1. What are the 3 most important things everyone should know about you? I love (in alphabetical order): baseball, The Beatles, and cats.
2. What is the strangest thing you believed as a child? That I was adopted. My older sister and I are 16 months apart. She had an elaborate baby book, I had none. My mother explained this first by telling me mine was lost when we moved, then (this is the truth) she didn't have time to maintain one for me because caring for two babies concurrently was hard for her. I accepted neither answer. Obviously there were no baby photos of me because my parents hadn't adopted me yet. Fortunately, my favorite uncle was just 16 when my mom asked him to be my godfather and coincidentally he had just gotten his first camera. He was so into both me and it that he was able to show me ample photographic evidence I'd been in the family all along.
3. Thinking of school classes, which were your favorite and least favorite? English was my favorite, and I hated math. This is because I was good at English and I sucked at math.
4. What is your favorite fast food? Soft tacos from Taco Bell. (The only Mexican food my finicky gut can tolerate.)
5. What song comes closest to how you feel about your life right now? "Beautiful Boy," when John sings "Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans."
6. Have you ever taken martial arts classes? Nope
7. Does your life tend to get better or worse or does it just stay the same? Yes! In some ways it's better, in some ways it's worse, and in some ways I'm consistent.
8.What arts and crafts have you tried and decided you were bad at? All of them. I don't understand how I can have such pretty handwriting and yet be so terrible at drawing, painting, stitching, etc. I mean, don't they all require manual dexterity?
9. What is the truest thing that you know? God loves me.
10. Are you more of a giver or a taker? I think it evens out. As the Lads sang, "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."
11. Do you make your decisions with an open heart/mind? I like to think so.
12. What is the most physically painful thing that has ever happened to you? Last September I endured four consecutive nights terrible, rolling pains across my gut. I had to pace, soak in the tub and take painkillers just to get through the night. Then in the morning (poof!) I was fine. On Friday I went to my doctor. She could find nothing "imminent" wrong with me, suspected diverticulitis or IBD, and scheduled tests for a few days hence. That night it was so bad I called her around midnight and she told me not to wait, to go to the ER. After 8 hours of tests and bag after bag of fluids, I was told I had a massive kidney stone. Or, to quote the attending physician, "a big honking kidney stone." He was impressed, telling me it was the size and shape of "one of those little houses in Monopoly." Imagine how much a hotel would hurt!
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| Self portrait |
13. What is the most emotionally painful thing that has ever happened to you? I know this will sound strange, but the Trump Town Hall on CNN last May was very, very painful for me. Hearing the audience laugh along with him and cheer him when he made fun of E. Jean Carroll was terribly disturbing. I was molested by a relative in 1974 and date raped in 1987. I didn't report either incident at the time because I was frightened, humiliated and sure I wouldn't be believed. Hearing that laughter, listening to those cheers, brought it all back and reinforced what the much younger Gal believed. The most awful moments in my life would be disbelieved or mocked. And yes, Hillary Clinton was right, a sizable percentage of my countrymen (and women) are deplorable. This makes my heart ache.
14. What is your favorite line from a movie? It's from a song from a movie. It's kind of like sorbet for my soul after answering #13. "Because there you are standing there loving me, whether or not you should. So somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good."
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| The Sound of Music, of course. Sigh. |
15. Can you eat with chopsticks? Nope
