O Brave New World...

Both mistersmearcase and microbie did this, and even though I never do it and think my life is too dull to do it, I decided to check it by trying.


1. What did you do in 2024 that you'd never done before?

God. Did I do ANYTHING I've never done before? I mean, at least it isn't like two years ago when I did cancer, which I'd 'never done before'. Um. I kind of think not? If something occurs to me, I'll circle back. Oh, ha -- SUCCEEDED IN NOT BEING PURGED from a book/study group. Two, in fact! Take that, you bastard Maoist women in Chicago in the late 90s! One on Palestine and one on (anti)fascism. They were both good. The (anti)fascist one was actually put on by Solidarity, which is the socialist group I still pay dues to (in addition to DSA, but I am not active in either... it had been ages since I interacted with Soli folks, and I helped found that group when I was 18, in 1984. I was the only "youth" in the group.) It was really nice to see old comrades. And the discussions and readings were fucking great. I should maybe actually post the readings list.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I never make resolutions, and I will not make any formal ones this year. I DO have a To Do list of shit I have disgracefully neglected for literally years, but that is very depressing.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No -- but Lucie, the wife of one of my best friends, Adam, is due in about eleven days -- in fucking Kazakhstan! They already have a toddler named Sebouh Marx Hefty (I should redact that, but I think I am going to make this private-to-me only anyway). Adam lived in Saudi Arabia for... jesus... eight years? and has now moved to another similar academic position in Astana, Kazakhstan.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No. Though I always freak out and cry at the deaths of friends' pets, and that happened at least three times this year.

5. What countries did you visit?

None

6. What would you like to have in 2025 that you lacked in 2024?

Better health, based on me taking better preventative care of myself?

7. What date from 2024 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Ugh November 5th, where we all stupidly hoped against hope down to the wire. UGH. Even though, like many friends, I despise Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Hmm. Maybe recommitting to learning more Hindi via Duolingo? I'm also doing Irish (fuck their spelling, though)

9. What was your biggest failure?

Health. Ignoring Devlin's paws, thinking it was arthritis that was making her limp. Luckily, that grievous error ended well and she is fine and entirely recovered and will not have claw problems again now that I have discovered a mobile pet groomer/vet tech.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I think I won't know until after the mammogram. I still have not had Covid, fingers crossed.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

I indulge myself with lots and lots of ebooks from Amazon... I have an upcoming thought of a big expenditure (which will gratify my sister) -- getting my carpeting replaced.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

"The people who work to help those in Gaza and to show the rest of us what's really going on." Yes. What microbie said... including Owen Jones, whose passion and anger and integrity are deeply appreciated. I am not enough of a social media consumer to know all of the people in Gaza who are documenting this insanity.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Here I agree with microbie also, but will add on a personal note... a friend of twenty years' standing who converted to Judaism a few years ago from an adulthood so far of hippie paganism and CHOSE UNREMITTING ZIONISM as their Jewish identity and politics. It has been an excruciating year with them, and I think it is the end of the friendship. They are a person who absolutely loves to correct people on the internet, and dive deep into Reddit and other cesspits and when they turned that focus on me, wanting me to argue and debate with them, it was horrific. They cherrypick ridiculous statistics and data (and always have, in whatever internet obsession they are currently fielding) and feel like they are Experts on Israel and Palestine based on their friendship with a staffer for the ADL (a childhood friend) and pretty obvious CIA and Mossad "Palestinian" sources.

14. Where did most of your money go?

See aforementioned Amazon ebook comment.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

I was actually pretty excited to do the Soli book/readings group with my older niece, via Zoom.

16. What was the worst thing you bought in 2024?

Hm. I can't think of anything ridiculous or regrettable. Some books were stupider than others.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

I. Happier or sadder? sadder

II. Thinner or fatter? I think fatter

III. Richer or poorer? About the same, I guess, except that the mortgage amount ticks down excruciatingly slowly, and the savings account ticks up equally excruciatingly slowly.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

mustered up the will to try walking with a fucking LIGHT walker, up and down my hallway

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

ordered food using apps

20. How did you spend Christmas?

Christmas Eve here at my place, with my sister, brother-in-law, and nieces -- we watched Kneecap (which I'd already seen with my sister) and then It's a Wonderful Life which I persist in viewing as a late document of American fellow-traveler Pop Front culture (it's really almost ten years too late for that, but whatever). Christmas Day -- ten hours of it! Unheard of for me!) at my sister's, opening presents and hanging out. I got my sister to start Slow Horses which is an enjoyable Brit spy series.

21. "What was the best live show/concert/event you attended? (Formerly "Did you fall in love in 2024?" a.k.a. the El DeBarge question)"

I can't answer either of these questions interestingly. I don't think I give a damn about falling in love (I've always been at least agnostic on it, and I think I am a worse person when I am involved in it)... and it's been a LONG TIME since I saw any music live. I guess going to a movie theater to see Kneecap was unusual for me, and I enjoyed that.

22. How many one-night stands? (need to think of an alternative question)

lol

23. What was your favorite TV program?

You know, I'd like to enjoy Abbott Elementary, but it makes me anxious, possibly partly because it is quite realistic, and partly because I just do not like long series anymore. I think it's good, and funny, and I like Quinta Brunson a lot... but. In terms of series that are streamable, oh, so many! My nieces just got me into Never Have I Ever, which R the Elder CLAIMED they were hate-watching, but admitted that "it goes down easy"... it's is pretty perfectly calibrated to entertain all three of us with its high school Indian-American heroine based partly on Mindy Kaling and all the self-reinforcing Netflix pop culture references you can imagine. Also, Slow Horses as mentioned. Also finished Derry Girls, finally. Also Bodkin and... was Deadloch this year? Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Warrior. Shogun (the new one, which I was reluctant about because I loved Toshiro Mifune in the 80s miniseries and have read Clavell's books approximately a bazillion times... but now I am kind of excited to see what they do as they go off book but continue the Tokugawa Shogunate story). Anyway, a lot of streamed stuff.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

I'm getting there with the friend-turned-Zionist, which is super sad.

