20 Questions Tuesday: 436 - Tanya Vora

Okay, it has been quite the hiatus, but if I am going to pay for the domain, I should probably be posting to it, amiright? I am.

Anyway… Happy 2024 to everyone a bit late. Until I can get back in the swing of things, these might be published a little erratically and not necessarily on Tuesday’s. Hello Thursday, how you doing? Bear with me, I forgot how long these take to do and how tedious the formatting issues are.

What better way to start the blog back up than by interviewing a ex-work--colleague-who-has-always-made-me-smile?  

Today we get to see 20 questions with Tanya Vora. A few jobs ago, Tanya and I worked together in a UX department.  I was mainly focus on UX design, and she was a UX researcher.  We ended up working on a project with a research component that involved close to 20 90 minute interviews.  It was a bunch. Tanya has a dry sense of humor that I enjoy.  She is smart and charming and I am a better person for having known her.  We recently reconnected on the socials and I thought, “Who better to restart the blog up with than the delightful Tanya?”  And I was right, There is no one better to restart this bad-boy up with than Tanya. She is one of the best, and everyone should know her.

Without further ado, 20 Questions with Tanya.

In a previous life I was a cartographer/geographer and I have always loved the idea of people’s geographic story.  For example (I have not had to write this for over a year now) my geographic story goes thusly… I was born as an air force brat at an Air Force base just outside of Oklahoma City. My dad was transferred to one of the many Air Force Bases in Montgomery, Alabama and then the family moved up to Birmingham, Alabama when he got out of the Air Force.  I lived in the BIrmingham area until I went off to college at Kent State University.  I followed my then fiance and now ex-wife to grad school in Columbus, Ohio, where I have lived since.  

Question 1:  What is your geographic story? 

First off, thanks for the kind words. I’ll be using the paragraph above as daily motivational affirmations. Loved working together and getting to know ya!

My story begins before I was born. My parents emmigrated from India and came to the US in the 80’s. It was because of their big leap that I’m here today…in Ohio. Some members of my Dad’s family went to New Zealand, in a city that’s 70 degrees for most of the year and has multiple forms of reliable public transportation. But I’m not complaining…today.

I was raised in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio and then moved to Columbus to attend tOSU when I was 18. I’ve since been living in Columbus with my partner James and two cats, Rou and Namiko. I’d like to move out of Ohio one day, but in due time. It’s affordable here and I’ve built a supportive and caring community. I’m building a couple businesses at the moment and want to save up before finally making the big move.

I would have lost money betting that you had lived in more places than just the 2 Ohio cities.   You seem so much more cosmopolitan than just having been in the midwest.  I would imagine that being 1st gen immigrant family adds to the cosmopolitaness… cosmopolinaity… So, Question 2: Do you get the opportunity to travel much then? Where is the most interesting place you have been?

Well they do say that Cuyahoga Falls is the Paris, France of the US. 

I love traveling! The escapism and food - big fan. My parents liked to take us on trips while growing up. Some trips included: several summer road trips to visit my cousins in New Jersey, visits to India to see family, & Disney World. 

These days it depends on if I can find the time and money. Owning two businesses makes this challenging. I’d like to also mention that I’ve been incredibly privileged to have been able to travel as much as I have throughout my life.

The most interesting place I’ve been to was Bolivia. When I was a freshman at OSU I was a part of the International Affairs Scholars program. This meant that we had the opportunity to take a course about Bolivian history and then visit the country at the end of the semester (back when there were semesters). We went to Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, Isla del Sol, and La Paz. It’s a beautiful country that has so much to offer in each city. It was an incredibly unique experience, considering we took a class taught by two professors of Bolivian heritage who also joined us on the trip.

That sounds absolutely amazing. I need to travel more than I have recently. I would love to cross an ocean again soon. 

Here comes the hard question. Question 3: Cake or pie? Which specific one and why? 

CAKE. Belle’s Bread near Tensuke Market. The strawberry and matcha flavors. It’s the most fluffy, airy, beautiful, gorgeous cake that I’ve ever had. We get it every year for my birthday. 

I have never had that cake (editors note, I will link to it). It sounds delightful. 

I do have to say that your cake response is a little tame. Previous people I have talked to or done official 20 Questions Tuesday who have picked cake tend to be more rabid about it.  

This is completely anecdata but pie people tend to say something to the effect of “I like pie, and would love to eat some pie, thank you very much.” Whereas cake people tend to be “I will murder your family and kick a puppy in the rain to get the cake that I deserve. You cannot keep me from my frosting delivery system, I will end you.” 

Question 4: Were you merely being polite concerning you desire for cake, and, in truth, you are a rage filled frosting monster? The world wants to know.

Haha it may be that I don’t love foods that are sweet very much! I’m very selective with the sweet dishes I will eat, but I’m a savory breakfast person FWIW. I hope this logic resonates with someone lol I often think about what dish I would eat during my last day on Earth and sweets aren’t in the top 10 or 20 of my list. 

So, that leads nicely into Question 5: if you could have dinner with any 5 people in the world who have ever lived, what food would you serve for that dinner? 

1. Anthony Bourdain (RIP, still sad about this one)

2. Ziwe 

3. Tamar the Great of Georgia 

4. James Baldwin

5. Aristotle OR Stevie Nicks, I’m torn between these two

I've chosen these people under the assumption that they would be honest when answering questions I ask them. Very interested in learning about the Fleetwood Mac drama in that case.

Ok to answer your question: a universally beloved dish that I make is a vegan dal makhani (recipe by Nisha Vora of Rainbow Plantlife, ) 

This would be served with basmati rice and naan. It meets most dietary restrictions and is filling! For dessert we’ll have the strawberry cake from Belle’s Bread, decaf coffee, and baklava. 

The dal looks amazing. I think I would tear that to pieces. The issue I have with making Indian food from scratch at home is how many ingredients and spices it takes to get the flavor profile just right, and just how long it takes to cook things properly. Looking at that video, it looks like a solid 36 hours of process from the soaking to the slow simmering. The results are clearly amazing, but… Everest Cuisine is just around the corner and has Chicken Pokara ready to eat in 15 minutes… 

I would suggest Stevie Nicks over Aristotle just because I think Aristotle would be up his own ass too much. 

I know that you are starting to put together a stand-up career. Question 6: What drew you to the art of stand up? 

I think there were several motivating factors. The first being that I enjoy finding humor in life. All of this is made up, why not laugh while we’re doing mundane tasks?

The other factor has a bit of a longer explanation. I started participating in business pitch competitions (Startup Weekend and GiveBackHack) around 2017. Essentially, you pitch your business idea in front of 100+ people the first night on Friday, build a team with other attendees, work together to validate the problem and build a deck on Saturday, then pitch the business to investors on Sunday. This process of speaking to a crowd with a mic and leading a team helped me realize that I could potentially do comedy one day.

I since then have been writing observations and notes in my Notes app on my iPhone, in hopes of creating my tight-five at some point. I’ve been keeping these entries for years now! 

In February of this year, I asked a local comedian for advice on how to start comedy. I took his advice and began refining my notes into jokes, and then I finally worked up the courage to perform my first set in July. Quite a lengthy process!

I never thought that shark tank style pitches would lead to stand-up, but it makes sense. 

First time I did stand up was in 5th grade.  It was a partner act with my friend Patrick.  He was the straight man of a typical kind of set-up/punch format. It was a lot of fun.  Patrick didn’t take to the Center Point Elementary fame though and retired that year to focus on his studies.  I kept the torch alive for another year and came out with a tight 7 to nab a honorable mention (4th place in the show… just off the podium, gottdamnit) in the Talent Show as a 6th Grader,  The kid who won, did the same winning dance routine from the year before (He really did this amazing dance to Midnight Star’s “Freakazoid”), I know one of the other top three sang “The Rose” like 4 other people in the show, and I forget that other act that placed.  That is the extent of my stand-up career.  Later that year I retired from stand-up because the talent show system was rigged (the guy who danced to Freakazoid won the following year as well [he was a year behind me] by dancing to Freakazoid again. Rigged. It was an amazing dance routine though.), and there wasn’t a talent show in middle school, because middle school sucks. 

We all know who the big names in stand-up are. The Seinfeld’s Patton’s, Gaffigan’s, Chapelle’s (not without controversy, I haven’t watched his last few,) but Question 7:  Who is a comedian from a tier or 2 below those mega stand-up stars that really gets you giggling and what is a bit of theirs that you love?  

Come out of retirement, I think you’d be great! 

I’ve loved watching a couple comedians throughout their comedy careers. I’ve outlined what I like most about them:

1. Nate Bergatze

1. He’s an “Everyman comic”, he “muses about a life that could happen to any suburban 20-, then 30-something”

2. What intrigues me about him is that he made it big while being a clean comic, meaning he doesn’t swear or joke about vulgar topics. He’s so funny that you don’t even realize that he is strategic about keeping his jokes clean. 

3. I love hearing his stories about what it was like growing up with a dad who was a magician.

2. Quinta Brunson

1. I’ve been following Quinta since her Buzzfeed days. I feel like I’m watching a friend reach their goals, as she’s now producing the successful sitcom, Abbott Elementary, about a show that follows the staff at a struggling, underfunded Philadelphia school.

2. I don’t have any comedic bits of hers that standout from her standup days, but I still think about an interview that she did with Jimmy Kimmel about why she thinks the comedy in Abbott is so successful:

1. “I think the more specific you go with the city, the better. The inclination…is that you want to go broader on network TV, but what I’ve learned from comedies is that the more specific you go the more universal you go…Anyone can relate it [Philadelphia] to their own home town”

3. I think about this quote when writing jokes about my life as the daughter of two Indian immigrants, for audiences that couldn’t be anymore different than me.

3. Ali Wong

1. Ali Wong once told Seth Meyers that she used to do 13 sets a night in NYC, which logistically sounds like a nightmare. Her work ethic is admirable, and I’m happy to see a female comic up there with all the dudes, and an Asian comic at that!!

2. Her bit about having Asian immigrant parents hits close to home ha

No notes. Great picks. Question 8: How do you perceive the comedy scene in Columbus? What is good? What is bad? How does it match up with other nearby places? 

I haven’t explored comedy in other cities, so the following is just from my perspective in Columbus, which I’ve been pleasantly surprised by! I had assumed that it would be competitive and unkind to new comers, but it’s been anything but! Seasoned comedians have been helpful anytime I ask questions about comedy or the industry.

