Interview Me I: From Kirsten

The first of a few interviews with me, this one with questions courtesy of Kirsten. Rules come first…

1. If you want to participate, leave a comment saying “interview me” (or something that gets that point across).
2. I will respond by asking you five questions – each person’s will be different.
3. You will update your journal with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

…the interview comes next:

Aside from your geeky aspirations (computer learning and acquisition) what is one big goal you have for yourself right now? What have you done to reach it, and what do you still need to do?

Getting back into school is a big one. When I first went into college, I couldn’t quite hack it, and ended up dropping out mid-way through my first semester. For the next few years I was fine with that — I’d gone on to find a job, and I’ve worked steadily since then — but over the past couple years, getting back into school has been popping up in my head more and more often.

As far as achieving that goal…well, so far, I’ve pretty much done a whole lot of nothing. Lots of discussions and scenarios tossed around, but not a whole lot beyond that. The biggest thing I need to work on is simply figuring out how to juggle scheduling and finances: right now, I’m working full-time (cutting into most school’s class hours) and need just about every paycheck (so laying out the thousands of dollars for school isn’t easy). I’m not quite living paycheck-to-paycheck, but some months I’m still a lot closer to that than I’d like to be. So, I need to figure out how to do school and work at the same time, how to pay for school, and how to pay for everything else. Not impossibilities, obviously, there are plenty of other people doing all that, but the initial hurdle is fairly large.

You recently posted a picture of yourself from your days at CTY, mentioning the relief you found in meeting similarly-minded kids. What kind of a kid were you? What were your favorites – colors, candies, cartoons, pastimes – what were your pet peeves – what did you want to be when you grew up – and what was one of the defining moments of your childhood?

Oh, ugh. In many, many ways, I was the stereotypical “geek” child. Far too smart for my own good, with the corresponding lack of social skills (intelligence and socialbility are all too often inversely proportional). I was in all the advanced classes in school, my parents apparently had the option of having me skip a grade of school offered to them nearly every year I was in elementary school (which they never did, and I’m now quite happy that they made that decision), I played the violin (clumsily), and spent most of my free time either in front of the family’s computer or with my nose buried in a book.

At the same time, I was constantly doing horribly in school (I’d test well, so everyone knew I was absorbing the information, but I never could be bothered with the homework), I didn’t have any really close friends until 4th grade (and even then, I only really found one), my brother and I could never seem to get along, and I was constanly butting heads with my parents. They wanted me to live up to my potential, I wanted them to stop pushing me and constantly pushed back through avoiding any and all responsibilities.

I wanted to be accepted for who I was — and yet, I had no clue who I was. At the same time that I was perpetually upset with the world around me for not accepting me, I couldn’t really accept myself. Always wanting to be more accepted by those around me, I’d bounce between trying to adjust to what I thought “everyone else” wanted, and rebelling against it all. What real personality I had was quickly suppressed, in a never-ending succession of facades that I thought would satisfy everyone else — but, of course, it never really worked, and I just got more disgusted, both with the world around me, and with myself.

So — combine a fairly high intellect with little to no social skills, no real personality of my own, a fair amount of self-loathing and major self esteem issues, and a general inability to cope with the world around me, and you end up with a rather remarkably maladjusted kid and teenager. In all honesty, I think that it’s a minor miracle that I’ve managed to end up as functional as I am today.

I don’t really remember too many favorites from when I was a kid. Transformers were a big one, I had a fairly large collection for a while, and always wanted more. Reading was virtually my only pasttime. I’ve always been a voracious reader — put something in front of my face with printed words on it, and it’ll get read, from books and magazines to cereal boxes and shampoo bottles.

Aside from a time when I thought that the coolest possible job in the world was to be a steamroller driver, I’ve never really had a good answer for the “what do you want to do when you grow up” question. I still don’t — but I’m still “growing up,” too. Ask me on my deathbed, and I might have an answer.

As far as a “defining moment” goes…well, Royce may very well kill me for this, but this is the first thing that popped into my head. He and I were out playing on the playground during recess. I was in 5th grade, but he’d skipped on to 6th grade after our 4th grade year. He decided to show off something he’d learned in English class that day, and went up to the top of a snow hill.

“C’mon, Mike! Come on up! I won’t not push you down!”

So, I climbed up — and as soon as I got to the top, he gave a shove, and down I went. I looked up from the bottom of the hill, pissed, and probably crying, while he laughed and explained double negatives to me, and how they cancel each other out.Royce and I have been good friends for years, but some small part of me has never completely forgiven him for that, and I think that’s why it sticks out in my head as a “defining moment” of my childhood. It encompasses many of the things that I remember from being a kid: being smart, but often feeling that I wasn’t “smart enough”, or “good enough”, because there was always someone who could turn things against me; being laughed at for doing something wrong; the betrayal by someone who I thought was a friend, and in general, just not “fitting in”, no matter what the situation was.