25. What was the best book you read in 2024?

Nonfiction: The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi, I think.

Fiction: The Marvelous Mirza Girls by Sheba Karim -- YAF about an Indian Muslim mother and daughter who go back to India to live for a year in Delhi. Kind of an Indian Me Too moment, also.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Seriously I am enjoying Kneecap, though I liked their music before this year.

27. What did you want and get?

books, more political discussions even if via Zoom, a continuing sense of enjoyment at the alternative school/program where I am in my third year of working

28. What did you want but didn't get?

Hm. Maybe Bernie Sanders running again instead of just accepting Biden and then Harris.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

I enjoyed Bullet Train very much too! And I watched it this year. Otherwise, I've already babbled about Kneecap... Irish language hip hop and Irish nationalist politics in the North of Ireland in the present day, linked to the real history, but also seeing a way forward with cross community youth who understand the class based similarities? I dunno, it was just great.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 58. I don't actually remember what we did. I am going to say it is likely that my sister et al brought me Irish soda bread and we hung out.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Less pusillanimous Democrats

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2024?

Have I already said this? The day I started at this program IN PERSON (I'd worked the first year from home, teaching via Zoom, and I was very nervous about coming back) I wore what I really wanted to wear every day to our back to school staff meeting -- a teeshirt, a cardigan, and patterned pajama pants and crocs. And I girded my metaphorical loins and directly asked the administrator/boss guy if what I was wearing was "professional enough" and he looked surprised and said yes, of course. So that is what I wear EVERY DAY. I have a lot of different patterned pajama bottoms and a lot of different cardigans.

33. What kept you sane?

My nieces, my cat Devlin, my sister, books, absorbing shows, politics, Bollywood music, Duolingo

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Yeah, I don't really do that

35. What political issue stirred you the most?

Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and fuck Israel.

36. Who did you miss?

I miss my friend Alistair, in Britain. I miss Adam, now in Kazakhstan. I miss getting to hang out with Meghan, in Missouri, though we talk on the phone. I miss my mother, still. I miss my grandmother, too -- so many things I would ask her if I could.

37. Who was the best new person you met?

I enjoy the new social worker at my school/program

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2024:

Jesus. I am really bad at something like that. I feel like I do not successfully learn life lessons. I just continue fucking up in the same areas of my life.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

No

40. Post a picture of something(one) that made you happy this year.

I fucking hate DW for making image hosting so near impossible

41. Did you wrong or hurt somebody in 2024?

I think the possibly former friend would feel I did, but I also feel that about them.

42. Is there some new place you are planning to visit in 2025?

not sure -- I'd maybe like to drive East to Chicago this coming summer. My older niece and I have talked about it.

43. Where would you have wanted to go and did not in 2024?

Eh, traveling is insanely difficult for me, so that's a hard one.

44. Did you learn any new life skills in 2024?

I learned how to make really good Habitant soup -- that's yellow split peas with savory and ham shank. I need a ham shank because I want to make that tomorrow if possible.

45. Any new food or drink preferences developed in 2024?

Not really -- tea addict forever

46. What is your greatest fear for 2025?

ugh... that neglecting preventative care will haunt me

47. Did you follow any sports events in 2024?

Since the NFL closed the loophole where I could listen to Packers games on internet radio, no.

48. Which social media occupied most of your time in 2024?

I dipped my toe in at BlueSky but just like Twitter in former days, I cannot stand it. I have absolutely nothing to say. I like Tumblr a little better, though I also have little to say there.

49. Is there somebody you feel particularly grateful to this year?

I am grateful to my nieces and to my sister and brother-in-law for many things, but recently for participation in the aforementioned political study groups.

50. Name a hope you have for 2025.

It feels very difficult to have a hope for 2025.

I did not get, at first, why there were no ANSWERS to these generally mostly interesting questions. It's because you are supposed to ask Sabotabby (or have someone ask YOU, if you repost it) any of the questions you are particularly curious about. That might prolong people's interaction with it, I guess?

I have been posting SO MUCH, recently, but only for my own eyes. It's been a great relief to type a journal, honestly, and to know that no one else is seeing it. Today, however, Facebook prompted a Memory (and for some reason in the past couple of weeks or so, I have been clicking on that) and it turned out to be a "15 Book Meme" from 2009, which I wheedled my mother into doing, and that was fucking touching, honestly. She -- before her dementia took greater hold -- followed the instructions (don't think too hard; 15 books which have stayed with you) to produce this list:

15 Books from MQ

1. Perdido Street Station, China Miéville
2. Socialism On Trial, Albert Goldman
3. The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir
4. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
5. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
6. Lad, A Dog, Albert Payson Terhune
7. In the Pond, Ha Jin
8. Years of Rice and Salt, Kim Stanley Robinson
9. Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers
10. And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie
11. The Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky
12. American Notes, Charles Dickens
13. For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
14. The Censors, Luisa Valenzuela
15. Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