We’re lucky to have open mics every night in the city, which is different than how things were just a couple years ago. Don’t Tell Columbus and The Attic bring in national and local comedians every week. The scene is hot, it’s been exciting to be a part of it!

In terms of negative aspects, I think like most industries, it’s male dominated. So jokes that women write and deliver based on their lived experiences don’t always land at open mics where 90% of the people in the room are men waiting for their turn to perform. 

Networking is important in comedy, so sometimes there are cliques of comedians that mostly promote those from their friendgroups. I assume this is true in any comedy scene, though. I know I’ve been guilty of this too, as I haven’t met everyone in the scene due to being new.

One last thing - I think like most art forms, the amount of time attributed to building a career in comedy rarely pays off. So much time is involved with writing and performing material at open mics and shows, only for the end product (shows) to pay comedians inadequately. I don’t blame any organizers for this dilemma - I believe this is an industry wide issue, and I’m not sure how to solve it. It feels daunting to think about the years necessary to build a comedy career in hopes of potentially making a living in this industry, which is incredibly rare (think actor statistics - 1% make it to a point where they’re professional, touring comedians that MIGHT make $50k a year.)

The scene seems much livelier than what I knew of it not that long ago. I was much more plugged into the comings and goings of comedians in Columbus about 10 years ago.I LOVE comedy and have wanted to get back into it again, and potentially get up and tell some stories. Making the time to do it is just as daunting as getting a set together.  I should probably just get going to open mics and consume for a bit before even thinking of stepping up. 

Let’s take this a slightly different direction.  I also know, since we were co-workers, that your professional life (at least part of it) revolves around User Experience Design. Question 9: No one grows up saying “I want to be a User Experience Designer!”... so what was your path to UX?

In college I studied Communication Technology with a subspecialization in Human Computer Interaction. All this meant was that I had one class in college that taught me about UX design and research. I loved learning that there was a wholde industry dedicated to understanding how people navigate and use everyday experiences.  

That class stuck with me after graduation, so I tried to obtain a UX job out the gates. I unfortunately didn’t have the experience or portfolio to pursue UX, so I instead taught myself to code HTML and CSS and landed a Web content Developer position at Abercrombie & Fitch’s headquarters in New Albany. 

After 6 months, I decided to introduce my self to the UX team at Abercrombie during a happy hour. I told them I wanted to be on their team, so I shadowed them for a couple months then fully transitioned to their team as a UX researcher. I’ve since been a UX researcher and now consider myself more of a UX strategist! There was a year or two in my career where I was a UX designer, but I learned immediately that I didn’t enjoy that role. I love how objective research is; it’s hard to argue our findings during a presentation with stakeholders, when it's founded in data.

HCI is pretty much UX. I am surprised that people did not see that as translatable. I loved working with you in your research role when we were coworkers. Always insightful and very incisive with your research designs and implementation. You truly are a joy to watch, especially when you are oblivious to the research participants clearly hitting on you. On a side note: we are going to need to have a conversation over beverages about transitioning to UX Strategist. I really want that, I am tired of being reactive in my career… I would love to strategize. 

Question 10: please fill in the blanks (feel free to ask others for input in the second blank) : I find that I am mostly __________. Others find that I am mostly ____________. 

I find that I am mostly impatient

Others (my partner James) finds that I am mostly empathetic, creative, & entrepreneurial

Hey! Wait!  That's three things, James. Stop with the overachieving. Overachieving James, amiright? 

“Impatient” doesn't completely preclude “empathetic, creative, & entrepreneurial…” buuuuut… Question 11: how do you feel those two answers mesh up? Are they sides of the same coin? Or do you feel that that yours or his perception of you rings more authentic? 

I think that being impatient explains my behaviors and entrepreneurial pursuits quite well! Long story short, my parents only praised success so now my siblings and I are perfectionists. We want to do it right and we want to do it well, which means we are more apt to give up on something if we’re not immediately good at it or happy with it. This explains why I’ve quit many a hobbies throughout the years 😅

In terms of my professional life, I’ve bounced around to different UX teams throughout the years because I was unhappy with the team/environment/work. Founding businesses has allowed me the freedom and control to create things within my skillsets. So I see that both of our perceptions are accurate through this lens. 

There is definitely a connection between the different responses. Looking at impatient vs empathetic, creative, and entrepreneurial isn't an either or. It feels like different sides of the same coin to me as well. 

Question 12: More often than not, would you consider yourself to be happy?

I think so! A number of privileges allow me to be generally happy. 2019 was rough while trying to tackle a full time job and Spice Up. Shout out to Zoloft, which I recently was allowed to stop taking this year! 

That is great. Most people I have interviewed have been generally happy. There have been a couple who recognized their unhappiness due to the question being asked, and there was one  I think realized their unhappiness weeks later. I am a change maker. 

So Question 13: Do you have any superstitions or rituals in your life? 

Don’t tell Big Pharma! They might recruit you 

I don’t know how to answer these questions without a backstory or lengthy explanation lol Let me try bullet points:

• Was raised religious - my family practiced Jainism. When I turned 18, my siblings and I decided that we no longer want to practice and we have since considered ourselves atheists. 

• For years I was a real asshole about denouncing anything that wasn’t rooted in science. Now as an adult, I realize that unexplainable observations can still be categorized as science - we just don’t know the why!

• I want to believe in ghosts because of the vast amount of anecdotal evidence out there (I.e. we all know someone who has a ghost story)

• I knock on wood all the time in order to avoid “tempting fate”

• My top three zodiac signs are very scarily accurate to who I am

These are all amazing. Ghostly anecdata is pretty interesting, and weirdly explained very well by simulation theory.  THAT is a conversation that should occur over beverages.

Question 14: Any other supernatural things you would love to be true?

Um, all of it. Krampus, cryptids, magic, ghosts. I love all things horror, but now that I’m thinking it through, I change my mind - certain horror movie monsters should not exist. Like the lady from The Ring can stay where she is. 

Yeah, Samara Morgan can suck it… creepy well-girl. Stay in your fetid waters… drippy weirdo.  The one I want to be real the most is Bigfoot/Yeti/Sasquatch/Skunk Ape/Amok etc… that one really feels like it would be amazing.  That being said, I do not want the weirdo interdimensional creature bigfoot or the UFO alien bigfoot.  I want the everyday, go as you please, “I’m a big hairy ape” bigfoot.  The overly woooo-woooo crypto-zoology stuff just does not work for me. If all y’all haven’t listened to “Wild Thing” a podcast about bigfoot (at least the first season is), you should.

We are on the downward slope of this Q and A Adventure, Just going to check in and make sure I won’t miss anything you wanted to be asked. Question 15: Is there any question I have not asked you that you either expected to be asked or would like to have been asked? We still have some q’s to rectify that deficiency if we need.

The day the government releases documentation that proves that Bigfoot is in fact real will be a great day

None that come to mind! Thanks for the great questions and conversations thus far!

Awesome.  I think this has been going well so far, but I do want to make sure expectations are met.  Question 16: Which do you think would have a bigger immediate impact on society, Disclosure of bigfoot being real and critical nature shows being presented on Nat Geo and Discovery or an engagement announcement of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift?

Heeeyyy would you give a male interviewee the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce option as well? 😆 

I am not a Swiftie, but even if I was I would still choose Bigfoot disclosure because I think 99% of all celebrity relationships are for PR. I’m not sure what the impact would be other than paparazzi making bank. 

Bigfoot being real would just open the floodgates for more research and funding into finding other cryptids globally, which is objectively way cooler. It might also immediately cause mass hysteria. 

Most definitely, I would ask, if not this exact question, a similar one to anybody I was talking to. Tay and Travis are really the IT people in the cultural zeitgeist right now.  If I were asking this a year ago it might have been bigfoot v Megan and Harry doing something. The reason I asked you this question is because of how I thought a local newscast would set up the bigfoot story.

Ted: Mary, you know who is really excited about this Tayravis Engagement?

Mary: No, Ted.  Who ?

Ted: Bigfoot.  Bigfoot has come out of hiding to get see what’s going on with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Scientists say that sasquatch or Bigfoot as he is called …..

I chose the soft ball cultural zeitgeist idea because I wanted to keep this 20 Q’s relatively light so I avoided big news items like conflicts or political turmoil… I’m looking bat you Israel and Russia. 

Let’s stick with the supernatural.  Question 17: What is the most credible supernatural thing that you have experienced or have heard directly from someone? No “a friend or a friend said her neighbor saw a…” stories.

I recorded an episode on my podcast Fangirl Feels about this very topic. Two friends and I recorded our encounters with the supernatural. My experience was hearing what I believed to be my grandfather on the day of his cremation. 

That episode can be found here.

That is intense. You bet I will listen to that podcast.

Now it is time for me to turn the tables. Question 18: What question do you have for me? 

Would you rather have a time machine that can only go to the past or a teleporter that can only go to fictional universes?

That is a fun question. The past is horrible and I am not sure that I would like to be part of that horribleness only as older and wiser. Imma choose the teleporter. 

Question 19: What are you taking from these 20 Questions that you did not bring in with you? 

Yes but WHICH fictional universe are you going to? I’m going to the world of Avatar the Last Airbender. 

I think these questions made me realize that I’ve been living a full life. It’s hard to see the forest for the trees when you’re bogged down with the day to day and trying to get by. But looking back at these questions, I think my experiences have led me to lead an interesting and somewhat meaningful life! So thank you for including me in this.

This is partly why I do this. It is great to see someone take stock of where they are at the moment. That is why the “Are you happy” question isn’t asked until the second half of the questions.  This has been an absolute joy for me as well. 

As far as where I would teleport… Not to the Warhammer 40K universe, maybe to Star Wars, I am not a brony but if I had to teleport to a fictional universe, My Little Pony might not be a bad one. It did not seem super dangerous. Most fictional universes are built on the idea of conflict to create good narrative structures, so most of what we see from those settings are the conflict portions.  I think I might want to teleport to the Earth of the Expanse.  It is not perfect, but good enough and on planet, it seems similarly safe to what life is today.  The danger comes from stepping off planet, and you don’t have to do that.

Question 20: What’s next? Be as concrete or nebulous, as short-term or long-term, and as philosophical or practical as you would like. 

