Stealing on a Sunday? Seems suspicious.

I haven’t done one of these in a while, but I’m going to do one now, just because. So there!

1. What is your favorite book?

Fiction, author no longer alive: The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien.
Fiction, author still with us: The Lions of Al-Rassan, Guy Gavriel Kay.
Non-fiction, author no longer alive: Cosmos, Carl Sagan.
Non-fiction, author still alive: These Truths, Jill LePore.

2. Are you afraid of the dark?

Not particularly, but I don’t like pitch black. I need some light.

3. Are you mean?

I hope not, but I know I have it in me to be so, at times.

4. Is cheating ever OK?

Not sure what we mean by “cheating”. Marital cheating? Likely not…though my wife’s grandmother, when she was a widow, had a close friendship with a man whose wife was still alive, but deep into Alzheimer’s, to the point she couldn’t even recognize the nice old man who visited her frequently. Was that wrong? I have a hard time saying it was.

Cheating academically? Again, mostly bad…but even there I can see some wiggle room. I had a math teacher in high school who delighted in assigning problems 1-50 every night for homework. To this day I don’t really feel bad about occasionally getting the answers to numbers 34-50 from a classmate.

Incidentally, I saw this video making the social media rounds this week, for what reason I can’t imagine, but I remember my reaction when it first went viral and thinking about how that particular professor was going about things one hundred percent incorrectly, and how laughable his bluster was. (The video embed seems to be futzed on my earlier post, I’ll see if I can fix it.)

5. Can you keep white shoes white?

I don’t even put myself in position of trying. With all the hiking I do, and the nature of my day job? Nope.

6. Are you currently bored?

Right this second? Nope! I’m doing this quiz! I am also thinking about going downstairs to fetch a quick salty snack, but I have made no decisions yet at this time.

7. Would you change your name?

At this point, nope. I’ve come this far, I might as well see it all through.

Mass transit

8. Do you like the subway?

I love the subway, and light rail, and commuter rail, and long-distance passenger rail. Rail-based public transportation is a wonderful thing and I don’t understand places that don’t have it. Our centering of the individual automobile in our country’s transportation policy over the last, oh, 70 years or so is one of the worst decisions we’ve ever made.

9. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?

Probably The Wife.

10. Dumbest lie you’ve ever told?

I don’t recall specifics, but I’m sure it’s some BS I tried deploying to get myself out of chores when I was a kid.

11. Do you sleep with your door open or closed?

Open, so the cats can come and go. The dogs aren’t a problem; Hobbes sleeps crated and Carla sleeps with The Daughter.

12. Favorite month?

October. No contest. (But the runners-up are the other months ending in “-ber”, followed by February. And while everyone else worships at the altar of July, for summer months I find August to be the bee’s knees.

Yes, I used “bee’s knees” unironically.

13. Dark, milk, or white chocolate?

Dark, White, and Milk, in that order. White can be touchy–when it’s not great, it’s really not great. Milk is perfectly nice and usually more consistent, but it’s still never my preference.

14. Tea or coffee?

Coffee more often than tea, but I do love tea! In fact, my personal “Tea Season” is coming very shortly. Weirdly, I can drink hot coffee year-round, but hot tea is not a thing for me until autumn arrives. I’m not big into iced tea.

15. Night or day?

No preference! Both have their strengths and I am glad of each. That said, I’m glad that even though we’re still on DST, the realities of Earth’s progression of the seasons has moved nightfall back to a point where I can feel the refreshing nature of the new darkness. Late June and most of July do a number on my circadian rhythms; I am simply not built for full light at 10pm.

Looks like that’s all!