That list made me look for my own, because most likely I did the meme first and then pressured her to do it. But I have the WORST time searching fucking Facebook, and did not find anything. Which led me to the second of the rabbitholes I went down today. (The first, by the way, was ... god, how did this happen? Oh, another FB post, this one from a friend-of-a-friend philosophy professor in Canada who is a very cool woman raised Buddhist and anarchist... she posted a quote from Stuart Hall (whose work I enjoy) about preferring people's young or middle periods, e.g. The Eighteenth Brumaire to Capital, Vol. 2, or Althusser's For Marx to his Reading Marx... which led me to Althusser's extremely disturbing Wikipedia entry. Not that I didn't know he'd murdered his wife, just that I didn't know much about her, or his personal life. In a way, too, it re-awoke all my loathing of French intellectual life. I was interested in some Althusser in my 20s partly because he was a pied-noir marxist, like Camus. But what I texted my older niece about this was: "Also, reading it all [the Althusser Wiki entry] just makes me loathe the French intellectual world more. It’s shitty, no doubt, to smear a whole raft of thinkers with a national character, but UGH. I think I far prefer German (well, before fascism), Italian, Spanish, and even some English theorists and writers...The only exceptions I might make are Voltaire, Hugo, a lot of poets, Foucault, the whole of the Jeunesses Communistes Revolutionaires — opposition youth group in the PCF which broke away to become Trotskyists and join the Fourth International just before Mai 68 — and de Beauvoir, Sartre, and Camus... Oh, and Paul Nizan. He goes with de Beauvoir, etc.")

If you are wondering, yes, that is the length at which I generally text.

Yeah, so that long tangent was my first rabbithole. The second was looking at old LJ entries from 2009, fifteen years ago. God, I'd forgotten that I used to write several times a month, at length, and people would comment. And that was already during the Decline of LJ! I didn't find the book meme. It is probably buried in the search-resistant bowels of Meta.

Here is the meme Sabotabby posted. If anyone reads this and is curious about any of the questions, I will do my best to oblige with answers... but in a week or so, I might just answer the questions for my own satisfaction.

- - - - - - -


1 What was the first piece of furniture you bought?
2 What proportion of your meals do you cook?
3 Foaming hand soap or normal hand soap?
4 Favorite chore?
5 Least favorite chore?
6 Most precious thing one of your pets has destroyed?
7 Any groceries you've been getting into lately?
8 What cleaning product do you swear by?
9 What's your emotional support craft?
10 Youtube, cable TV, or streaming?
11 What's something you saved up for and then regretted buying?
12 How many cups can you see from where you're sitting?
13 Which filter are you most likely to go "eh, it's probably fine" when you find out you need to change it?
14 How often do you take baths?
15 Do you go down each aisle when you grocery shop, or only the ones you know you need stuff from?
16 Where do you go when you need to get out of the house but it's raining?
17 What's a movie you saw recently that you liked?
18 Pro or anti tchotchkes?
19 What's your go-to tape?
20 What's in your freezer right now?
21 Last concert you attended?
22 Favorite grocery store?
23 Paper bags, plastic bags, or reusable bags?
24 Do you get your government mandated 8 hours every night?
25 Favorite old person activity?
26 Would you rather sit on the porch drinking sweet tea or sit by the lake drinking beers?
27 Do you prefer Boardgame Night, Build-Your-Own-Pizza Night, or Movie Night with your friends?
28 Be honest, do you like all of the pictures of their babies that your friends send you?
29 Go-to holiday card format?
30 How many pairs of scissors do you own?
31 Do you still own your first car?
32 How do you take your morning coffee/tea?
33 What's something you collect?
34 What's your commute like?
35 Aisle at the grocery store you never bother walking down?
36 Do you keep a daily journal or agenda?
37 Do you still listen to the same music you listened to in high school?
38 What's the last filter you changed?
39 What little treat do you always get when you run errands?
40 Grocery list or no grocery list?
41 What's the oldest thing you own?
42 What's an unjustifiably expensive appliance that you really want?
43 Favorite book you've read recently?
44 Honest feelings on Settlers of Catan?
45 What's something you wish you had more time for?
46 What kind of stuff do you keep on the door of your refrigerator?
47 Lamps or overhead lighting?
48 If you could build your home from scratch, what outrageous feature would you want to build into it?
49 Do you bring a bag with you everywhere you go?
50 Pro or anti throw pillows?
51 How many blankets do you keep in your living room?
52 Did your relationship with your parents get better when you stopped living with them?
53 What's worse, the DMV or the Social Security Office?
54 Do you decorate your house for holidays? Which ones?
55 Favorite high-effort meal that you make?
56 Favorite low-effort meal that you make?
57 Do you tend to bring an appetizer, entree, dessert, or drinks to a potluck?
58 What kind of bag do you use for your bag full of bags?
59 If you died and your ghost was stuck in the outfit you're wearing right now for the rest of time, would you be happy with it?
60 Do you have an opinion on your local weather reporter?
61 Do you have a favorite brunch spot?
62 Where are you on the minimalism-maximalism kinsey scale?
63 Opinion on Bath and Body Works?
64 Last time you visited a farmer's market?
65 Anything you're procrastinating on right now?
66 Do you get your taxes in as soon as possible, at the last minute, or late?
67 Do you keep any stuffed animals on your bed?
68 Are your garbage bags scented or unscented?
69 What are you looking forward to next week?

1. What was the last thing you put off doing?

probably also laundry, though with the washer and dryer in the kitchen, it is not a chore that is a drag, at all. I love the ease of it, now.

2. Do you eat your dinner at a dining table, coffee table or off your lap?

I generally eat at my desk. My dining table is... just not very fun when I am on my own, and quite small if I am not.