Hoping to keep:

• Landing comedy gigs (follow along on YouTube, IG, and Threads @totalllytanya)

• Helping clients with UX design and research needs through Arcanalabs.co

• being silly as we about books, tv shows, and movies on Fangirl Feels Pod

• Planning events and posting food related content for Spice Up (@spiceupeats on YouTube, IG, and FB)

Speaking of, we’re hosting a Spice Up event on February 22nd with James Beard nominated Chef, Avishar Barua at Agni. Get your tickets

Well this was amazing. I do feel like I know you much better now. I promise that I will try to get out and see your stand-up set soon.

So follow Tanya on all the socials you can.  She is a great follow. Columbus people, look out for Tanya, she is awesome.

To recap:

• Tonya is amazing

• She always brings a smile to my face

• I know it has been a while since I posted

• It has been a crazy couple years

• Deal with it

• Many things have changed since the last post in May of 2022

• I have remarried

• I am very happy

• My ex got re-married

• She is very happy

• My wife and my ex’s husband are both very happy

• Everyone is pretty darn happy

• Except for my existence in the employment space

• Going on my 6th month unemployed now

• Job market is crazy weird right now

• I have applied for over 500 positions 

• Gotten thanks but no thanks emails for about 70

• 71, just got one a minute ago

• I’m not putting anyone on blast, but I have had about 20 recruiters (internal HR reps or external staffing recruiters) ghost me after contacting me

• They contact, I respond, they fall off the face of the earth

• Jobs applications that seem like they are tailor made for me go nowhere

• Par example (for my Quebecois readers) I have a MA in geography (with accompanying 20 year career) and a MS in User Experience Design (with a commiserate 8 year career) and did not get a call back for a GIS position focused on UX

• Nothing

• Rien

• Nada

• With all the tech layoffs going on I know I am in a pool with tons of applicants

• It has been extremely depressing

• Oh, well

• If you aren’t creating, you are waiting, so let’s get this blog moving again

• Send me a message or leave a comment if you want me to ask you 20 Questions

• Have a great week everyone

20 Questions Tuesday: 409 - Bob Basiewicz

20 Q Tues number 409? It's going to be a clean one! Super clean.

This week I have the honor and privilege to ask a friend and co-worker of mine 20 Questions.  I met Bob Basiewicz when I started at my current job. On day one, if I remember correctly, Bob gave a demo of an app architecture and seemed all cogent and knowledgeable. He was explaining design patterns and giving justifications for color patterns.  Bob threw around jargon and industry terms effortlessly.  He was on fire. First day on the job for me in a completely new career path and I am getting intimidated by this guy making his presentation in a field he is clearly completely comfortable within. I am a fish out of water hoping no one notices that I am clearly a fraud at my job, and here is this expert just throwing knowledge down.

Fast forward 2 months. Bob is an idiot with smouldering rage issues. I have been here now for about 2 years and he is one of my favorite people at work (one of many favorite people at work [this caveat is to keep Bob’s head from ballooning with pride and filling a room with his unbridled ego AND mollify the sting to other coworkers who are concerned that they are not in the “favorite people at work” category {you are all my favorites, each and everyone of you (yes, even you [the insecure one who thinks little of themselves]}]). I know some things about about him, but now I am going to learn more.

Here come the questions!

My previous career was in mapping, and one of the things I have always enjoyed is people’s geographic stories. For example… I was born in Oklahoma, moved to the 3rd world that is Alabama when I was 3.  Went from Montgomery, Alabama, the seat of all “Alabamian Power” to Birmingham, Alabama, the economic engine or the downtrodden state. I lived just to the northeast of Birmingham in a small suburban town called Center Point from when I was a toddler until I graduated from high school. I went to school in Kent Ohio and moved to Columbus when I got married 20+ years ago.  I have been in Central Ohio ever since.  Question 1: What is your geographic story?

Answer 1: Hi. I’m Bob and despite what you may think, I do not hate you with the fire and rage of a thousand hells. I am from Detroit, MI which probably explains a lot of my rage and trust issues. (Only Scott thinks I have aforementioned “issues.”) Honestly, I’m from a city 35 min north of Detroit called Rochester Hills. I grew up in the ‘burbs and had a wonderful and delightful childhood. I attended college in Detroit proper. At age 28 I moved to Pittsburgh and hated it. After 10 months I left for Chicago where I loved (almost) every second of my 7+ years there. After reconnecting with a friend from Michigan, in 2015 I moved to Columbus, Ohio to marry her. It’s been the best decision of my life. 

Ugh… “Look at me, I’m Bob and I love my wife.” Yuck.  Keep that stuff to yourself, no one really wants to hear it.

Question 2: If you did not have job or family constraints, is there a place that you would want to move to? 

Answer 2: Chicago. Not sure if you want me to profess my love for the city considering your disdain for me saying I love my wife.

Depends on if you are going to get all mushy about Chicago. Chicago is a great city.  I haven’t been there too often, but it was a fun city when I was able to be there. 

Speaking of wives, yesterday was my wife's birthday.  The world is a better place since is on it. I know what you readers are thinking... "Why is it that Bob is not able to say nice things about his with, but Bloggy Bloggy Scott Scott can wax eloquently about the goodness of his wife? That is a double standard. You suck, Bloggy Scott." Number 1: Bloggy Scott? Where the Hell did that come from? Number 2: It was her birthday yesterday and she is awesome. Number 3: it is my blog, you want equality? get your own blog.

Question 3: Cake or Pie? Which specific kind and why? 

Answer 3: Pie, specifically apple pie. A la mode is cool but I’m not into Wisconsin-style cheddar cheese-laden apple pie, though. No disrespect to cake lovers*, but you guys are the worst and you need to settle down. Buncha wide-eyed spatula-lickers. Even you 50 cent. Get outta here with that, “I love you like a fat kid love cake.” Relax, it’s just cake. Hell, even weddings are abandoning the prestigious ceremonial symbolism of a single cake and refining with cupcakes and cupcake pyramids. I guess it beats a plastic-y play-doh flavored fondant slathered freshly baked slice of air. Instead, you have 100-200 individual, mini, cream cheese icing-topped, strawberry-mango-passionfruit flavored, paper-wrapped,  bite-sized garbage. No thank you, cake-eaters. Gimme my all-American, freshly baked, warm, apple pie. 

I have said it before, and I will say it again (much to the detriment to my most loyal of readers. Hi, all five of you!). People who love pie would really like to eat some pie if it is available.  People who like cake would kick a kitten in the rain to get a slice of cake. There is a level of for the cake eaters that is somewhat insatiable. It can be alarming. Your portrayal of this cupcake obsession is interesting as well.  I would venture even further to say that the actual cake is less important these days than the frosting.  Gourmet cupcake boutiques now will mound six inches of icing on top of a 2 inch high cupcake.  The ratios are all off.

So, a few years ago, we were at this New Year’s Eve party and one of Little Man’s friends could not stop himself from eating these honey bbq meatballs.  He had something like 20 of the things. It was honestly amazing to watch.  It was very clear that he just could not help himself around those. If they were there, they were going in his belly.

Question 4: is there any other food that you cannot help yourself around? If that foodstuff is present, you just haves to has it?

Answer 4: I love food in general, and I’ll eat almost anything, except for that weird shit on shows like Fear Factor and the like. I think doughnuts* are my weakness although I don’t really think I have a food kryptonite. For example, I can eat just one Lays potato chip. I love the hell out of orange juice, but can almost never drink it as I’m a diabetic. That being said, if you had a pitcher of OJ out, I wouldn’t “have to has it!!!” like a deranged person. 

*I like plain ol’ glazed donuts. Boring, perhaps? But yes, I just took the “ugh” outta donut. 

Oh, donuts… how I miss thee.  I used to be able to destroy donuts, and they were actually my kryptonite. I really had a hard time not eating them if they were around. Like a serious problem not eating them. But then I stopped eating the gluten and that made me super sad.

Question 5: When did you get the diabetes diagnosis? Is this something that was realized later in life or was it diagnosed when you were a child so you did not know what you were missing sugarwise?

Answer 5: I found out when I was 18. I landed in the ER, and later, ICU. It wasn’t awesome. There are a lot of misconceptions about diabetics and a lot of people misunderstand the problems, complications, and stress it can have on a person. It’s too much to get into here, so I’ll reserve my feelings on this one.

One of my roomates in the college time had the diabetes as well.  He broke his hand playing the hockeys in college, and broke it badly enough that he had pins in it and sticking out.  He broke it so bad that I had to occasionally inject some insulin in him into his shoulder opposite of his broken hand, and all the time I would need to draw up his insulin.  He rotated his shots, thigh, thigh, belly, belly, shoulder, and shoulder.  So once out of every six injections I had to poke him. My knowledge of diabetes is limited, to making my roommate wince.

Question 6: Is there something you want people to know about concerning diabetes?

Answer 6: Nah, I’ll keep my opinions to myself on this one. Glad you could stab a friend in need though. IMHO, the syringes rarely hurt. It’s the blood sugar test that hurts. It all has to do with nerve endings. Lots more in your fingertips than in the rest of the injection sites.

John was a bit of a wuss, so that might explain some of the wincing. I also made sure to tell him, “This will hurt you waaay more than it hurts me” and smile broadly right before jabbing him. Who knows why he winced, really.

Question 7: What is something that invariably makes you wince? For me it is spiders.  The mere thought can make me hunch my shoulders.

Answer 7: I can’t really think of any which is not to say I don’t have any. Perhaps I just can’t think of mine at this moment. If we’re getting introspective, I’d say fear of failure (or maybe lack of success). It’s a major cause of stress, which attributes to and compounds other stresses. It’s not as simple as seeing a thing that might cause me slightly annoying pain, but it’s there. Not to say that you are simple, Scott. ;)

Oh… I am simple. Let no one try to fool you.  I am the simplest of the simples. I wish there was something complex going on inside of me, but nope. Nada.

Question 8: You can tell from your name, Basiewicz, that you are of Mexican heritage.  Are you bilingual?

Answer 8: No hablo otros idiomas, pero me gustaría haberlos aprendido de niño. Basiewicz obviamente no es Mexicano, pero proviene del lado polaco de mi familia. Hasta que aprenda a hablar español, continuaré recibiendo ayuda de Google Translate. Tomé cuatro años de alemán en la escuela secundaria, pero solo recuerdo palabras al azar como la ardilla y la recta.

