February 23, 2008

• A Game of Blogtag: Ask Me A Question

  Eighteen Questions

  Jane (peacenow) tagged me with the challenge "Ask Me a Question" after she did her own blog entry from the challenge. I didn't tag anyone else, as I usually just don't participate in blogtags, but I did solicit questions, from three different blog entries and from the message feature. Beginning with the three questions I got from messages, and then continung in order from the first question I received till the last, I'm going to attempt to answer each of these "Eighteen Questions".

  1. From Ocean (oceanstarr): Do you have a dream of something you want to accomplish? What is it? How have your dreams and aspirations evolved through your life?

  I'd like my fifteen minutes of fame. Either for something I've already written or created, or from something I haven't yet written or created. From childhood, spurred by Mother's constant reminders that I was a "genius" endowed with creative and artistic instincts, I felt I'd be "discovered" pretty early. I abandoned all my creative urges in college to concentrate on my career when my parents died, and only recently, with help from the internet, am I attempting to find my muse and become an "artistic" sort, looking to find my fifteen minutes of fame.

  2. From Cynthia (closethippie): What is the fartherest place you have traveled from where you live.

  This one is easy, since I've traveled very little. I'm not measuring the distances, (but easily could, using references available right here on the internet) but there's only two places I've been that are far from home, so I'll  mention them both. In 1996 I visited my late friend Dan at his home in Toronto, in British Columbia, Canada. In 1999 I spent two weeks on vacation on Nantucket Island, off the coast of Massachusetts. The reason was to meet a gal with which I was involved because of my lovesearch. We didn't hit it off. (She neglected to tell me she was still married and living with her husband!) but I used the time to make my Nantucket Holiday video.

  3. From MysticXingjing:  Are you planning on growing some hair? If so, will you change your screen name?

  Cute. I went bald at the age of 27, and don't plan that my hair would ever come back. Besides, that would cover up my tattoo! I was baldmike in 1999 when I first signed up for the internet, and I'll be baldmike when I die.

  4. From Pat (Trotta109 ): Do you have a scar from your polio vaccination when you were five years old?  Any other scars you wish to reveal?

  Can't find the polio scar anymore. My body seems to have changed somewhat since I hit 50 a few years ago. Old spots disappear and new ones appear like clockwork. Even my hip replacement scar is fading. My most obvious scar is right below my index finger on my right hand, where a "dishwashing accident" which resulted in a broken glass, caused me to have to have 7 or 8 stitches.

  5. From Jill (jillcarmel): Do you like having a roomate?

  I don't really like having to have a roommate. I've had rommates for most of "my renting life". Even when I lived with Pat, since we weren't married, I would consider her a roommate. Now I'd like to finish my years either living alone or with my "other half" if I can still find her or if she even exists. I'm a "legal senior", age 55 (no longer a "tweenior") on May 1st. I had planned on attempting to get into a senior mobile home park , but now that the housing market is shaky, and homes are available on the cheap, I might look into getting a small house for myself soon after my birthday. (Joel has a large inheritance in the bank, so he wouldn't be cash strapped to find a new place by himself. We'd "split up" now if we had the money, but it's difficult to rent as a single in California. Singles rent for over a grand a month these days. 

  6. From Jeri (jerjonji): If you could redo 1 thing in your life what would it be???

  I've blogged about this before.  I would insure that I corrected possibly the only regret I have. I abandoned my mother when she was in the nursing home after I, as executor of her estate at 21 after my dad died, helped to set her up, sell the family home, and begin receiving her medicare. She had suffered a bilateral stroke, and was like a vegetable, and was "not my mother", as I constantly remarked to explain my actions. She lived for another three years after I stopped seeing her in the nursing home. I think this is the cruelest thing I've ever done, and though I'm sure she forgave me before she finally passed away, if I had a do over I would visit her regularly instead of abandoning her.

  7. From Jane (peacenow): Have you ever had the same type of connection with anyone that I've referred to as a silvery thread of light? If so who are some you've experienced this with?

  It's interesting that I have written extensively about universal connections between humans. Sadly, I have never felt a "silvery thread of light" or any other thread with hardly anyone. I loved my best friend Tommy, who died young, at 37, and I still have conversations with him, and feel his presence spiritually, as I sometimes do my parents, or others who have passed, but I never have connected with anyone in any more of a manner than a friend or associate. I haven't even been in love, really, after over 54 years on the planet. I'm perpetually single, and don't have children. I feel as if I will, truly, "die alone". But it doesn't matter to me, as I've lived a long and fruitful life, and I know I've touched others, even if they haven't touched me.

  8. From Jurgens (Zeal4living): Who would you say is the sexiest female celebrity alive today...and why? Please add a photo when you answer.

  I'm not making this a "photo" or "image" type of presentation, so I'll leave a link to lots of photos with her imdb entry. From the first time I laid eyes on Hayley Mills in Disney's "Moon Spinners" as a child, I have always  been "in love" with a young female starlet. I won't answer as to "sexiest" but my current love is pretty sexy. Currently, since 2001's "Ghost World" introduced me to her, I am in love with Scarlett Johansson.