3. Do you prefer holidays where you relax or actually do things?

Holidays are for relaxing, yeah... I AM a Christmas nut, despite being a full on atheist, so relaxing does involve Xmas music, a tree, wrapping presents, egg nog, and this year, Xmas cards.

4. Have you ever attended a black tie formal event?

No.

5. Can you snap your fingers?

yes, but kind of half-assedly. Other people get much better clicks than I do.

6. Have you ever broken a window?

I've been in the vicinity of a window breaking, when my uncle and father were fighting over Solidarnosc around 1978. But I, myself, have not broken a window. I have, however, shattered a glass door. I was picking my little sister up from afterschool daycare at 5 PM, which was at our elementary school. I was probably resentful that I had to go get her anyway, but once I was there, no one came when I knocked on the big double glass doors. And no one came. And no one came. I figured my puny fist was not making enough noise, so I decided to use my heel -- I turned around and kicked the door, trying to make a louder noise. And it shattered. My principal, Mr. Cherry, and for some reason a Catholic priest THEN came to the door, aghast at what the priest, at least, assumed was delinquent behavior or something. He grabbed my ear and dragged me to the Office. Mr. Cherry did not say anything. It was quite painful! I'm sure they called my parents. I don't remember if they then had to come down, tired after work, to get us both. Anyway, by the next Monday, the door had been repaired, and there was a doorbell installed.

7. Have you ever finished reading an entire book in a day?

It's more like, when have I NOT finished (at least one) book in a day. Not super long ones like Neal Stephenson's Anathem, but plenty. I can easily finish two books in a day -- but I do read once I go to bed, as well as at lunch, after school, etc.

8. Do you know how to play pool?

I've played a couple of times, but I suck. On the other hand, kind of like bowling, I don't care at all that I suck.

9. If you had to be trapped in a TV show what would it be?

Hm. This is hard, for some reason. I felt in some ways like I LIVED in the Brit show The Young Ones for several weeks in Britain in 1984. Squats, lots of lentils, shouty politics, hippies, badge-bearing Trotskyists... You know, I wouldn't mind living on whichever version of the Enterprise it is in the latest (prequel) Star Trek show -- "ST: Strange New Worlds." Transporters (even if they're in the early days, there), congenial people to work with, space exploration and no pesky problems with the speed of light, SUPPOSEDLY a post-capitalist society on Earth.

10. Do you dream often?

If I get good sleep I do dream, sometimes REALLY ANNOYING ANXIETY DREAMS about teaching, one way or another, or even mindless anxiety dreams where I am trying (and utterly failing) to complete some extremely frustrating task AGAIN AND AGAIN which, when closely examined (as I am waking up) turns out to be compeletely nonsensical. I dream non-anxiety dreams too, sometimes, but I don't usually remember them in detail, boo. Sometimes. My father claims never to dream. I didn't think that was possible?

11. What is something that's bothering you right now?

I know I have more than a year ahead of me on this shit, but the prospect of the 2024 Election cycle bothers me so fucking much. I cannot bear the thought of Trump getting back in, and Biden just seems to be imploding and getting all kinds of shitty bad policies and luck, from caving to Trump's fucking border wall to now digging in behind Netanyahu's triumphant "wartime" truce with pro-democracy Israelis, in this morning's dreadful news of Palestine.

12. What was the last sporting event you attended?

God... I have no idea. Maybe a KU-MU football game? Which would be, oh, more than 27 years ago. Oh. Or it was the flag football game I went to the year before the Pandemic, when my middle school had a girl on the team. That was fun.

13. Do you enjoy staying at hotels?

I've never stayed at a fancy hotel. I've stayed at whatever motel I ran into on cross country drives, mostly pretty janky. Wait, I take that back -- when I was twelve or thirteen, on the Divorce Vacation (so called because the "D" word was first used in the wretched, horrible fights that erupted pretty much daily as we drove west through Canada), my dad had phlebitis so we couldn't camp in provincial parks or Rest Areas as was our normal wont... we stayed at a couple of the huge masonry RR hotels at first, in Winnipeg and Saskatchewan, and then in fleabag motels as we went further, ending in a literal hotel/whorehouse in Ketchikan, Alaska. So those 19th c. RR hotels are the fanciest I've been in, but I have to say I don't much remember them. Those were the first times I'd EVER been in a hotel. I have liked staying in cheap bed and breakfasts, in England.

14. What was in the last package you got?

I am so ashamed to admit this (also it is supposed to arrive today, so it's not REALLY the last package I received... that would have been, what? Probably some sort of school supplies, including a new blank journal for me for the first time in four years) but yesterday was so brutally hot as today will be also that I caved and bought an ice maker. A countertop ice maker. Instead of the rice maker my sister thinks I should buy. This was on sale and I don't have room in my freezer for ice and I never remember to make it. So we'll see how stupid and impulsive this purchase is.

15. Who is/was your favorite animated character?

Eh, animation. Now, CARTOON character... I love Mo and her pals from Dykes to Watch Out For.

16. If you could move out of your home country permanently, would you?

I used to say yes to this automatically, and fantasize about moving to Canada, to Quebec. Now I still imagine moving to Britain, where many of my friends are, but it seems so impossible that I don't think about it as much.

17. Do you play the lottery?

No

18. Do you shut off the water while you brush your teeth?

Yes

19. What was the last good news you received?

Hm. That all of my students were finally rostered into the online curriculum we are using (well, I'm only using it for Math and Science) this year because the lags and tech issues were super fucking annoying and... I hate to admit this, but I added myself to all of their classes and... this program's pedagogy is ... actually really good? It's called (stupid fucking name, but aren't they all) Edgenuity. I like Sal Khan and his Academy, but this is... it's just much, much, much better, with video lessons carefully chunked, warm-ups that are actually good, summaries, vocab pauses, an internal e-notes function, self-pacing measured against how much material remains to complete, retakes on quizzes... it's just surprisingly good. And it means I do not have to fucking lesson plan and try pathetically to teach math and science.