(I do not speak any other languages but I wish I had learned them as a child. Basiewicz is obviously not Mexican, but it comes from the Polish side of my family. Until I actually learn how to speak Spanish, I will continue to have help from Google Translate. I took four years of German in high school, but I only remember random words like squirrel and straight.)*

*From the Google Translate

Google translate is an amazing thing. I don’t use it nearly enough, mainly because I do not interact with other languages nearly enough. 

I knew from previous conversations that we had in the actual world, or meatspace (as the cyber folk like to call it), that you are of a Mexican heritage with a Polish surname. I am surprised by the four years of German. Who takes four years of German and cannot say “It lies in the ditch.” (Es liegt im Straßengraben) Oddly that was a phrase in a German phrase book that I used in when traveling through Germany in 1992.

Question 9: Where is the farthest you have traveled from Home?

Answer 9: Well, I’m not a hobbit leaving the Shire for the first time but I’m pretty well traveled, I think. I was fortunate as a child that my parents took me on two 2 week trips out west for vacation. I’ve been to 42 states and eleven countries in the Americas and Europe. The furthest place I’ve been to has to be Berlin, Germany. I’ve been as far north as Muskoka, Canada and as far south as Mexico City, Mexico. I’ve only been as far west as Los Angeles. My coverage of the world is pretty vast, however, I’m not sure this is a relevant measure of how far away I’ve been mentally.

It is almost a prerequisite for people I am interested in asking 20 Questions to have traveled fairly extensively.  Mainly because the people I find interesting have been places and done things beyond just growing up in their hometown.  Some of them might still live in their hometown, but that is clearly a conscious decision because they have been elsewhere.

Question 10: Fill in the blanks: I find that I am mostly __________. Others find that I am mostly __________.

Answer 10: Wow, so it’s at question 10 that we get into the deep stuff! Hmmmm... I find that I am mostly really happy! I don’t have a lot to complain about, but do feel the typical range of small and large emotions throughout time. (I don’t feel anger/sadness/grief/bewilderment/elation/etc. daily, but maybe I do throughout a given year, if that makes sense. 

Others find that I am mostly angry. This angers me. (Kidding.) I’m not really angry, I am just really cynical and opinionated. I think I’m also very stubborn which is not to say I’m not willing to compromise or listen to others feelings. I’m a “fixer” and hate seeing people hurting or upset. Seeing people hurting emotionally makes me upset and I think I’m being read incorrectly. I’m not angry, but more frustrated that they are not happy. This is where I struggle. My cynicism stems, I think, from my family (genetics) and upbringing (social development).

There are a lot of hotheads in my family who I think have unintentionally instilled a specific mindset within me through my upbringing. Perhaps I have been jaded and learned to judge others with a severe questioning of their motives. Being so closely tied to, and hyper aware of, my emotions is awesome because I can really know myself and discover things about myself. I feel in-tune a lot. However, it’s also a detriment to know too much or place judgement on others and overthink their intentions. 

I think socially I have related to people who share this thought process or logic. For example, one of my best friends in Chicago was a major influence on who I am, who I aspired to be like, and challenged me to be a better person. He’s funny but dry, has great values, and is a mentor to me. He’s a great dad and husband and I really look up to him. He’s also the single biggest cynic on this planet. He’s a walking opinion firmly based in logic and he’s mostly right. He’s a calm dude with a long fuse but short temper. Whether I like it or not, by being inspired by him, I’ve become like him. I never aspired to be cynical and opinionated, but perhaps we become those we surround ourselves with. 

tl;dr, I guess I could’ve summed this up with “Happy” and “Angry.” 

Right-o, Happy and Angry it is. Cynicism can be a double edged sword. I am well aware that due to my own cynical nature, so I can definitely dig the self reflection of happy while outwardly seeming angry.

Sweet mother of mercy.  I just used the verb “dig” to mean understand.  I think this might be the lowest I have ever sunk on this blog.  I would at least have gotten nerd cred if I used “grok.” Alas, no, I used “dig” like I was an extra in a 70’s movie set in southern California.  Ugh… 

You have your finger on the pulse of popular culture...

Question 11: Is there an out-of-favor pop-term, colloquialism, slang that you wished could make a come-back?  

Answer 11: I don’t think anything I used to say as a kid was cool then or would be cool now. Plus, I’d sound like the old parent trying to say the cool thing that all the kids are saying. I’m not fire. I keep it 100. 

However, there is one I’d like to kill off. Can we please do away with the “up hill both ways to school” lame-ass joke. It’s never been funny or true and it just sounds like a desperate attempt by an elder to tell youth how rough life was for them back in the day. I just wanna be like, “Yeah, that must have sucked… but not as much as BEING FUCKING SHOT AT IN CLASS!!! Our kids have a new set of problems so sorry about your shitty hill experience. Now that you have adequately toned calves, maybe you can help the next gen not die.” (This might be why people say I’m angry all the time.)

Rant over. >sheepishly steps off soapbox<

I try not to think of the active shooter drills that my kids have at their schools.  It is truly frightening.  Terrifying.  So if it is culturally terrifying, does that make the threat of high capacity semi-automatic fire terrorism?  That’s a rhetorical question and not Question 12.  You will know when Question 12 comes around because it will be labeled clearly as Question 12. Question 12 tends to be deceptively simple, so hang on to your hat when it is asked.

Question 12: Are you happy? (in general)

Answer 12: Absolutely. I try not to take for granted any of the rewards or benefits I have in life. I also am not quick to forget them. I don’t really gamble. I think because I take pride in earning what I have and see value in the things I have worked hard for. Losing something I’ve worked so hard for severely negatively impacts my disposition. So yeah, I’m definitely happy. I have a lot of great family and friends. 

I have asked this question a bunch and only rarely do I get a no as an answer.  I think that when people slow down and really look at it, they are mostly happy.

Question 13: Do you have any superstitions or rituals in your day-to-day life (ritual can be as simple as "nobody talk Bob prior to Bob have coffee")?

Answer 13: I don’t really have any hard-and-fast rituals that I must do. I believe, as people, we do have routines we fall into, either by choice or habit, because our brains are wired that way. According to David Brooks, in a book entitled The Social Animal, he refers to two characters (Harold and Erica) to define our behaviors and relationships. He describes how morning rituals like showering, teeth brushing and the like become automatic in order to make room for us to focus our brains on other more taxing mental tasks. Have you ever forgotten your entire drive to work? So, yeah, I guess I do have routines throughout the day, but nothing out of the ordinary.

In terms of superstitions, I’m not exactly a baseball player with their weird walk-up routine, glove adjustments, swing cadence, bat taps, shoe-scuffs, and helmet fixes. I mean, I don’t not have any either. I don’t go around walking under ladders, not because I’m superstitious, but because nothing good can really happen if you do. I’m not really a big believer of broken mirrors/bad luck, crossing a black cat’s path, and stepping on a crack will break your mom’s back. I mean, my mom is just fine, thank you. 

Are you certain she is not, in fact, currently suffering from a broken back? An indiscernible, yet slight break? It manifests as a dull ache, but in truth it is a 14% hairline fracture of the L3.  I have seen you and your cement crack stepping ways. Crack Stepper.

“Crack Stepper” sounds like a much worse epithet than it would be intended in this case.

Question 14: If you could eat dinner with anyone who ever lived in the world… Anyone ever. Historical figure, departed family member, scientist, artist, whatever, what would you eat? I mean, THAT is some anxiety inducing menu prep.

Answer 14: Usually, when someone phrases the question with being able to eat with anyone ever, but finishes with, “what would you eat?” and not “who would they be?” that may throw one through a proverbial loop. But nay, not I! Instinctually I go immediately to a nice pasta, perhaps a cream sauce or jumbo shrimp scampi (heavy on lemon, butter, garlic and capers) paired with a delicious white wine. But, I quickly think twice about it. Maybe it’s too carb heavy and we’d be ready for a nap post-haste. 

Ahh, chicken. Prepared light, a well-seasoned half chicken grilled in a cast iron skillet along with carrots, zucchini, and onion. Crispy skin with a generous sprinkle of thyme and oregano, maybe paired with roasted skin-on baby redskin potatoes and a light sauce made from the stock and chicken oils from the skillet. Again, a white wine to match; Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc. 

After more thought and taking special consideration into who I will be dining with, I decide against the chicken. I’m drawn to Wings, fish (like salmon filets, roughy, snapper) but I’m finally decided. I’m going with a Smoked Pork Butt. “Butt!?!?” you say! Yeah, butt. And, not just some meat with bbq sauce squirted on sheepishly like some cheap, generic, gray, State Fair meat. 

Despite it not actually being a butt, I’m a big fan of smoked foods and bbq. I’d have it slow cooked in a smoker, depending on the size for 10-16 hours, fat side up until it has that nice caramel-glazed glistening crust to it. Brined first in a cider vinegar bath, a mix of brown sugar, ground mustard, cayenne and smoked Spanish paprika (among others) are forked into a combination of olive oil, honey and ketchup (and more secret ingredients) until deliciously combined into a thick paste. Spread thin over the shoulder roast, the meat would rest in a smoker until almost falling off the bone. The fat and meat slightly splitting to reveal a sensual pink smoke ring inside. I like a hefty chop rather than a straight pull. A robust and rich, sweet with subtle fiery-noted barbecue sauce folded into the chop. Good enough to eat singularly, I’d have it served with a creamy sweet slaw on an onion bun, maybe topped with cheese if you like. Best served outside, with laughs, and a ice-cold lager or IPA, depending on preference. 

Are you sure you are from Michigan? Because that final answer was from the Deep South of the US. I mean it is some Texas, Alabama, North Carolina shit right there.  Less Texas because of the pork, and not so Carolina because of the sauce.  Seriously in the Alabama, St Louis, and Tennessee area of BBQ… a sweet slightly spicy sauce with strong smoky undertones added after the fact to smoked pulled-pork.  I think you may want to add some sides to accompany the cole slaw though.

Interestingly, one of my previous 20 Questions interviewees loves bar-b-que places because of the sides. He has been a vegetarian for years but cannot get enough deep fried onion rings or rice and creamy mac-n-cheese.  He loves going to BBQ joints and trying all the sides that don’t have bacon in them.

I think one can tell a bunch about a person by their choice in food for a meal that they can have with anyone ever. For example, you start out much more formal and end up with more of a communal food that requires casual interaction.  There is no sophistication when you have to lick bar-b-que sauce off your fingers to keep it from dripping on your pants as you eat a sandwich. Your fantasy dinner guest meal requires pointing and laughing over shared jokes and lack of adequate paper towels.

