Questions meme thing

[firstfrost]

I've been infected with a meme from dpolicar, but I admit I've gotten a little confused about the directionality of propagation. So, here's the simplified version, which goes both directions:

Leave a comment if you want me to ask you five questions. Leave a comment if you want to ask me five questions. Questions, they're all good.

But I'm still not doing any of those fill-in-the-friend random mad lib things. :)

1. You have the option of spending N days in an isolation chamber (perfectly comfortable, but completely alone), in exchange for which N of the people on your friends list (randomly selected) get an extra year of healthy life. What value of N do you choose? ("0" is a permissible answer).
   
   The answer to this depends on whether this implies a world in which I can easily vanish for N days. If I have to take it as vacation days from work, then I think I only take two weeks off (so N of 16), because that's about the amount of vacation I have uncommitted. I might be able to manage more with negotiation with my boss. I don't think I'd go for "I quit my job to spend extra time in the isolation chamber".
   
   On the other hand, if that isn't part of the problem that I'm supposed to be worrying about, then I have 44 people on my friends list, so I pick 44. A single day for a year is a fair trade, so I think I have to scale it up. There is a line that I would still draw - if I had hundreds of people listed, I don't think I could spend a year myself to buy them each a year - not only would I be too miserable, but a year is enough that I'd feel too much like I had left my life behind. I think the line might be somewhere around two months.
   
   But I'd hate it. Hate hate hate. (Even more so without zephyr; I'm not sure if computer interaction counted). Right now (that is, last night when I was starting these answers) I'm sitting in the computer room (the smallest room in the house). tirinian is playing Starcraft and harrock is playing a computer wargame with a bazillion counters and I'm typing this. There's no actual interaction going on, but I'd rather be here than in another room.
   
   
2. Describe the perfect Thanksgiving for you.
   
   I'm not sure any modern Thanksgiving is going to live up to some of my fuzzy childhood memories of going to Grandma's and putting black olives on all my fingers. But, failing that: a small mob, not more than will fit at one large table. Mostly good friends of mine, but adding in a couple of people who are good friends of the other people there, so I can get to know them better. Someone who's better than me at making sure that we try to remember the optional Meaning of the holiday, and not just hanging out with friends with good food. It'd be extra perfect to have my sister and her family there as well (which would help push it out of the "hanging out with friends" category), but that seems implausible.
   
   But this was a really hard question, because I don't have a perfect Thanksgiving. In part it's that I don't invest a lot, emotionally, in holidays. And in part, I think that I don't have many perfect things that I aspire to. I'd like to have a good Thanksgiving. I usually do. I don't need a perfect Thanksgiving, I don't even think about what that would be.
   
   
3. Given the choice of living the rest of your life in a male body, or missing one leg, which would you choose, and why?
   
   Missing one leg. It would seem a cruel trick to foist a husband on harrock when he signed on for a wife. If it weren't permanent, though, I'd totally want to try being male. (Thinking about it, I think I identify slightly more as straight than I do as female. If I swapped to a male body, I think I'd be more interested in women.)
   
   
4. Think of five people you truly admire.
   What do they have in common?
   
   A while ago I mentioned the three people I want to be when I grow up: mijven, chenoameg, and zacheiss. All three of these are people who are better than me at things that I try to be good at - character and relationships, logistics and homeowning, and Computer Stuff, respectively. To keep to that theme, I'll add mjperson for GMing, and Anne Hunter (the only one I've not met in person), for work superpowers and possibly more multiple timelines than me.
   
   
5. You get to summon one fictional character to live in the real world for a year. Do you? If so, who, and what do you expect the result to be?
   
   Well, timing is sort of difficult, but I'd really love Jed Bartlett for president for a year. Early West Wing episodes have a pride in being liberal and humanitarian that I was very fond of. And government by a combination of ideals and intelligence is, I think, what I'd want the president to aspire to no matter which party he was from (of course, he might not be as amazing without the writers on his side). I'd hope for a calming of the vicious political atmosphere, no stupid constitutional amendments, and ... well, I don't really know what easy TV resolution to hope for in Iraq. But at least policy there based on military intelligence.

Comments

Re: Trivial Trade

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Having never had to go anywhere near as far as two weeks myself, I may be assuming an increase when it's really a plateau. But I also think that people to interact with is better than no people to interact with - I didn't get *lonely* at a four day training seminar where I didn't know anyone, just a little rattled. (Okay, it helped that during the time off we got to run around Disney World...)