20. Are there any projects or goals you’ve recently abandoned?

I made an effort to find someone to teach me guitar during the Pandemic, but it never panned out and I think it is an effort abandoned, now.

21. What are your top five books?

I hate this kind of question, but here are the first five that OCCUR to me, because I love literally thousands

The German Ideology, by Karl Marx
Another Shore, by Nancy Bond
Not a Swan, by Michelle Magorian
Possession, by A. S. Byatt
Anne of Green Gables, by L. M. Montgomery

22. Would you ever sky dive?

No

23. If you could "install" three complete languages in your brain what would you choose?

I like the process of learning languages, despite the ease of Google Translator when you're in a bind. If I could, though, I would "install" Hindi, Arabic, and I guess Mandarin. If I could have a fourth, Korean.

24. What holiday is your birthday closest to?

Mine... I guess Memorial Day? Kind of dull.

25. Do you use a wall calendar?

Not really. I use my phones iCal, or I use -- EXTENSIVELY -- a weekly one-sheet per week planner that a student got me, from the Dollar Store. It's the perfect size for all my lesson plans and has room for last minute additions and notes to self. I love it. You tear off the week and stick it in a folder (if you're an archival daughter of an archival father) on Friday, since it's a work-week calendar, for me. I put notes in Saturday and Sunday and "Notes". Okay, that's more detail than expected.

26. First foreign vacation?

Mexico should count, Microbie! My first was Canada, as part of the annual August car vacations (before the Divorce Vacation). Even more foreign was my dad's cool surprise of us taking a ferry from Newfoundland to the French outremer island of St. Pierre.

27. Do you watch any anime?

No. A lot of my students love it fiercely. I watched a little with my nieces when they were in high school -- a show called Black Butler which was surreal, and another I forget the title of about an elite high school club where one student was a girl pretending to be a boy? A poor girl at this super rich elite school? I dunno. Ah. I looked it up: Ouran High School Host Club. It was... weird. Boring to me, as are most video game apps.

28. Do you prefer to keep a clean workspace or are you somewhat messy?

I am meticulously neat and organized at work. I am mostly neat at home, never letting anything look too messy. But, you know, I'll throw a cardigan on the couch and leave it there until I require it again. Several times in a week. My surfaces aren't pristine. In my own bedroom, clean clothes stay (folded or sometimes even unfolded) in the laundry baskets and never get into the dresser. Etc.

29. What portion of your day is typically spent outdoors?

Um, the portion between my apartment's front door and my car's door? And my car's door and the library where my office is at DICE? And, given California school construction of the 1950s, any time I leave the library to go to another part of the buildings.

30. Did you get an allowance as a child?

Hahaha, money management. I think I started at a dollar a week and by high school might have been at $10/week? But I don't actually remember. I know that babysitting earnings outstripped it by middle school, even though I only earned $2.50/hr. I know that the child support my dad paid my mom was about $167/mo each for me and my sister, and that in college, my mom gave us it directly, each month.

22. What is one thing you don't mind spending a lot of money on?

I routinely spend a lot of money on (e)books. It is hoarding-levels almost, but thank god, they take up no physical space. They make me feel very rich, able to carry around an entire gigantic library.

23. What animal is the scariest in your opinion?


Microbie is right that it is humans, no question. If I had to exclude humans, well, I am pretty scared by poisonous insects, like the brown recluse spider.

24. What makes you laugh?


Hm. Friends with good senses of humor and an eye for pop culture make me laugh a lot. Hopefully ditto.

25. What are you craving right now?


I don't feel any cravings at the moment. I drank tea already, so I'm good. That's my addiction, really. Tea with half-and-half.

26. Do you have a sweet tooth?


I guess I have a sweet tooth -- for carb type sweets and for tangy-sweet fruit juices. Both of which are terrible for me as a diabetic. I do not care about chocolate, though, and people who rave about it are mysterious to me. I have a number of friends who are like that. I don't DISLIKE chocolate, you understand. Chocolate pudding is very nice, or chocolate mousse. Fudge, yuck.

27. Is your closet organized or disorganized?


Er, both? It started out organized, but as a small room which I can shut, it has become less so as I dump things in there that I don't have a place for -- a small plastic file box; bulk supplies, my Xmas box of tree stand and decorations, etc. Also, I never wear a single piece of the clothing that is hanging on the rail in there. So it's kind of a mis-used mess which I should do something about.

28. What is the first word you'd use to describe yourself?


Ughh. What a terrible question. That's worse that all the questions that demand you deliver your FAVORITE this or that.

29. What modes of transportation do you use?


Essentially my car and my feet (for very short distances and not for standing on very long) and my travelscoot. I haven't been on a plane for a few years now, or public transport. Certainly not a bicycle or what did you say, Microbie? Roller skates!

30. What was the last great book you read?


Um, great book? I am kind of allergic to that description of my reading. The last bunch of books I have been reading are these silly but enjoyable kind of 1930s through 1950s chick lit stories from Britain, by a Scots author, D. E. Stevenson. Jesus casual racism is horrifying. She really likes "women who follow the drum" e.g. are married to career military officers and embedded in regiments which she then places in various British colonies -- Malaya, Kenya, Egypt, India -- so some of her books are a tour of future sites of revolutionary independence movements.