I think I need to find a way to eat with you more.  That sounds absolutely delectable. 

Dammit! I forgot the sides! I’ll settle for being ridiculed by my guest(s) for my lack of foresight into menu prep! 

This one is coming out of left field… Question 15: If you were independently wealthy and did not have to work to make the monies, what would you do as your “work?”

Answer 15: If I had just a ridiculous amount of f-you money, I’d just travel to warm places and golf. I’d also take my wife to a lot of beaches, bc ya know, she’s into those. If I couldn’t find a beach, I’d put her in a sand trap and play her sounds of ocean waves, or something. Not exactly calming, especially when there is that whole potential of getting struck by a hard white rock-like thing every 8-10 minutes… Well, I’d probably do something much more romantic than beaching her on a man-made tiny desert with hazardous flying objects, but you get what I’m saying.

You are nothing if not a hopeless romantic. 

I would love copious amounts of f-you money. I think I would create my own comic book imprint and get some of my comic peeps published. Every time that I think about how I would spend the 500 million dollars that I would win in the lottery (That I do not currently play) I open a comedy club and start a comic book imprint.

Question 16: Are there any questions you expected me to ask that I have not?

Answer 16: I’ve never been interviewed before and I’m not sure how they typically go, but I’ve never heard Anderson Cooper ask an interviewee, “what are you expecting me to ask you?” Maybe if he was asking a mob boss and feared for his life, he would ask that off camera and then proceed to ask those questions he was told to ask on camera. (That’s also not to criticize your interviewing skills. AC has been around a while…)

I don’t know where this is going. I guess my answer is “no.” TBH, I’m not sure what I was expecting with this whole thing, but it’s pretty fun.

Anderson Fucking Cooper. Always soooo prepared, like this was his job or something. Ugh, "look at my awesome white hair and despair." Anderson Fucking Cooper….  

Look at my awesome white hair and despair.

Well, I ask the question because some people think there is a specific reason for me to be asking them questions. Usually people who are a little more in the public eye have expectations about what I will ask.  The comedians I ask 20 questions to typically expect questions about comedy.  The artists expect “Who are your biggest influences?” or something like that. Since you are in UX and have previously been in marketing advertising, you may have expected UX questions or favorite client questions or something like that. I’m not in your mind. I don’t know what you want or expect. I can’t read minds, Bob! I don’t even know why you would expect that of me.

Honestly, I am surprised you have not been interviewed before. I have a few of those under my belt and I haven’t done shit in my life.

Now for something completely different… Question 17: Who you got for the Stanley Cup this year?  

Answer 17: As you know, I really like ice hockey. I played a bit as a kid and regret not playing more frequently. I love Nashville and the Vegas Golden Knights out of the west. Vegas and the Sharks both swept their first round so that should be a fun series. Nashville should be able to take Jets should they surpass Minnesota.

Tampa Bay is a #1 seed playing a wildcard Devils team so they’ll have a harder matchup against, hopefully, Boston who will most likely knock out Toronto. My brother-in-law plays for Boston so I’ll be rooting for him too. #shamelessnonnamedrop I think Boston upsets, advances past TBL, and plays the Jackets. I can’t stand Pittsburgh and they seem to dominate year after year. Hopefully they are knocked down a peg by a solid Blue jackets team. I want CBJ to beat the hell out of the stupid Pens, but sorry CBJ, I think the Pens have too much history and experience in the playoffs. Unfortunately the Pens advance.

West Conf Finals: Nashville vs Vegas. I think Vegas wins in 7.
East Conf Finals: Shitsburgh vs Beantown. Shitsburgh in 6.
Stanley Cup Final: Vegas vs Boston. Vegas wins in 5.
But! I wish the Preds would wins so I could travel down to Nashville to celebrate with my family who are rooting hard for them to win. I also hope Boston wins so my extended Columbus family would be happy. It would be great to see the Blue Jackets win The Cup because they have such a strong team and they are perpetually considered and underdog. Plus, Bobrovsky. Vegas would make history, but I have no rooting interest there.

Anyone but Pittsburgh. Wait, maybe I should clarify. Anyone. But. Pittsburgh.

Is anyone still reading? Go Red Wings!

I used to be so knowledgeable about sports.  At one time I could give a relatively informed opinion on most of the major sports in the US.  That time has passed.  It would take a couple of years to get back to being knowledgeable again.  I might make the effort with hockey, but the NFL can go straight to Hell.

So now it is time when I turn the tables.  It fears me to do this… but… Question 18: Do you have any questions for me?

Answer(?) 18: I wanna open your figurative closet door to meet the skeleton inside to let him dance in the light of day for everyone to see! What is your deepest, darkest secret? (Hey, you asked.)

You have taken too many pucks to the helmet if you think I am going to divulge my deepest darkest secrets on a blog. 

I would say the most egregious thing is that I used to be a super conservative/Christian youth from Alabama with tendencies to be sexist, classist, and especially homophobic and racist. It was not until leaving Alabama for college that I started to move past that myopic view of my world. That being said, my foundations are from a conservative/Christian white household in Alabama, so I am still systemically sexist, classist, homophobic and racist. Significantly less so than I was 25 years ago (and even less so than I was yesterday), but I am constantly trying to be alert to past thought patterns and assumptions creeping into and poisoning my current mindset. One does not simply stop being unaware of their privilege and become “woke.” One has to strive every day to become more “woke.” 

I like this. One cannot simply flip a switch to become a believer in the opposite ideals of what they were raised to believe. But, they should open their mind to many perspectives in order to gain understanding. Even if they do not agree with the opposing or just slightly differing viewpoint, they can still gain understanding. Being able to feel empathy and understanding for others is a critical social skill and digging heels in (IMO) hasn’t ever gotten anyone anywhere.

Question 19: What are you taking from these 20 Questions that you did not bring in with you?

Answer 19: I’ve find that this feels incredibly more revealing and intimate than simply sharing something via social media. Facebook, and the like, have a very “I’ll-reveal-what-I-wanna-reveal” aspect where this feels more voyeuristic. It feels like people I don’t know are getting to actually know me and yet I know nothing about them. I see why the likes of Jack Nicholson, Johnny Carson, and David Letterman are so recluse and almost never do interviews. Exposing potential vulnerabilities is a really strange feeling for people who aren’t used to it. Aaron Rodgers did an interview with Mina Kimes, a brilliant writer and article written for ESPN The Magazine, where Aaron is revealed to have recorded all of his interviews. He does so to fact check if/when he is quoted so that people cannot take him out of context, and –my assumption– to not misquote, or intentionally misuse his words against him. 

“I set my phone on the table and press the record button. He pulls out his and does the same. So he won't be taken "out of context," he explains.” 

Even in this interview, I second guess what I have said and I find it funny because I don’t at all find myself “interview” worthy. Regardless, I like the general banter despite it perhaps not coming across as friendly. I was intrigued at a few of the questions as they side-swiped the obvious and often banal yet went for the abstract. I’ve also learned a little about myself now looking back at some of my answers. I wouldn’t change them, but think that some are really revealing or telling about my character. I have reservations and keep some things close to the vest, but with others I’m an open book. I have piss poor hockey analysis, or at least confidence in my “hot takes.” I also have discovered that the fandom in myself fights hard with the actualities and probabilities of what will happen. “If I will it to happen, it will, right?!?! Right?!!?!?!?” 

I’ll probably miss doing this. Immensely. 

I’m completely insane.

Okay. Well then.  That was a thorough answer to the question. You even added a quote with its own attribution.  I always love how the 20 Questions always start out light and airy (cake v pie) and eventually reveal some real truths about both of us.  I find myself revealing more than anticipated with my questions and my responses to people’s answers, and I am certain that the people I ask the questions reveal more than intended.

Here we are at the last of the 20.  This has been a delight. I am very happy that I have gotten to know you better. 

Thanks for doing this.

Question 20: What's next?  Be as vague or as specific, as concrete or philosophical, and as near term or long term as you would like

Answer 20!: I don’t know what is next but I’m excited for it. Generally, I tend to be specific and sometimes I talk philosophically. Soon, I’ll eat a sandwich and maybe, die. (See what I did there?)

Ok, seriously, I don’t know what is next and yes, I truly am excited for it. I have goals and drive, but I keep that kinda stuff buttoned up a bit too. Sometimes, in life, people choose sides. I don’t often reveal plans without knowing who’s truly on my side. I can say that I will continue to kick ass and take names. Great things are going to happen and will keep happening. It’s cliché but, “I’m betting on myself and I’m all in.”

Bob is seriously a wonderful man who is a joy to talk to. You should check out his Instagram where he does not often post @dietbob218 or Twitter where he doesn't often tweet @dietbob218, but to see his design work you should check out his website  www.getmebob.com. He is awesome.

To recap:
So… that Avengers movie was something
I am looking forward to Deadpool 2 as well
The Marvel properties are killing in in the theaters
They have been for years now
I have theories on how phase 4 of the MCU is going to go
On a different subject
I am about 90% done with the book I am writing
I had to gut the final fight scenes and the denouement
That’s a fun word… “denouement”
Looks like the book is riding around 200 pages
I am writing all of this down to get the impetus to finish this thing and keep myself honest
I need to be done with the draft and handed off to an editor on June 1
That is my deadline now, June 1
Once I get my edits back I will be asking my artsy friends to do some illustrations for me
Onto another topic
Yesterday was my wife’s birthday
She is amazing and I am lucky to know her
This weekend is Mother’s Day weekend
She is an awesome mother as well
I am lucky
Have a great weekend everyone

20 Questions Tuesday: 408 - Susan McGowan

This week I get the wonderful opportunity to ask an actual friend of mine 20 Questions.  What?!? Yes, I have actual friends who will actually share enough time with me (at least digitally) to answer my inane 20 Questions.  So let’s explore 20 Questions with one of my more hilarious co-workers who is an absolute delight, Susan McGowan.  I met Susan earlier this year when she started working at the same place of employment as myself.  It turns out that her daughter and my daughter have horse riding lessons at the same barn and sometimes at the same time and in the same class.  Oh, and she and I know a surprising amount of the same people from at least 4 different pockets of connections. It really is surprising that we only met this year.  

