Interview Time

This came from a friend of mine:

1. Leave a comment saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I will respond by asking you five questions.
3. You’ll update your web log with my five questions and your five answers.
4. You’ll include this explanation.
5. You’ll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.
(3 – 5 are, of course, optional)

Here are Joyce’s questions for me and my answers:
1. If you could learn any one skill instantly (like Neo in the Matrix), what would it be?
Great question (and a tough one to answer). Most of the potential answers coming to mind are more like personality traits or habits than skills. Wait…got it. The skill I’d like to instantly learn more than any other is how to play piano. I learned to play the trumpet growing up, but I’ve always wished I could play something that would allow me to create both melody and harmony myself…preferably with the ability to sing at the same time. There are other choices that fill that bill, but I don’t know of any that have the piano’s ability to “fit” into so many different styles of music. No other instrument has the same ability to compel me to sing along.

2. What’s your favorite color?
It really depends on a lot of things (mood being not the least of them), but probably most often either deep red or dark green. However, that brings up a funny story from college. Picture this shy, southern, painfully conservative geek kid who manages to end up with a thoroughly-feminist teacher from (I think) New York for second semester Freshman comp. The first day of class, she asked us to fill out cards with information about ourselves. One of the questions was: “If you could paint Denny Chimes any color you wanted, what color would it be, and why?” I knew I was in for a ride when she answered for herself: “I’d paint it magenta, because then maybe everyone would see it for the phallic symbol it is.” Go follow the link and look at the picture if you’re confused. Denny Chimes is an obelisk.

3. What’s your earliest memory?
It’s hard to separate my own memories from the stories I’ve learned about myself over the years. Pictures that I know are in a picture book back at my parents’ house keep coming to mind. About the earliest one I can claim for certain as my own has to do with what eventually became known as my “red mountains”. We built a new house when I was something like 3 years old. It’s what’s known as a “basement house”, which meant that a lot of good old northwest Alabama red clay had to be dug up to build it. That dirt ended up in two big mounds in the yard, and they became favorite play spots for me. I remember being really upset when the machines came to move the dirt away.

4. What crazy thing would you love to do, but just don’t dare?
Audition to become a professional studio backup singer.

4a. (added later) Why don’t you dare?
A combination of suspecting that I don’t have the pipes for it and that I wouldn’t be able to make a living at it.

5. What would you do if you won the lottery?
Well, I’d take Amy on her dream vacation (I’ve heard several ideas… I don’t know which is her favorite… it probably involves Europe, as in all of it). I’d build the perfect house (which would probably have quite a bit in common with the Dilbert’s Ultimate House (archived copy on archive.org… it’s not as silly as it might look). Definitely hire someone else to do the lawn work permanently. Then, I think for the rest, I’d just try to work out whatever investments were necessary so I could forget about working if I didn’t enjoy it.