31. What improvement would be the most beneficial to your life right now?

Job security would be a fine thing. Not that I could LOSE my job very easily -- it would be extremely hard for my school district to fire me... but the district has the right to involuntarily transfer teachers basically every two years if they want a better fit for "FTE" (full-time-employment hours -- each teacher is a 1.0 FTE job, and if there are not enough students for whatever reason at a site -- people moving away from the Bay Area because it is expensive, for instance -- then the teachers at the low end of the seniority list can be moved at will. It happened to me two years ago, and it worries me this year. Two years ago it was very LATE -- I only got notified in late September or early October... right before my cancer diagnosis! Can you see the vast potential for PTSD around this shit? Right now I have the fewest students rostered to me at DICE, where I work, for the first time in-person. And all the teachers at DICE have years and years of seniority. Ugh. I am depressing myself more, writing about this.

PS -- my user icon is Eleanor Marx. Eleanor Marx was a school teacher for a hot minute, in Brighton. If only she'd stayed that, instead of getting with that Utter Asshole, Edward Aveling.

23. Have you ever locked your keys in your car?

I locked my keys in my car ONCE, and I'd left the car running! It was at my first school, and I had gotten distracted talking to my favorite student while standing by my car in the parking lot. The old veteran gym teacher, this guy who was famous in the neighborhood, Earl McKelvy, came out and laughed at me and then jimmied the window and opened the car for me, so I didn't have to call Triple A.

24. Do you get carsick?

Nope. I can read in a car, which is handy, because my family also only did driving vacations, because they were cheaper, I assume. A whole month on the road, every August, with cheap car camping. I mean sometimes we set up the old army surplus tents at State Parks. But more than a few times, only my parents set one up, in a Rest Area or in a friend's backyard, and my sister and I slept on the vast bench seats of whatever Chevy beater we were driving then, always a hand-me-down from some older relative.

25. What are your top five favorite movies?

Yeah, Microbie's right, favorites are bullshit. I resent being told to choose. But I can name some I love a lot. Reds... Stalag 17... The Miracle Worker (the original one with Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke)... Glory... and... hm. Okay, I cannot do only one more. Four more. Thé au Harem de l'Archi Ahmed... Diva... Beasts of the Southern Wild... and Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Oh! And how could I forget? Wadjda, which I have watched god knows how many times -- and made students watch. A film made by a Saudi woman filmmaker in Riyadh, about a ten year old tomboy who wants to win a Koran recitation contest in order to buy a forbidden bicycle.

26. What sport is your favorite to watch?

"Sigh. American football" to quote Microbie. Every once in a while I get enthused about tennis (well, while Martina Navratilova was playing and before she became a TERF) or about soccer, while Megan Rapinoe was doing ANYTHING and while Morocco was tearing it up at the World Cup. And baseball while I was watching the new (cruelly limited) series A League of Their Own. But truthfully, for just watching and enjoying, it's American football. Though fuck Aaron Rodgers.

27. How often do you brush your hair?

You mean... brush versus comb? Brush and/or comb? God, I don't differentiate that much. A time or two a day?

28. Have your friends ever randomly stopped by your house?

Very rarely. Usually people call first.

29. What is an act of kindness you'll never forget?

My family and friends rallied the fuck around me when I got cancer, I'll say that. My sister was with me every step of the way, every doctor's appointment, drove me to surgery, waited afterwards (with my brother-in-law and nieces at home waiting for a phone call in terror -- we'd really been warned about the surgery not working and the anesthesia possibly killing me); my parents flew out after the surgery and stayed with me a month, helping me get around my apartment; my friend Dani drove me radiation appointments constantly, way the hell out in Dublin/Pleasanton; my parents came out again for the final round of internal radiation which was INSANE.

30. Would you ever wish to explore a cave?

No. I have trouble even watching other people on TV in a cave.

31. Do you like wearing shoes? Or prefer to go barefoot?

I hate shoes. Hate them. But I wouldn't go barefoot outside. I thought I'd loathe having most of this apartment/condo carpeted, but honestly I never wear shoes inside, and it's glorious.

1. If you could have a conversation with one person from history who would it be?

I DO love talking to people for long lengths of time, and it is so hard to choose who I'd want to talk to in history. So I won't. Here are SOME of the people I'd love to be able to, say, stop at whatever the equivalent of a cafe was and just drink tea or whatever and talk.

Eleanor Marx
Lucy Parsons (even though I get the impression she might be a badass kind of rigid bitch)
Jane Addams
Florence Kelley
...maybe Frances Willard? I mean, yes, but the Methodist shell would be difficult
Rosa Luxemburg
Inessa Armand (WAS she -- did she perceive herself to be -- a Revolutionary Comfort Girl? She was a lover of Lenin's... maybe the only one? I dunno...)
Alexandra Kollontai (also on this list) wrote a roman à clef about Inessa Armand (also: Inessa was the name of the first black cat we owned when I was a kid; the second was Clio) and Lenin called A Great Love...


2. How many times have you seen your favorite band in concert?

I've seen Billy Bragg twice...

3. What is something you do every day?

Read

4. What was the last piece of candy you ate?

This particular kind of Ritter sports bar that has rum, raisins, and hazelnuts. Delicious! And mildly drunken!

5. Which wild animals are a common sight in your area?

Hummingbirds, raccoons, deer, turkeys, hawks, possums, mourning doves, pigeons, magpies, crows, seagulls, Canadian geese

6. What would be your perfect road trip?

I have liked all the times I've driven either from the Bay Area to Chicago and Lake Geneva, or from the Midwest (Evanston or Columbia, Missouri) south to Louisiana, East Texas, and then East to North Carolina and North to Connecticut and New York. I like long drives, though it's been a long time. I would like to drive to the Pacific Northwest, but then mostly just put my car on ferries in the San Juans.