Editor’s note: Susan, over the course of this interview (which only took a few weeks), has had two of her beloved pets “cross the rainbow bridge” (that’s one of the pet euphemisms about pets dying, right?). Anyway, she lost two furry companions in the span of a week and a half.  I think it ended up being about 10 days total between pet deaths.  That is not much time between pets dying, and incredibly emotionally hard to deal with while full-time jobbing and parenting. I know their passing was hard on her. Needless to say this post is dedicated to those two four-legged members of her family. So everyone, pour some out for Murphy Seidel Herriott-McGowan (cat of the month for an untold number of  months running) and Bartleby Herriott-McGowan (her mix Shar-Pei in the hizzay).

Bartleby and Murphy sharing a couch

So without further ado… 20 Questions with Susan McGowan.

Many people know this little preamble, because I have been doing this for years…. And question one is always the same, but I get new readers and I get people who only read one of these and then drift off to be non-readers, so bear with me faithful readers and welcome aboard new people. 

Anyhoo… my professional life started with selling Nordictracks at a mall, but that doesn’t really mean anything.  I just did not want to write that my professional life began with making maps and then to  get a nasty email from David Metzger the manager of Nordictrack in the Riverchase Galleria Mall.  I know he is watching… he is always watching… and waiting....

Umm… where was I? Oh, yes. My real career began with making maps in 1997.  I have always loved stories told through the concept of place.  For me, my personal geographic story is that I was born outside of Oklahoma City, moved to Montgomery, Alabama when I was super young, moved up to Birmingham, Alabama for the rest of my childhood, and then moved off to college in Kent, Ohio.  I followed my fiance to Columbus, Ohio for grad school and marriage and have been in the Columbus area for more than 20 years now.  We have settled in Worthington, Ohio (which is an edge city around Columbus, that straddles the I-270 outerbelt).  Question 1: What is your geographic story?

The short version of my geographic story is uninspiring--I’ve lived in Ohio my entire life, moving from Cleveland to Wooster for undergrad, then Columbus for grad school. I intended to move to Scotland after that, but I took a job to save up some money, and, like a comfy couch, Columbus sucked me in. Even though I’ve lived here for 22 years, it still feels temporary. Home might always be Cleveland Heights. If I’m very still, I can feel the way it breathes green in the summer and picture some carved corner. I think of Columbus from an aerial view primarily, but Cleveland is a collection of architectural details, old and filthy and beautiful--an American thatched roof, an angel draped over a gravestone, an iron bridge, a cracking tower. I also have roots in Chautauqua, NY, although I’ve never lived there. I grew up spending summers there, got married there, scattered my mother’s ashes there. My dad currently has a little place there, but he will be selling it next fall, around the same time he moves out of Cleveland Heights. I’m not sure where home will be then. 

It is an interesting thing when what was home is now, no longer home. That happened for me when I moved away from Alabama.  The place only holds memories for me, especially after my parents moved out of my childhood home.  The 2 things that killed any and all love for Alabama was the death of my childhood cat in my super-senior year of college, and my parents moving out of my childhood home. The place just is not “home” anymore. You will find a place to call home. It takes time and can be emotionally difficult, but you will find that, and my bet is that it matches up with where you will have the bulk of your memories with your kids.

You seem to not be sheltered like many people who have only lived in (pretty much)  one place. Question 2: Do you travel much and what is the furthest from Ohio you have traveled?

I grew up traveling and it’s something I want to pass along to my children. My dad traveled a lot for his job and my mother loved to travel, so if a trip fell during a school break or in the summer, we would go with him. If it was within the US, he’d add a few days on either side, and we’d drive. As a kid, I had winter friends (from school) and summer friends (kids I befriended for a few days in hotel pools, kids whose parents attended the same lighting conferences year after year). As a June birthday, I had as many birthdays on the road (7th picnicking by a stream in the Blue Ridge, 9th in an apartment in DC, 15th in Venice) as I did at home. I complained about that a lot and finally my parents agreed we’d try to be home for a party every other year. That seems so dumb now, but as a kid it felt like the Worst Thing Ever.

By the time I left home, I’d visited 48 states and three continents. I’ve been fortunate to have a best friend who traveled with me for a bit, and then my husband. Having kids has made it harder and more expensive. We persevered with Kid 1, taking her to Iceland and Germany when she was three and I was 6 months pregnant with Kid 2--and she was such a trooper. But Kid 2 is a different beast; we’ve traveled cross country with him, but haven’t ventured overseas. It’s something that kind of kills me. 

The furthest from Ohio I’ve been is Israel (twice) and Ghana. I went to Israel once with my youth group in high school, during my religious phase, and as a then-Christian among Christians, it felt like it could be home. The second time, I was there through Journey of Conscience, an organized visit to several of the death camps in Eastern Europe. I was invited as sort of the Poet-in-Residence and one of only two non-Jews on the trip. After the rage and unrelenting sadness at the Holocaust sites, my travelmates got off the little prop plane that had taken us from Warsaw to Tel Aviv and kissed the ground. I felt like I was at a friend’s house for the holidays, where their mom might give me a hug in welcome, but I was still just a guest.

I went to Ghana because my stepsister was a math teacher in a little village there for Peace Corps. Instead of bringing her back to the US for Christmas, my family rented a palazzo in Sicily for a week and she met us there. Since I was already halfway around the world, my best friend* and I decided to return with her to Ghana, figuring it would never be easier than having my stepsister to act as a guide and deal with logistics for us. We flew in and out of Accra, then traveled to her village for a few days. We covered a lot of ground on that trip—not just mileage-wise, but going from celebrating New Years’ with fireworks in a medieval square and drinking limoncello to riding a tro-tro for 10 hours with 15 strangers in a sweaty crush.

*I was dating my now-husband at that point, but I didn’t invite him to join us on this amazing trip, because we were never going to last, something he likes to bring up to this day. 

Well, I think you may have mis-stated earlier.  You have been to 4 continents, not merely 3.  You have graced North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.  You’ll need to update that in your travel log. You are only 3 away from collecting the set.  I, sadly, have only been to a measly 2 continents, but once we kick the kids out of the house…  Nothing. But. Travel!

    That’s funny; I always put Israel in Africa, but the Internet says you’re right. 

Question 3: Cake or pie? Which specific kind and why?

Totally pie. If you match random pie vs random cake, 90% of the time, pie will be the victor. Pie comes with pi puns and a day dedicated to celebrating it; cake makes you choose between cake or death and we all know the cake is a lie. As for specifics, the #1 pie is sour cream peach. Somewhere below that, in vaguely ranked order: pecan, butterscotch, blueberry, bumbleberry, chess, and sweet potato. 

Of course, the question itself is flawed, because sticky toffee pudding is neither cake nor pie and is the best dessert on earth. 

Sticky toffee pudding was not in the question, because the question was not “What’s your favorite dessert-like food?” ugh… Do you like cats or dogs? I like cats more, but sugar gliders are the best. And sweet potato pie is an affront to humanity because it tries to disguise itself as pumpkin pie.  Sweet potatoes are the devil’s food, but not like “devil’s food cake” devil’s food, but like the “made of lies and tormented dreams” devil’s food.

Question 4: What do you consider to be the “made from lies and tormented dreams” devil’s food?

You have the “devil’s weed”, which is cilantro, but anti-cilantro rants are boring--it’s like the Mac/PC debate that geeks-in-training like to drag you into. I despise avocados--why would anyone willing eat swamp-flavored butter? But--and maybe it’s the phrasing that confuses me, but what’s really made of lies is yogurt. Is it a dessert? A cheese? “Hey, I’m like healthy ice cream! Good people eat me! I’m breakfast-ready pudding!” Those are the devil’s lies. Yogurt is a grave disappointment 99% of the time. Actually, 100% of the time. The other 1% is when you mistakenly eat pudding and think “this is the best damn yogurt ever”. 

Cilantro is a loved or hated item, it is not a surprising selection at all.  People who love it, want it on everything, while people who hate it, hate people who love it. Also, I think I will start referring to avocados as “swamp butters” from now on. This yogurt thing surprises me, because yogurt is so unusually innocuous. Who hates beige? I am sure people do, but it beige is so blah, which is what yogurt is, beigy blah.  

Again, I may have just been misconstruing your language about “made of lies and tormented dreams”, but that’s why yogurt makes the list. It’s made of lies. 

I know for a fact that you have held some odd jobs (while not being Odd Job from the Bond films).  So, I started into the professional world by selling NordicTrack exercise equipment in mall retail stores for most of my undergrad years, then I worked at Barnes & Noble for a bit, then I was a graduate assistant in the Department of Geography teaching GIS and cartography labs, from there I went to a local engineering architecture firm as a transportation planning cartographer, then I became the GIS technician for the Department of Geotechnical Engineering for the Ohio Department of Transportation.  From there I switched careers entirely and went into user experience design as an interaction designer.  Question 5: What is your professional journey?

My first non-babysitting job was working retail at an antiques shop where I did table displays of Staffordshire figurines and dusted a lot. Then, I apprenticed to a rare book dealer. I spent one summer temping at Office Max world headquarters, blacking numbers out of reports with Sharpies, like the guy in Catch-22. In grad school, I taught English 101 and beginning poetry workshops and worked as a research assistant for David Citino. 

After I graduated, I was hired as a researcher to develop content for an educational computer game company. After a few months, my boss asked if I wanted to learn to code. Three months later, I made my first game--Magnificent Marlena’s Mind-Bending Magic Show, a sequence game. I loved this job--storyboarding, coding, troubleshooting, plus I did most of the female voices in our games. I truly believe learning to code changed my life. 

When the company started going under, I left to go to library school and worked as a writer for the International Dark-Sky Association, a non-profit dedicated to reducing light pollution. During that time, I took on additional freelance writing, editing, and research gigs. I published a few magazine articles and had a nice stretch with the Armchair Reader series, contributing to Weird, Scary, and Unusual and a few others. I realized that I was making more as a writer than I would as a librarian, so I dropped out of school. A friend who worked for a healthcare marketing agency reached out, asking if I had ever done digital QC. I said I’d give it a try, and the 6 hours a week turned into full time. I created the processes, the team grew to ten people--it was thriving, but I hated it. 

During this time, I started hearing about UX. I found a few people at the agency who were interested in it as well, and through good fortune and kindness, I got a mentor and a workstream and started the UX team at the agency with a handful of people. The agency decided it didn’t want to support UX work, so it was time to leave. I moved to an edtech startup at Ohio State’s College of Education as the Director of Product and User Experience. I was there for three glorious years, then the funding was pulled and the company went under. From there, I came to the UX team at my current employer, where I met you. 

