Five Questions, Bo Style

I’m a renegade; a rogue; a rule-breaker.

I’ve already played this game: twice, in fact. The first set of questions I received was from Contrary, way back in April. Then, Liv sent me five more queries last month. When Bo got his questions from SaintSeester (I sent her some questions to ponder, and she made the offer to interview her readers), I asked him if HE’D interrogate me; I love how he thinks and knew he’d ask some good questions (did you follow all that?). He agreed, and here are the questions he asked:

Is lying ever the right thing to do? If so, what is an example of a morally
permissible lie?

I think it IS sometimes okay to lie, particularly when one’s safety is at issue. An example of this actually happened to me a few weeks ago. A very dear friend of mine is trying to get herself out of a difficult and awkward living situation. Last month, she and I went to look at a house she wanted to buy - her plan is to buy a place and move herself out because her efforts to get her housemate out have failed miserably. Anyway, she told him that she and I were going out shopping: telling him what we were really up to could have threatened her safety and made the time between her purchase of the place and her actually moving out untenable. I was more than happy to participate in that lie, and I’d do it again with no compunction whatsoever.

I also think that certain white lies are okay - or, more to the point, that it’s not necessary to be completely and baldly honest all the time. I adore my grandmother, for instance, but am not overly fond of her homemade cake frosting (I mentioned, in another post, that she’s of the Crisco generation). I don’t mention that I dislike her frosting, though, even when it’s offered to me. What would the point be? Some would say that I’m lying by omission, but I say it doesn’t matter.

Are there any foods that everyone seems to like but you?

Cheese and coffee. I should clarify here that I do like cheese - well, certain kinds of cheese, and only when they’re completely melted. I like cheddar cheese in soup and quiche or souffle, and I like mozzarella fried, on pizzas, chicken parmigiana and broiled over tortellini, but that’s about it. Nearly everyone around me eats cheese cold and revels in it. Mr. Chili cuts hunks off the block I grate for soup, the girls eat cheese sandwiches for lunch, my friends will put a cube of cheese or spread some of that brie stuff on crackers and have looks on their faces that echo my delight in good chocolate. Kizz loves stinky cheese - the stinkier the better, according to her - and I just don’t get it.

Coffee is another thing that everyone loves (as can be proven by the amazing rate at which Starbucks are being built; even in my podunky little area we have three). I don’t like the flavor of coffee and never have. I don’t own a coffee maker, I don’t need a fix in the morning, I don’t like espresso powder in my chocolate cakes, thank you very much. I love the SMELL of coffee, mind you, particularly of hazelnut flavored coffee, and I don’t mind walking down the coffee aisle in the grocery store, but I really can’t stand the taste. More for you, I guess…

Do you have any irrational affections?

I suppose that would depend on who you ask. My students think that I’m a nut job because of how excited I get about my job. If you don’t know already, I teach English at a small community college (represented here as TCC). English courses are required at TCC, which means that everyone is in my classes because they have to be (though I like to imagine that at least a few of them would choose my class as an elective, but I could just be kidding myself). Anyway, they can’t, for the life of them, figure out what it is about this reading and writing stuff that Mrs. Chili gets herself SO WORKED UP about. So Mrs. Chili writes every day and belongs to some book club (who reads for fun, anyway?!). So some Nazi made a speech 60 years ago. So some chick wrote a horror story 189 years ago. WHO the fuck CARES!?!

Well, kids, Mrs. Chili cares, and she seems to be getting more excited about her work (and her hobbies) as she goes. I’m thrilled when I learn new stuff - particularly when I learn new stuff about stuff I thought I already knew! I love seeing connections between pieces of writing, or between pieces of writing and anything else). I love getting the perspectives of others and seeing things that, without them, I never would have seen. I love the communication - both with the texts and with others experiencing the texts - and I love that I’m a different person for having had that communication.

I don’t know - is that an irrational affection?

What was the first television show you ever described as your “favorite”?

Probably Sesame Street. I spent an inordinate amount of time in front of the television when I was a child (I knew, for example, that when Scooby Doo was over, it was time for me to leave for kindergarten. My father had long since left for work and the mother was still in bed - no one was watching the clock for me at five years old), so it’s pretty likely that Sesame Street was my first favorite.

Do you laugh out loud when you’re by yourself?

Oh, God! ALL. THE. TIME. I love to laugh and take every opportunity I can to do it. I have had to pull my car over because I was laughing too hard to drive. I sit in front of my computer and laugh at stuff I see on YouTube, or stuff that my blogging friends write. It happened just the other day!   Kwizgiver put a YouTube up on her site (that I immediately stole for mine) that put OutKast’s “Hey Ya” to scenes from A Charlie Brown Christmas. I was just chuckling and grinning until we got to the part where Charlie Brown is in front of his empty mailbox with the wonderfully expressive, Charlie Brown gloomy face on, and the lyrics say “why, oh, why, oh, why-oh / are we so in denial / when we know we’re not happy here?” No one in the house but me, laughing loud enough to startle the snoozing cat in the next room.

Happy Friday, Everyone!!