7. Which possession would you not want to inherit from a relative?

None of my relatives have much to leave besides tchotchkes and books and papers. LOTS of books and papers. LOTS. It will kind of be a hassle to inherit any of those things, honestly.

8. Do you get a lot of visitors?

My sister, local friends. This week I will have visitors from Saudi Arabia! That is, my friend johnbcannon from LJ, his wife, and their one year old baby whose middle name is Marx! JBC teaches at a Saudi university on the East Coast. He's been an expat there for, god, at least 8 years now. Possibly more.

9. What do you consider good character traits for a friend?

"My rule is that you have to be either interesting or nice, and of course I prefer both." There isn't a better answer than this.

10. Have you ever been to a vineyard?

Yes, in Sonoma and in Napa counties out here, but also (and tbh I preferred this) on an island in Lake Erie, Put-in Bay? Which I think is part of Ohio? That was super fun, though the grapes in question might have been catawba. I don't care; I am the opposite of a wine person.

11. When was the last time your living situation changed in any way?

When I moved here to [redacted] terrible small Bay Area suburb after 20 years in Oakland, with my mother; then, when my mother died; then, when I got my main bathroom renovated maybe two years ago? Obviously moving in with my mother and then being with my mom when she died was somewhat of a bigger change in living situation.

6. How often do you watch television?

I watch shows (Netflix, Hulu from my niece's sub, Max, Amazon Prime), and YouTube, but not TV per se, because I deliberately don't have cable. There are things I hate about TV, from ads to TV news to shows with laugh tracks (I mean, those used to exist; I have no idea if they still do)... and now that bingeing exists, I think my general difficulty with delaying gratification is also something I hate about TV.

7. What are you tired of hearing about?

I hate hearing about education reform because it is always top-down bullshit with dense, impenetrable, offensive jargon, and because often it PRETENDS to be not top-down and to intend to emanate from actual teachers and that is never, ever, ever the case.

8. Where and when did you last go out to eat at a sit down restaurant?

I do not do this often, so when I do, it is generally very enjoyable, as this was except for my dad getting problematic. We (my dad, stepmother, sister, brother-in-law, and my nieces) went to a really good Irish pub in Oakland called Slainte, which has VERY good pub food -- an amazing lamb-based shepherd's pie (which is what I had), Irish soda bread (the non-sweet, heavier, farl-like type) with cheddar cheese, good fish and chips, mushy peas (no thanks), Irish breakfasts (which my father joneses for), etc. And of course good Guiness and so on. I actually had cider instead, because their cider is great.

9. What do you find more annoying, a sore throat or a headache?

A sore throat kicks my usually unobtrusive potential hypochondria into gear, because of the well-worn pathway (for me) of sore throat, head cold, chest cold, bronchitis, pneumonia. Yeah, no thanks. A headache just causes me to reach for the Tylenol, pronto.

10. What do you miss most about the past?

"The past" is a big topic! I liked my traveling days in Europe, living in Britain for a year, walking lots of places with no consciousness of difficulty. I liked grad school and the endless arguing and absorption of ideas and reading and writing. It seemed at the time and in retrospect too, like one long vacation, even though I was working (illegally) more than forty hours a week in addition to classes, what with different kinds of tutoring and TAing.

11. Do you know how to play darts?

No. Do I care? No.

12. What kind of computer do you have?

I have a MacBook Pro, 2019. I am kind of a sucker for Macs, gotta say. I hate other operating systems.

13. Have you ever gone out of your area for a concert?

Huh. I don't think so. To Chicago, from Evanston. To San Jose, from Oakland, to San Francisco from Oakland. That's it, really.

14. What is your favorite board game from your childhood?

I sort of liked this weird 70s game we had about making it to the end of the month and paying all your bills. It's been updated since then to include interest payments and weird online opportunities, and seems less fun. I also loved Clue. I sucked at Monopoly and lost every game I ever played.

15. What has made this year so far different than previous years?

Huh. I got a new (to me) car last week. That's different. I haven't done that since 2006. It is a 2010 Honda Fit with 137K miles. It is "blackberry pearl" colored, which means purple when the sun hits it. Which I like. Because of my retro payment (the raise we got, all the backdated months when we were working without a contract) I was able to add some savings to that and just write a check, so no new monthly payments. I will need it in the Fall when I am back to daily commuting, UGH. U G H H H H. My younger niece has my old Mazda Protege now, but I have to keep it on my insurance (shudder) because she's pretty prone to fender benders, sigh.

15. Can you hear a lot of traffic noise from your house?

I live right by the 580 (WHY is it wrong to use the definite article there? I really don't understand that) so even if the sliding glass door to my balcony is closed, I still hear freeway traffic all day. I'm not so close that it's gross -- a few blocks away, and up a hill. But still. I also hear car traffic on the street my complex is on, car alarms (ughhh) and people yelling out of cars. I guess that's not traffic per se.

16. Do you ever use natural lighting to light your house rather than use a lamp?

Uh, yes? I mean... who doesn't?

17. Do you dislike any of your family members?

No. I love them all, which makes me lucky. Of family members who are dead... I didn't like my great-uncle Bill much. He was a bully who did not deserve the incredibly kind person my great-aunt was.

18. When was the last time you overslept?

This question barely has any meaning given how fucked up my sleep schedule is and the fact that until August, I do not have to commute to work. Also, if I set an alarm, which I do on work days, I inevitably wake up two to five minutes before it goes off. Any alarm, any time, not just mornings.