That is a pretty interesting list of jobbies.  I had not realized how much the English language was your playground.  I just thought you might be kind of verbose, but you are officially verbose.  Well done.

Since you are an English aficionado, and since I like me some language arts. Question 6: What is one word in the English language that you feel is getting short shrift? What word is not being used enough and is ready for a resurgence?

I don’t know how to answer this--that’s like asking me to pick a favorite child. How could anyone choose between mirepoix and fungible? Acanthopterygian and flibbertigibbet? Frangipane and salacious? Picking a word is like wandering through a fabric store--a rush of textures and colors. Words should feel good in the mouth, be a bit of a surprise for the listener and the user, and delight the ear. 

For my job at the game company, my first assignment was to write a 10,000-word dictionary and it was so much fun. I combed through other dictionaries to find words, then wrote my own definitions to avoid copyright infringement. The president of the company was a word person too, so we met for three hours every day to go over the previous day’s words--good gravy, how we argued over the minutiae of definitions. There are some perfectly good words, such as hirsute and parka that didn’t make it into our database because neither of us would budge*. 

There is a wonderful children’s book called Ounce, Dice, Trice that is the closest thing I’ve found to being in my brain, the way it savors and plays with words. The kindest thing you could do for a budding poet in your life is to keep them far away from this book and tell them to develop some useful skills, otherwise, they will be forever lost. 

---

*He was incredibly wrong on both counts, however, and I’m still quite bitter. Almost as bitter as the time my 3rd-grade class played Scattergories and didn’t believe that indigo was a real color, the little heathens. Words matter, people. Words matter.

---

...okay.  I was just thinking that “whilst” should be used more.  This is clearly a topic that you feel strongly about.  I know what mirepoix, fungible, frangipane, salacious, hirsute and parka mean, but I am at a loss for acanthopterygian, and think I know what flibbertigibbet means but did not know that it was a recognized word in the English language.  

Acanthopterygian means descriptive of a spiny-finned fish, such as a bass or perch. TMYK.

TMYK

Question 7: Do you think that the English language can rightfully claim words such as salsa and mirepoix as its own even though those words belong to a different language?

Absolutely. I love English for its gelatinous cube-like quality of picking up and holding anything in its path--in this case, great words from other languages. I don’t think we’d be able to make or eat salsa if we called it something else. The Anglo-Saxons ate onions, but they didn’t know about tomatoes or the “demon weed”, so we’d be looking to another language anyway. It might be called relish or chutney, but both of those stem from India, so why is borrowing from Hindi, but not Spanish or French? Pretty much, unless we’re talking about livestock, root vegetables, or war, we’re going to borrow words. It seems nicer to keep them with some semblance of their original pronunciation. Though give it a few centuries and I’m sure we’ll manage to turn mirepoix into something like “murrypoy”. 

Dungeons and Dragons' Gelatinous Cube

+2 to Int for use of gelatinous cube, but sadly -1 to Cha.  Even though geeky things are “in” right now, overly deep cuts into geeky things are still surprisingly negatively geeky. I don’t write the rules, I just enforce them (which gives me a -2 Cha modifier to old skool geeks).  Also, “murrypoy” sounds like a name and is not any easier to say than “mirepoix.” If Americans have anything to say about it, the linguistic shift will be from “mirepoix” to “merpo” or something else that sounds less sophisticated. Americans can be soooo un-sophisticated. 

I didn’t know what Cha meant, but my husband stepped into the room, wearing +1 flannel armor and immediately got a -3 to his Cha by knowing the answer, but he’s used to it. 

Question 8: How many animals do you have in your household?

Currently, not counting children, we have four. Bartleby the shar pei butler dog and then three cats: Murph the Cat (not to be confused with our late Murph the Dog, and winner of Cat of the Month for 200+ months!), Rory the Round, and Wunk (née Duncan) the Dim. The cats are all orange by royal fiat. 

That is a bunch of wee beasties in the house. When my wife and I were married (over 20 years ago now… how the hell did that happen??!? {that’s not the question, do not answer that question!!!}), we immediately got 2 cats.  They were our marriage cats.  Lenny was a Russian Blue, and Señor Don Gato (was a cat, meow meow meow) was a solid black lump of milk cap fetching love. Señor Don Gato’s name eventually truncated to just Señor.  Señor then became Señor Von Beanor, and eventually just to Bean. Question 9: How did Duncan’s”regal Scottish king’s name devolve into the less regal “Wunk?” 

First, let me disabuse you of how regal poor Duncan’s name is. At the time my daughter named him, she was very much into the dreadful show “Total Drama Island” on which the character Duncan is a villainous, scheming emo-punk. I requested that whatever we named the cat have Scottish flavor, so that’s what she chose. Duncan branched into Dunk, Punk, and Punkin, but he is not smart, and we quickly started looking for less-intelligent variations. He spent some time as Wunkin. Wunkish. Wunky Woo-woo. Wunky Wunk and the Funky Pants. You know, the usual. At my last job, my daughter wrote Wunk all over a process diagram I was working on. WUNK. WUNKIN. YOU MUST KNOW HE IS A POUFE [sic]. This evolution is the way of things. Sadly, since having all of his teeth removed, Murph (the cat) has become Moop. This is the way of the world.

Right… so no “Duncan Wunkan.” Occam’s Razor be damned. I would not have thought the path from Duncan to Wunk would be a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon-esque path.  Don’t get me wrong, the actual path is way more interesting, just more surprising as well.

Question 9: What is something that you think people would be surprised about you?

This question has been hard to answer, mostly because I’m bad at predicting what surprises people. I think the answer depends on which person, and how do they know me. 

o   If you know me now, you might be surprised that I was a fundamentalist in my early teens. 

o   If you knew me in my early tweens, you might be surprised that I was a paranormal investigator. 

o   If we went to college together, you are often very surprised to learn I married Mark.

o   If you knew me in high school, you might be surprised to learn that I’m smart; if you knew me after high school, you might be surprised that I used to practice batting my eyelashes and giggling because  I thought I was hopelessly stupid and tried to cover it up.

Again, it’s all context. But I’m a Gemini and we’re just a delightful mess of contradictions. 

The thing is, I love it when people surprise me, which they always do. My favorite poems are made of details that are like delicious little salt crystals, and so are people. Uncovering a surprise is a burst of flavor. In high school, a friend was detailing some minutiae of her life and I responded with the clever ‘I’m like, wow” and she snapped, “Susan, you’re always like ‘wow’.” She meant it as a bad thing, but I think it’s part of my charm. This thing I just learned about you? Wow.

The fundamentalist thing is super surprising to me. I was pretty thick in the religion when I was a youngun as well. The somewhat racist reaction from my childhood church burned that bridge below its caissons.  I was already tottering on the edge of leaving the churchiness behind, and then there was the reaction to whom I was going to marry.

For me, it was a few things. A) I had made somewhat of a career of dating Jewish men, and they found that unacceptable. B) I was given a talking to about listening to the “wrong sort” of Christian rock. But the final straw was when they told me that my mother’s death was “all in God’s plan.” There’s no excuse for that—none. 

Question 10:  Fill in the blanks:  I find that I am mostly _____________.  Others think that I am mostly _________. 

I think/feel/imagine myself to be mostly Fluttershy. Others think/feel/imagine me to be mostly Twilight Sparkle, although Mark, and possibly he alone, finds me to be Rarity. 

Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, and Rarity

I so do not want to know about any potential cutie mark //shudder.

Question 11: So, why do you think others feel you are a magical problem solving princess, your partner sees you as a magical and giving seamstress, and you think you are mainly known for being a caretaker? And why don’t you think anyone thinks you are Applejack?

Applejack

Interesting. I think others see me as bookish and well-read. Mark sees me as refined and polite. I see myself as a burbling mess of insecurity. I don’t think anyone thinks I’m an extroverted hick. I mean, maybe they do, but that’s not one that’s filtered back to me. 

That cartoon was a bizarre one. It seemed relatively innocuous and fun for young girls and then the weird movie thing came out where the ponies became overly sexualized horse/girl/furries.  It really made me sad to see this cartoon where young girls/women who happened to be ponies of some kind were able to overcome obstacles though friendship and understanding turned into anthropomorphized teenage horse girls.  Seemed to be catering to the furry bronie more than the kids.

So… a few years ago I did a 20 Questions with a French podcaster, Patrick Beja, and this delightful gentleman brought me to the most deceptively simple questions I have ever been asked or have asked.  So, without further ado… Question 12: Are you happy?

I’ve really been pondering this one. I am happy. I’m a happy person--I’ve always been kind of emo, even as a kid, but generally, I trend to happy. I’m also happy in this moment--I can’t promise about the moment before or what will come next, but this moment is perfect and I am content in that. 

That said, I’m depression’s bitch, if you’ll pardon the language. I recognize this, and am trying to learn to separate what is real, and what is that smothering, gray blanket in my head, but it’s hard. I had post-partum after my my daughter was born, sought treatment, then went off it when I was trying to get pregnant again. My son’s birth was so traumatic that I didn’t recognize it--I thought I was just grieving that, but it’s eight years later and the sun hasn’t come out yet. I thought I could fight it on my own, and I am slowly realizing I just can’t. 

Depression is a lying liar that constantly lies. Honest to goodness depression is not something that can be navigated by oneself. Depression is misassociated with the idea of people being “sad.” It is not merely big sustained sadness, but a fundamental brain chemistry issue that cannot just be pushed to the side by a smile and some M & M’s (not saying that M & M’s couldn’t help… well, the peanut butter M & M’s or the white chocolate ones… the caramel ones are terrible, and they should not be).  I suffer from it, and no many people who suffer from it on a a daily basis. Seriously people, depression sucks, and the people who have to deal with it, do better when they do not have to deal with it by themselves.  So, hug someone you care about, but don’t hug them in a weird way that takes just a beat or two too long.

Here we are at an unlucky question for triskaidecaphobics… Question 13: Do you subscribe to  any superstitions or rituals? 

If I let my brain do what it wants, I would be too busy touching oak, building altars, and sourcing silver to keep in my pocket to get anything done. At heart, I want to embrace superstition and bury my face in it. When I was little, I used to say a series of prayers at night, and I was fairly certain that if I got them out of order, I would die. I think this is why I was such an easy mark for religion. I have spent most of my adult life, walking the fine line between rational and batshit crazy. I joined my paranormal investigation group as a skeptic, because I really did yearn to find something magical, something beyond the rational. I was a skeptic, though, and joined a group that tried to find scientific evidence, so at the same time I was searching, I was also walling myself off from that possibility. I want proof that is based on more than just a feeling, because I don’t trust my brain to do what’s right. 

