Borrowing an idea from my blogger friend Jon, forty answers to questions about myself (as if you didn't already know enough about me):
1. Are you lazy?
I don't think so. No more than your average bear. I make my bed and don't leave dirty dishes in the sink. But I do take a nap every afternoon.
2. What do you eat for breakfast?
Walmart bran cereal with almond milk and strawberries. Every day.
3. Coffee or tea?
Neither. Bottled water. Ever since I had kidney stones I gave up iced tea. Never got in the coffee habit.
4. What was your very first job?
Paper boy. Sixty-one Philadelphia papers and twelve local papers. Evening route. Made $5.00 a week. Spent it all on candy and comic books.
5. Occupation you wanted to be when you were a kid?
Fashion designer. Yes, a woman's fashion designer. Really.
6. What is the most unusual job you ever had?
Apple picker (when I was a teenager)
Gardner for estate (when I was between banking jobs. Went from $38,500 a year to $8.45 an hour). Didn't get much pay but I was in tremendous physical shape from laying all that mulch.
7. Have you ever been fired from a job?
Yes. From my banking job as trust operations manager when the new boss found out I was gay. Yes, you can get fired from a job if you are gay. I did get fired. I sued but I lost my suit because I couldn't prove it. Later I found out the man who fired me did the same thing three times at the bank where he worked in Philadelphia and eventually lost his job because of his homophobia. He fired me by making up a story that I wasn't performing on my job. I was but the president of the bank who fired me told me he had to make a choice between letting me go or my boss. However, he did tell me I would get a pension which I collect to this day. Real life isn't like it is in the movies.
8. Describe yourself in three words.
Honest, introspective, curious.
9. What's the strangest thing you've ever eaten?
Squirrel brains. Sucked those brains out through the squirrels eyeball socket as my father instructed me to do of the squirrel he killed.
10. What is your favorite movie quote?
'But you are Blanche, you are!'
Bette Davis said that, in the 1962 movie Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.
11. What is your least favorite movie?
A difficult choice, so many. Citizen Kane is definitely one, so overrated. Others are any Charlie Chaplin films. I never thought Charlie Chaplin was funny. He had a stupid little mustache and walked funny. That's funny? I never got it. W.C. Fields was infinitely more funny.
12. Were you ever a Boy/Girl Scout?
No. I wanted to be but my Mother said the family couldn't afford to pay the dues for my membership.
13. Describe the perfect kiss in three words.
A nice gentle kiss on the lips from a person I really care about.
14. The last person you kissed.
Pat.
15. If you were gay, who would you want to have a passionate affair with?
I am gay. I'm having a passionate affair now. Guess.
16. Are you an innie or an outie?
Innie.
17. Introvert or extrovert?
Inrovert when I was young, painfully so. Now semi-extrovert. I don't care what anyone thinks. I'm not so self conscious.
18. Would you ever pose nude in a magazine?
No. However, I have been (posed) nude on a public beach. And I have a photo to prove it.
19. What have you forgotten?
A lot! So much. I've actually forgotten what I've forgotten.
20. What color is your underwear?
White. Tightie whites. Considering changing it though to be more in tune with the times.
21. Have you ever tried to cut your own hair?
Never.
22. Do you think you are selfish?
No. I don't volunteer my time though. If I work I get paid. My time is valuable to me. I don't knock volunteering for others though if that suits them. But I don't have enough time in my own life to take care of myself and Bill. No time to spare.
23. What are you afraid of?
Sickness, poverty, old age, blindness, being paralyzed and senility. I don't fear death, only how I'm going to get there.
24. Do you think people are basically good or bad?
I believe that most people are good. There is evil in the world but I believe the preponderance of people are good. But we always have to be on guard for evil wherever we find it whether it be a strange culture overseas or in our own family and friends.
I25. Do you believe everyone deserves forgiveness?
No, I don't believe everyone deserves forgiveness. Some do but some don't especially those who commit either heinous acts of cruelty or taking advantage of weaknesses. I could never forgive anyone who abuses children or animals. Never. They are inherently evil and without redemption.
26. Are you self-critical?
I am. I always seek to improve myself. Never ends. Just when I think I have solved all my deficiencies another one crops up.
27. What is the meanest thing anyone has ever said to you?
Hard to choose but perhaps the one statement that comes to mind that I've never forgotten was what a person who I thought was a friend said to me when he was invited to a movie with other friends. This was way back in 1960 at Ft. Devens, Massachusetts when I was in the Army. I was standing with him with another friend asked him to go to the movies with their group. I chimed in that I would be ready to go with them. My 'friend' turned around and looked at me and said 'Who invited you?' And here I thought we were friends. Never saw him again. I remember he was a Hispanic from Los Angeles. Never forgot how that casual comment stabbed me right to my heart. However, I later made another lifetime friend at the same base so it all turned out all right.
28. What's the meanest thing you've ever said?
Guilty as charged. When I worked at a bank in Philadelphia this Pakistani guy kept sitting at my table during lunch. He wanted to be friends with me. I enjoyed eating lunch by myself. I gave him numerous hints which he didn't take. Then one day I told him 'I prefer to eat lunch by myself.' The look of hurt he gave me brought back the memory of the time I was dissed back in 1960 by my Hispanic friend. So I was guilty of the same thing. However, I still didn't want this guy as a friend, he annoyed me.
29. Do you believe in a higher power?
No. Not if it means some old white bearded man wearing a white toga sitting on a gold throne in the clouds checking up on us ready to throw a lightening bolt down on our heads the moment we stray from his strict rules. However, I do believe there is some kind of 'plan'. I just don't believe in what I call 'man made religion' with all the praying and 'Lord' stuff. That was invented by medieval lords to keep the serfs in line. When we die there is nothing. A total void.
30. What's your idea of heaven?
If there is a Heaven, which I doubt, it would be reuniting with my loved ones including my pets. Heaven to me would be a place where there is no cruelty or suffering.
31. What's your idea of hell?
We're living it now folks. Some of are lucky and occasionally find a brief respite but for the most part, life on earth is hell.
32. What makes you nostalgic?
My memories of my past good times, not the bad times.
33. What is your biggest regret?
Not taking that first offer on the sale of my house in Pennsylvania. Biggest mistake of my life. My second regret was not investing all my IRA funds into Amazon and Apple stock which I could have brought for $25 a share. Instead I foolishly brought Palm and E
