of it, because not everybody wants to read about my sex life.
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My friend Cricket has a website for a meme/project she started: it’s called Before I’m Gone. I am going to send in this list of ten things I’d like to do before I die. My list is focused on things that are actually achievable now rather than requiring new technology to be developed or for me to have skills I should have started learning as a child.
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I have been so wrapped up in NonFicWriMo writing lately that by the time I’m done with that I don’t feel like writing anything else. But I do want to let people know how I’m doing! I survived the snowstorm just fine, we only got about 12″ which is not as much as they got elsewhere in the DC metro area.

My diet is going okay, but I need to start exercising because my loss has stalled. Good things are happening for me in the world of money management. My host switch is going reasonably well; I have one script that’s not working and I’m waiting to hear back from the author about it. I’m pretty sure everything else has transferred successfully and is up and running.

This weekend is Farpoint, one of the two conventions I interpret for annually up in Hunt Valley. I know that hotel like the back of my hand, it seems! And then Monday is President’s Day, so I will have the day off. I’m working on doing a technical read of an upcoming young adult novel about a deaf girl and a signing chimpanzee; my role is only to evaluate the deaf cultural aspects rather than proofread the whole book. It’s neat being involved in this.