I remember crying after seeing my grandma, several years before she died. I told my husband (who had once been a phone psychic), that I had a premonition that it was the last time I would see her. He said that it was possible, but that our brains don’t remember all the times we have premonitions that DON’T come true—and that’s stuck with me. I did see her after that, many times, and if he hadn’t said that, I would have forgotten how sure I felt. That’s why I can’t trust my brain—it lies. 

All that said, I still believe in saying “good night”, “I love you”, or “See you soon”, rather than “good bye”. I believe you should start as you intend to end, so birthdays, New Year’s, and other beginning/end holidays should involve physical and emotional contact with the people you love best in the world. I believe in kissing on footbridges and saying “gesundheit”. I light the wicks of every new candle that comes into the house, although I’m not sure why—I learned that at the antique store. I try to light a candle on Yom Hashoa. I am incapable of not touching wood, but I try to do it secretly. I say thank you to animals we eat and apologize to the bugs I kill. And if there’s a special place, I find myself talking to it—like Lake Chautauqua. I don’t particularly respect these things about myself, but it is what it is. 

I don’t think this was the direction you meant the conversation to go, and really revealed more about the soft squishy bits than I meant to. I wish I had a meditation practice or could say breezily, oh, yeah, I do yoga every morning. That’s what normal people do.

Even though you did not directly answer the question, you did thoroughly answer it.  I have a couple of reactions to some of what you wrote.

One: I have often found that skeptics want the paranormal to be real much more than believers. Skeptics truly want these phenomena to be real, and try their darndest to prove it.  Believers tend to just believe without questioning wholesale the thing that they believe in.  I have found this is true for many highly religious people and flat-earthers as well. 

Two: “Good night,” “I love you,” and “see you soon” is one of the best rituals I can think of.

Three: Let’s be clear, normal people don’t do yoga every morning.  Yoga people do yoga every morning. If they have an issue, they “take it to the mat.” I hate myself a little more for just typing that out. 

So, this paranormal investigation group thing has come up, so I feel like I need to dig. Question 14: So what types of things did you investigate and what supernatural thing do you most want to be real?

The group was The Ghosts of Ohio so we specialized in...wait for it...ghosts, but I don’t believe we ever turned down a call. We did private investigations for property owners who contacted us. We’re not allowed to talk about our those, but we did everything from private homes in quiet neighborhoods to historic structures and places of business. We also did investigations of places that were open to the public, researched local legends (Helltown, crybaby bridges, etc.), collected folklore about any number of things. 

The founder, Jim Wills, is a local paranormal historian and one of the authors of Weird Ohio. I didn’t have kids then, and Jim was one of my closest friends, so we spent a lot of time wandering through cemeteries together. (In fact, check out the title page and p. 248 of Weird Ohio!). 

As for what I most want to be real? Ghosts for sure. The thought of nothingness when you die terrifies me. Also, fairies--the grotesquely beautiful fairies of Brian Froud’s world--because I so very much want there to be magic in this world. That is, when I allow myself to believe in it. 

Brian Froud's Faeries

I think I had some kind of ghostly encounter when I was a kid, but I have chalked that up to the overactive imagination of a 5 or 6 year old (I don’t remember how old I was at the time).  That is a story for a different time. My favoritest thing for paranormal stuff is cryptids.  I want so many of the legendary creatures to be real.  It would be amazing if even one of them was conclusively proven real.  

Question 15: In all of these paranormal investigations did you (specifically you) ever experience something ghostly, or did you suffer the equivalent of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and effect the outcome by trying to observe it? Honestly if you did, that would be kind of burying the lead a bit.

I never did, although for a while, I tried to feel like things other people experienced were just as good as experiencing them myself. At one investigation, my first, Jim recorded a cold spot that moved down the hall towards him and I would tell people about that, as if it meant something. But after a while, you start asking yourself why you’re never the one to get an aberrant reading, see something strange, catch the EVP. Jim always said that he imagined crowds of ghosts scurrying into hiding when they saw us pulling up in the driveway, and laughing and waving at us as we left, so it’s a known thing that when people are looking, they don’t find anything. But when the group shifted from entirely recordable data to giving weight to things like seeing orbs and feeling feelings, it seemed time for me to leave. It felt like a club that I wasn’t part of, if that makes sense. 

When I was in 8th or 9th grade, in the heat of my Fundamentalist phase, I went to sort of a Christian Woodstock (a Christian Lollapalooza?) with my youth group. On the final night, there was a big revival before we boarded the bus to drive home in the dark. Once on the bus, one of the girls in my group--one of the “good” ones, the ones who prayed publicly and was known to be particularly godly--began sobbing, saying she saw an angel and he was shaking his head and expressing his disappointment. Soon the whole bus was filled with weeping teenagers claiming to have seen or felt that angel. I didn’t see an angel. I hugged my friends while they cried and prayed with them, but as with the ghosts, I was an outsider, not one of the blessed. 

That’s what I don’t get--what’s the point of having this irrational part of my brain, the part that wants ghosts, that wants God, that wants fairies and magic, if I’m meant to only ever witness the supernatural touching others? 

You don’t get to ask me questions until Question 18.  I know you have read some of these, I cannot believe that you thought you could just randomly ask me a question in the middle of this. I am shocked at this behavior.  Shocked!

As I stated earlier, the skeptical want desperately to believe, it is just that their threshold of believability is much stricter. I can easily see you on the fringe of the paranormal and on the fringe of the fundamental. I think they are different colors of the same mask. There is a level of faith required for both fundies and believers that logic just won’t work with.

Question 16: Are there any questions you expected me to ask that I have not?

“What is your favorite song/album/band/Spotify playlist/type of music?” I absolutely hate that question, but it’s de rigueur, isn’t it? I know so many people who claim to judge your worth based on the answer, and I feel like it gets too close to the soft underbelly. We were listening to Spotify the other day and Mark said “What is this playlist? I have no idea what’s going on here.” I said it was just things I’d favorited. He said that made sense, how it was at once bizarre, yet familiar. That’s me. Bizarre. Yet familiar. 

There are many questions that tend to be de rigueur that are really horrible questions.  The most often one I have seen is the “what’s your favorite X?” That is a tired and boring question. 

Comedy dictates that my next question be something about identifying your favorite of some category, but today I am eschewing comedy dictates. You hear that, Comedy? Eschewing!

Question 17: What would the God of All Comedy be named, if you could name the God of All Comedy? For the purposes of this post, you do, indeed, have that power.

I’m an agnostic, so I’m not sure if there is a God of ALL Comedy, but a few Halloweens ago, Mark and I dressed as two of the lesser gods you might not have heard of--Dorfeus, god of Dad jokes, and Purrsephone, goddess of cat memes. 

My go to names for gods of humor are Mirthcoatl the Omnijocular or Brosadi the Norn or Humor. That being said, I do not have “go to’s” for a god of humor name. I just came up with them for this post, but I like them verily. 

Now it is time for me to turn the tables. Question 18: Do you have any questions you want to ask me?
I love asking questions and hearing people spin their yarns, so I have ALL the questions for you. 
What keeps you going? 
What keeps you up at night? 
What makes your skin crawl? 
What taste, smell, or sound turns you into a kid again? 
What do you try not to remember? 
What do you hope to learn through these questions? 
How much is enough? 
It’s hard, because what I really want is a bottle of wine, and the ability to respond to some of your responses with more questions, but this is a start. 

Susan with a foliage moustache

Alright… here we go.
In general, curiosity keeps me going.
Worrying about the kids and having to deal with emotions I try not to deal with keep me up at night.
Spiders make my skin crawl.
Not much will turn me into a kid again… maybe dealing with my parents for more than a day at a time will throw me into some not so great childhood patterns.  Does that count?
I will not tell you what I try not to remember. Nope, not going to happen.
I hope to learn more about people, because I like people in the abstract… I tend to not actually like people though.
Enough is enough. 

So… Question 19: What are you taking from these 20 Questions that you did not bring with you?

I discovered that I actually love talking about myself, even though it’s ingrained in me to deny that vehemently. I don’t think I looked my depression in the eyes and gave it a nod until we discussed happiness here. And I don’t think I truly understood how starting your career trajectory at NordicTrak can put you on the path to success before this; I regret some earlier life choices. 

Not just anyone could start their worklife at NordicTrack, and no one can start in their retail arm anymore. The 90’s were the absolute best for niche retail stores in malls.  Anyhoo… the happiness question is always an introspective one.

Here we are at the last. Question 20: What's next?  Be as vague or as specific, as concrete or philosophical, and as near term or long term as you would like

In the short term, we are opening up the house and trying to dig out. Things have been rough, with two beloved pets dying in the last month. Spring is a good time to open all the french doors in our house that were closed to keep ailing pets out, to remove puppy pads, to let in some light. I need to get back to work--I owe a dear friend a poem, and frankly, I owe myself a poem. And it’s time to travel, to see new things, to taste new things, and to make a few new lists, because life doesn’t doesn’t seem to have direction without one. Beyond that, things are fuzzy, and not just because of all the cats. 

Susan's partner, Mark with Bartleby and Murphy

The problem with flinging open the doors in Central Ohio is that the weather is so volatile, you will want to fling them closed again almost instantly. In the time since Susan flung open her doors (answered this last question) it has snowed twice... maybe three times. 

I have adored this 20 Questions Tuesday greatly, and am very happy to know more about Susan. Everyone should give her a follow on the Twitters (@selimacat) even though she does not tweet much and on the ‘Grams (@selimacat).

She is an absolute delight and everyone should get to know her primarily because she is an introvert and that would freak her out.

To recap:
Plumber and painter in the house this week
Oh, and had to get a new over the range microwave as well
It does really come in threes
My kid really likes the Overwatch League
I find myself being sucked into it somewhat
My heel/plantar fasciitis is still a little ouchy
I realize this is a Wednesday
But I was not able to get the post formatted yesterday
It takes time
This blogging platform does not keep the formatting I already do on the documents
So I have to reformat everything
It is an arduous process
I just want to make sure all of you know that I suffer for my art
I don’t really
I was tired last night and didn’t feel like doing it
So this becomes a Wednesday post
Deal with it
Have a great week everyone