19. What time do you wake up in the morning?

Later, these days. Next year I will probably migrate back to normal, which will be 6:30ish.

20. Do you drink energy drinks?

Never. I do not understand the appeal -- they seems like battery acid to me, the one time I tasted one.

21. What is the last thing you purchased?

Hm. I ordered dinner from a restaurant on DoorDash a few days ago.

22. Do you shut off the computer when you’re done using it?

Almost never, unless I am taking it somewhere, and then always. "How is this a writing prompt?" quoth Microbie, and Microbie is correct.

24. Do you watch a lot of YouTube?

I watch a lot? I think? I don't really know how to measure it against other people's use. I look up music that is new to me and listen to different songs; I watch the 12 minute excerpts from Late Night liberal hosts (Stephen Colbert; Trevor Noah and his temp replacements -- Hasan Minhaj, how I enjoy him; John Oliver, though his are longer...; I look up a LOT of short videos to share with students while teaching different topics, from explicit teaching stuff by, e.g. the Green Brothers (John and Hank) to just topical stuff for, say history. Such an amazing resource that did not exist when I was a kid. I mean, I narrate over these, and sometimes contradict them, and so on.

25. Are you procrastinating on anything right now?

I am always procrastinating about grading, unless it is summertime. I have Progress Reports due next Monday, but at least I have done the 6th graders' stuff. Still have to do the 7th graders' and 8th graders' stuff.

26. Do you have any nieces or nephews?

I feel like I write about them a lot. I have two nieces, who are TRAGICALLY growing up and launching and moving away, and their parents and I are fucking inconsolable. WHYYYYYY? What's so great about fucking Los Angeles, Ruby? She is graduating from Cal-Berkeley this Saturday, and moving to LA where she will live with a friend and work remotely for the Cal-Berkeley Press. Rosie, who is three years younger, will be moving to Sonoma to attend Sonoma State University, which is good for her (though it will probably be a shock). My sister is militating to get the school to accept Rosie's cat Alice in the dorms as an emotional support pet or whatever you call that. That is true enough. I love them both so much. I got to actually literally witness Ruby's birth, and I am here, living close by and was able to see them at least weekly their whole lives (including in our Covid-bubble) -- sucks for my brother-in-law's sister in LA. Then again, she had two kids of her own.

27. Is there anything you’re good at making that you could probably make money off of it?

I would like to make money from writing, though apparently not enough to attempt it before retirement? I don't know. I have made money at translating and interpreting French.

28. When was the last time you felt frustrated?

At myself, for realizing I'd mis-scheduled an appointment for right during Ruby's departmental graduation. Bah.

29. Do you have an annoying neighbor?

I don't really know my neighbors, but the upstairs people... it's weird. The woman who used to live up there I knew a little bit, because all her packages would be delivered to me. She got a lot of packages. She was nice. And I knew the owner of the apartment (this complex is a mix of condos and rented apartments) because of plumbing woes from upstairs that destroyed my bathroom ceiling. She was nice. But she sold the place and the new (well, they're not really new now) people... there is some WEIRD FUCKING mechanical, drain, grindy, strange noise that happens at strange intervals upstairs, that never did before. When it first started, I totally thought they were doing renovations, but then I realized that it happened in the middle of the night, too. Never for very long, but it is SO WEIRD. And loud, and annoying. I cannot figure out what it was, because it never happened before. It never lasts more than a minute or two, I don't think, or it would be something that would send me upstairs to ask. But it's strange. The people on the shared wall of my place fight occasionally, and that's not fun.

30. What do you do when you can't sleep?

Same as Microbie (endlessly chewing on something that makes me anxious; playing on my iPad, and reading on my iPad)

-- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * --

1. Do you knit, crochet, or cross stitch?

No x3, also. I tried knitting once, but while I can draw, I really don't seem to have the coordination to do any of those things well, and I wasn't motivated enough to try to push through that.

2. Are there any movies you can watch over and over?

I actually don't watch a LOT of movies over and over (unlike books that i read over and over and over... there are books I've probably read, not kidding, fifty times in my life). There are seasonal movies I watch almost annually -- the Patrick Stewart A Christmas Carol, It's a Wonderful Life, The Christmas Story... there are childhood favorites done well (the Alfonso Cuarón Little Princess, the 1994 Secret Garden, and... for some strange reason, I've seen The Kinsey Report maybe three or four times. There are probably other movies I've rewatched (not counting the ones I've watched in the classroom many, many times) but I cannot bring them to mind right now. Oh. The Commitments. Stalag 17. Raiders of the Lost Ark. How random I am.

3. Have you ever or would you like to attend a gaming or comic convention?

"No x2" to quote Microbie again.

4. What is the last show you binge watched?

I do like bingeing shows when I can. What was the most recent? I like short, six to eight episode shows. Oh -- I rewatched the first season of Delhi Crime.

5. Do you like listening to new music or just sticking to your favorites?

"I mostly listen to favorites but occasionally make an effort to find something/someone new." again, thanks Microbie. It is funny that often the new music I find is something reviewed in The Guardian, for example, or that an ex of mine posts about on Facebook.

6. What was your first experience with success?

I think learning French. It was so easy and natural and I loved it from get.

7. Are you brave when it comes to trying new foods?

Mostly, though there are some things I just ... don't want to try. Like insects in any form (I don't care how nutritious or crunchy they are) or durian fruit. I think I have a bias against foods/drinks that are meant to be healthy replacements -- for instance, non-dairy milk substitutes.