10 Answers to Questions You Forgot to Ask
Bodies, baristas, Bambi, and more!
It’s mid-August, which means I’m operating without a brain
Summer is winding down. The neighborhood kids are shouldering their new backpacks and heading back to school. Everybody’s getting back into the swing.
Everybody but me.
It’s the dog days, and my brain is a dog that won’t hunt. I’ve been mushing away at the same essay for days, and instead of pulling for me my inner dog keeps curling up on the rug and going to sleep.
I don’t know why this surprises me; this happens to me every year around this time. No matter how determined I am to get to work, my mind wanders off like it’s taking the “vacate” part of vacation literally.
I’m not worried; it’s a small mind so it can’t get too far. It’ll show up at the back door eventually. Until then, I have to get along without it.
This is surprisingly easy, especially when a generous writer like Izzibella Beau offers a beguiling writing prompt in the form of a ten-question challenge.
If it’s good enough for Roz Warren, Writing Coach when her brain hits the August doldrums, it’s good enough for me.
1.) What movie never fails to make you cry?
Why does this question have to be first? Because it’s forcing me to confess something I’ve shared with few people. Very few. Maybe no people.
Because the one movie that is guaranteed to open the valve on my waterworks is . . . Bambi.
Yes, the vintage Disney film about an adorable spotted fawn named Bambi and his adorable friends, an adorable bunny named Thumper and an adorable skunk named Flower who all live in a beautiful forest.
Except that early in the film, there’s a terrible forest fire and all the adorable animals have to run for their lives, including Bambi and his mother.
And while Bambi is running to safety in the meadow, his mother is shot to death by hunters.
“Mama, we made it!” says Bambi, looking around eagerly, waiting for his mother to catch up to him. “Mama? Mama??”
I saw that movie when I was three years old and I’m still not over the trauma. Can’t even write about it without bawling.
So thanks for that.
2.) Who would you trust to help you bury a body?
It depends on the body. My older sister helped me bury a number of bodies, if you count dead parakeets, turtles, and guinea pigs.
If we’re talking about a human body, however, I am squeamish to the point of phobia about corpses, so the question is moot. Not that I’m incapable of murder under the right circumstances, but when it comes to getting rid of the evidence I’d just have to turn myself in.
3.) What moment in your past do you wish you could experience again for the first time?
I feel like I should say the birth of my children, except that would entail going through labor again and, sorry kids, been there, done that.
I had a wonderful last visit with my sweet mother, a month or two before she died. As I left her bedside in the nursing home she said, “We won’t forget this, will we, Jannie?”
I just wish I’d known those were the last words she’d ever say to me. Or, maybe it’s better I didn’t.
4.) Do you believe in soulmates?
I do, because I’m married to mine.
5.) What’s your go-to takeout order?
A 20-ounce Americano with three shots of decaf and one shot of regular, with plenty of room for cream. And I do mean plenty of room, otherwise I will be dumping some of your Americano out at your condiments station so I can add a decent amount of half-and-half.
Also, don’t reverse the proportions or I’ll call you up at 3 AM to tell you all my good ideas really fast. This is why I take baristas’ names.
6.) If you could go back and change your biggest mistake, would you?
I’m just smart enough to figure that I probably don’t know which of my (many) mistakes in life was actually the biggest. Perhaps I haven’t made it yet.
Of the ones I have made, there are a couple that still make me cringe, but maybe I need those cringes or I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I have.
TLDR: No. But, ouch.
7.) What is the place you’d most like to visit?
Norway, Sweden, and Finland. I have a thing for the Scandinavian countries, based on what I’ve read about how they approach life. Also I admire anybody who can get through those winters.
I’ll schedule my trip in summertime, thanks.
8.) Do you think six months is too soon to marry someone?
I think it’s probably too long to be married to someone whom you’ve only known for six months.
9.) Do you think you’d survive a zombie apocalypse?
Only if it happened in August. As we’ve established, my brain is absent in August so zombies couldn’t find it to eat it.
Speaking of apocalypses:
10.) If you could compete in any Olympic sport, which one would you pick? (It’s Olympic Time!!).
Are we sure it’s still Olympic Time? I might have missed it (see: absent brain). But if I could, I’d compete in equestrian events.
Since we’re fantasizing, can I be the horse?
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