  9. From Linda (llibra ): What would be a one-word answer to a subject you could discuss forever, and a one-word answer to a subject you would never discuss further?

  This sounds like a riddle, and right now I'm not primed to think about riddles, and still have nine more questions to answer. I hope they can be two different subjects. First one: Existence. I've been discussing it in one way or another since I wanted to be a preacher as a child, and why I sign myself as a philosopher. Second one: Intolerance. I would love the world to be such that no one needed to talk about the subject of intolerance.

  10. From Saadia (Saadias_World): Besides writing poetry, what is your favorite thing to do in your spare time?

  My life is divided in two. Work for most of the time, so the rest I guess would be "spare time". Either I have no spare time or all my time other than work is spare time. At age 54, I've pretty much "engineered" my life (that which I can control, anyway) to deliver the pursuits of my happiness. I write because I write. I've written about the fact that words are my destiny many times in the past. But I also love movies. I make "MikeVideos" and shoot photographs. I also collect and watch and endless stream of high quality high definition movies on the widescreen HDTV in my "media room". When I can afford it, I go out on "photo expeditions" up and down the California coast taking photos. This is a relatively new hobby acquired in 2004 with my last videocamera, which had  a still camera built in.

  11. From Jaz (Jaz): If there was something you would change in your life .... what would it be?

  See the answer to Question #6 above.

  12. From John (GunStarHero1988 ): What did you do exactly X = 13 + 123 = 93 + 103 seconds ago?

  Well, if you're asking what I was doing "X" seconds ago, or "a minute ago", I was probably figuring out your equation in order to answer it. (rimshot)

  13. From Jaime Melissa (jaime_melissa ): If you were to suddenly die today could you accept it as the ending of a satisfactory time on earth, or bitterly regret it as the termination of a life not yet fully lived?

  Besides the pretty big regret I mentioned in the answer to Question #6 above, I don't have many regrets. I like to live live as if each day were my last, and for most of the past decade I've felt that I've lived a complete, fullfilling, and open life, and that if I died it would not matter to me. Besides, my soul and mind passes to the Universal Mind after I die, and that's a positive thing to look forward to.

  14. From Candace: (harmony0stars): When and how did you get into photography?

  I took a small camera along on trips with friends when I was in college, for snapshots, as most people do, but I found myself shooting more "creatively" than just snapping pics. I furthered the hobby with a 35mm camera later on, but didn't really see it take off until 2004, when I got the Sony videocamera which housed a still camera inside. I would start shooting stills along with video, in a combination which has seen the creation of dozens of webshots folders and videos since then.

  15. From Bev (Sojourner_here): If you could reprogram one section of your past which section would it be?

  I just watched Francis Ford Coppola's "Peggy Sue Got Married" this morning, and I'm planning a complete blog article around the subject of changing the past, or leaving it alone.

  16. From Ryan (leadwoodfolk): Have you ever lived outside of California?

  I was born in Nampa, Idaho, but the family moved to the Los Angeles area of Southern California before I turned 5. I lived first in Highland Park, then El Monte, then Glendora, followed by Rosemead, before I was out of college. Then I moved to the South Bay (by the beach) and I've been here ever since. (Lots of different apartments and houses, but the same overall area.)

  17. From Randy (flatpick46) : If you could be president for a week, what would you change and why?

  I really don't think that any president could make policy changes at all in only one week's time. Most presidents in office for the full eight years don't really make a lot of policy changes. Last president I can think of who did make a lot of changes was FDR, and he was in offcice for 12 years before term limits were imposed. I will admit I am a socialist, and always have supported more social programs, especially health care. We should be more like Canada or France, pay more taxes and have government programs take better care of us instead of the private sector. I don't think even FDR could accomplish that in a week.

  18. From Jimmy (nidan) : A male teenager's female friend must magically transform her appearence so she looks like him. (This way she can act as a decoy) Apparently the transformation is a  anatomically accurate right down to the character's bad eyesight. (And you can guess otherthings as well.) Do you think it would be weird for you to see one of your friends (Refering to oposite gender of course but to even same gender as well.) take on your form like that?

  You're talking about clones, man. Someone who is completely your identical equal would be a clone of yourself. I wouldn't mind having a set of clones around the house, if I had a place for them to eat and sleep. Wouldn't bother me at all. As I age I tend to talk to myself more, so having a physical listener who could talk back might be neat.

  Then again, it could be pretty strange and weird. Sorry that's not too "philosophical" an answer but it't the best I got.

  EDIT: 2/24/08 6:41am pst. I want to thank everyone who asked me questions for this blogtag exercise. When I collected them all yesterday from three blog entries and my messages, I was really pleased with the thoughtfulness, the diversity and the amount of questions. MFN/ppf

  • 11:24 pm
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