A Jar of Balloons Survey, Volume 7

A Jar of Balloons Survey, Volume 7 (james ensor)

1.) About what things do you think you’re a snob? I’m a snob about table manners. I can’t STAND bad table manners. Chewing with your mouth open, elbows on the table, smacking your lips, belching. It’s DISGUSTING. Nobody likes to see it.

2.) Have you ever participated in a parade? Hundreds of times. When I was little my best friend Wendy and I would always participate in the Mayfest Children’s parade. When I was in high school, I was part of a highly competitive marching band. Almost every weekend in the Spring and Summers was spent out of town at a parade. I’ve marched in a Disneyland Parade, the Fiesta Bowl, the Rose Bowl, and 4 years straight at the Veiled Prophet Parade in St. Louis.

3.) Which board games do you own? What’s your favorite? I own LOADS of board games. My absolute favorite is Scrabble.

4.) What do you do about indefinite pronouns? "He," "she," or the nearly impossible to maintain "he/she"? It depends on what or whom I’m talking about. But if it’s just an unknown person, I usually go with "the person." i.e. "The person would have to jump high to reach that spot." 

5.) Were you skilled at climbing trees? Have you ever fallen out of a tree? What is the highest height you’ve fallen from? I was very skilled at climbing trees. I’m actually still quite good at it. It’s a fun past time. I’ve never fallen out of a tree. And I’ve fallen off the roof of a 1 story home. I was getting a frisbee off of it and slipped and down I went. Knocked the wind out of me and I actually saw stars. But I was fine.

6.) Why is the inclination always to assume that a street musician possesses talent and a tragic story if the instrument he plays is a saxophone? Because of the wailing sound the saxophone naturally makes. A person has to be REALLY talented to make a saxophone sound "happy."

7.) First job? Worst job? Current job? My first job was at Hardee’s fast food restaurant, and it was also the worst. It was dirty hard work for crap pay. My current job is as a Technical Writer for a company that manufactures gas powered home heating equipment and grills. (That’s a fancy way of saying I write the installation and operating instructions)

8.) Can you chant me a chant children chanted when you were a child? "Whip them like ice cream whip them like ice cream!" yelled out on the kickball court. I actually invented that saying, and the kids used it for several years running. It makes no sense, but it did back in the 2nd grade!

9.) How many beds have you had in your life? Hmmm. Just 4. Crib, twin mattress, new twin mattress, queen bed, king bed

10.) When indoors and too warm, is your impulse to blame the room or fear a fever? My impulse is to blame the room. Generally if I have  fever I can tell because I’ll also feel like crap.

11.) Which do you find increases more rapidly, your age or your idea of what age is old? My idea of what age is old. I’m 33 tomorrow and I used to think that was old. And now, I see my mother at 60 something and even that isn’t old anymore.

12.) Do you set your watch at the exact time or ahead? If ahead, do you find you simply subtract the difference, thus making the point of setting your watch ahead entirely irrelevant? I used to set it ahead and then I noticed I just kept doing the subtracting thing. So now all of my clocks are set to the exact time.

13.) Do you mess with things, such as a watch’s tiny winding knob, just thumbnail it out, then thumb it in? Do you ever mess with the button inside the fridge that makes the light go off and on, just press it flat a few times? Yes, yes I do. I fidget. It’s part of who I am.

14.) Are you a sucker for products on infomercials, adhesive putties, magnetic brooms, new devices for rapidly dicing vegetables? What about the extras, thrown in at the end, though predictable as a rock band’s big hit delayed until a concert’s encore, ("All this for only…")? Are you a sucker for those, too? Nope. I don’t generally buy things off of the t.v. Sometimes though, the Wal-Green’s pharmacy super store will carry "as seen on tv" products and if the price is low enough, I might give something a try.

15.) How often is it, would you say, that your life, to you, resembles a movie? Rarely. It would be a dully movie.

16.) Have you ever been in a boat from which you couldn’t see a shore? No I have not.

17.) What alterations to your form have you imagined? Unscrewable limbs? An extendable neck? A third arm, very short, projecting from your sternum? Perhaps four more fingers on each hand to fill the gaps between fingers, so as to double the noise you could make when drumming on tables while waiting? I  had extendable hands. They could get bigger to fit my need. Usually for carrying lots of things.

18.) How many people, right now, know exactly where you are? None? As I’m writing this, just one. He’s sitting right behind me on the loveseat reading a book.

19.) Do you generally know what to do? I’d say about 70% of the time I’m pretty sure I know what to do in most situations. The rest of the time I’m pretty clueless.

20.) Isn’t it an odd feeling, to see a building or a house that you’ve never seen, despite having passed by it literally hundreds of times? How does this make you feel? This happened to me today. What I thought was 1 long building is actually 2 buildings and there’s an easily visible back patio area on one with a grill on it. You’d think I’d have seen that sitting at the stop light one of the thousands of times I’ve been by it.

21.) How old were you when you first felt the need for a filing cabinet? 19. It was at college and I had too much paperwork to keep lying about in regular folders so I bought a cheap little plastic filing cabinet.

22.) When someone apologizes, are you quick to accept? Depends on the transgression.

23.) Any memorable sunsets you’d like to throw in? Or is there no need to remember sunsets because today’s is or was or will be orange enough, and with the right mellowness? The second statement. Sunsets are beautiful however they happen.

24.) What is your expression for preparing to exit? Folding up shop? Breaking down? "It’s time to blow this pop stand."

25.) Which questions from this series of surveys will you remember? Which will you mention? I don’t know. I haven’t actually considered asking other people these questions. I like to answer them myself because it’s a learning exercise and a unique way to write not so normal things down for the future.