And yeah, some of those childhood issues are still jumbled up inside my head, and will occasionally come out to kick me around for a bit. I’ve got most of them fairly well taken care of by now (at least, I’m pretty sure I do), but there’s still some that can toss me for a loop. It’s a long, slow process at times, but I’m always making progress.

One morning you wake up, and you are inside a computer. Through the internet, you now have access to all other computers in all corners of the world – no tracking, no restrictions. With all that power (and the understanding that you will eventually wake up in your own bed again) – what are your top three destinations?

Oooooh, fun. Let’s see…

First stop: The one single, central, credit data repository (hey, this is a fantasy situtation after all) to give myself good credit.

Second stop: Whatever computer controls a decent lottery, enter myself, and win. One of the ones that gives you some thousands of dollars a year for 30-some years or so. Not enough to necessarily tempt me to completely stop working, but enough to give me a comfortable gauranteed income for a good amount of the rest of my life.

Third stop: The Pentagon data center, so I can see what’s really going on (unless you’re really paranoid, in which case I should probably make that the Illuminati’s central database). Oh, and managing to take a good couple terrabytes of evidence out with me would be good, too. ;)

If you had to dye one part of your body blue – permanently! – which part would you choose and why? Hair, fingernails, retinas, and internal organs don’t count!

It’s so tempting to make a “blue balls” joke here — but I think if I chose my genetalia (as a whole package or any particular part), while I may be able to make a good living in a freak show, it would probably unfavorably impact my sex life, so I’ll stay away from that particular area.

If it’s a simple dye job, as if I’d just dipped something into a vat of blue dye, I think I’d go for my feet. A possible fun conversation piece when I’m not wearing socks and shoes, but not something that’s going to be overly visible or get too many odd looks or questions when I’m out and about in the normal world.

If I can get a little more creative, I’d be tempted to do my back, if I could start with some form of stripe or design from the back of my head, down my neck, then flaring out into a backpiece of some sort. Pass it off as a really kick-ass tattoo.

Or I could just do this.

Recently you ‘came out’ about your polyamorous beliefs on your blog – in front of your friends, in front of your family, and in front of the world. How did it feel to do it? How do you feel now that it’s been said? Why do you feel polyamory is a better choice for you than traditional relationships?

Hmmm…you are coming up with the fun ones!

First off, I’m not entirely sure that ‘polyamorous‘ is quite the right term for where I’d place myself. At the same time, I’m not entirely sure what alternate term I’d choose, so I suppose we’ll have to go with that for now.

I was definitely a little nervous about putting that up. As I mentioned in the comment itself, it was originally going to be a private e-mail, but midway through I decided that I didn’t want to approach it that way. If I’m going to defend a lifestyle choice in part because of my own experiences, than I feel that I should be willing to do that publicly. I wasn’t sure what sort of response I’d get, and that was definitely a concern, but for some reason, at that point, it seemed like the right thing to do.

Now that it’s been said…well, admittedly, I still hesitate a bit. I’ve got to admit, seeing this question did raise my eyebrows — but not to the point of backing down. ;) The thing is, I don’t think that it’s a case of not wanting to talk about it, as much as it is that I’m still figuring out just where I want to go with my writing here. How personal do I want to get? I’m naturally a fairly private, closed person in many ways (likely strongly influenced by many of the things I mentioned in response to the question about my childhood), and so it’s often a little difficult for me to “open up” in a public setting. At the same time, it’s something I want to be more comfortable doing — I feel that my writing isn’t too terribly shabby, and my personal writing, when it appears, I tend to like better than my more generic “here’s something cool” or “here’s something that pisses me off” posts. So, I’m kind of trying to test my own boundaries in what I’m comfortable putting up here for the world to see.

As for why I feel that more “traditional” strictly monogamous relationships aren’t quite my cup of tea…I hate to do this, but I think I’m going to have to deferr a more complete answer for the moment. I just tried to come up with a answer that was coherent and yet brief enough for the scope of this interview format, and failed miserably three times. Extremely briefly:

I’ve always been very comfortable with being physically affectionate with people I’m close to (hugs, cuddling, etc.); I don’t believe that sexuality necessarily should or should not go hand-in-hand with affection (in other words, you don’t have to have sex to be in a relationship, nor do you have to be in a relationship to have sex); and I believe that it’s entirely possible to seperate the emotional “this is the person I’m in a relationship” with from the physical “oooh, wouldn’t they be fun to play with” urge. That said, I’m not wandering around eyeing everyone I see as a potential playmate, either — as a general rule, the only people I’m likely to find physically interested in are those that I’m already emotionally interested in, i.e., friends.

And, now that I’ve done a remarkably clumsy and probably fairly horrid job of answering that question, I’m out of questions from Kirsten. I’ve got two more sets of mini-interviews coming up soon, though, so never fear — you’ll have plenty of more clumsy self-refrential navel gazing coming soon!