Functionally ReTodded

These are questions from the Proust quiz in a recent issue of Vanity Fair magazine.  I don’t read Vanity Fair and I don’t know who or what Proust is, but I’m lazy so I took this and will post it as my own.  Sort of.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
I don’t think perfect happiness exists.

What is your greatest fear?
Harm coming to my wife or kids.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Immaturity.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Dishonesty

On what occasion do you lie?
To spare another person’s feelings.

What is your greatest extravagance?
In general, personal electronics.  Specifically (as of today) it’s my iPhone.

What is your current state of mind?
Frustrated.

What is the quality you most like in a man?
Integrity

What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Compassion.  And boobs.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
"It is what it is" and "At the end of the day."

When and where were you happiest?
Out to dinner, alone but for my wife.

Who are your favorite writers?
Lee Child, Michael Connolly, Vince Flynn, Harlan Coben, Steven White, Stuart Woods, David Baldacci, Nelson DeMille

Which talent would you most like to have?
Playing the guitar.

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
I would like them to enjoy life more.

If you died and came back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
A huge delicious beer.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?
Being fat.  And the mole over my right eye.

Where would you like to live?
Hilton Head Island,  SC.  Or Boston.

What is your most treasured possession?
My grandfather’s truck.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Hopelessness.

What do you most value in your friends?
Unconditional friendship.

What are your favorite names?
Of what?  Dogs?  Kids?  Restaurants.

What is it that you most dislike?
Two faced people.

What is your greatest regret?
Not finishing college.

How would you like to die?
Balls deep is inappropriate, so I’ll say in my sleep.  Or instantly.  Instantly in my sleep would be great.

What is your motto?
I guess if I had one, it’d be something about not putting your job ahead of your life and family.  If you didn’t show up to work tomorrow, they’d probably give a shit for about two days, but they’d go on.

What’s in my craw?  Buckle in for the bitchfest.

GBD’s unemployment, while approved, has yet to kick in, creating more than a small knot of stress in the pit of my ever growing stomach.

My job, while already difficult since it is going away in late February, is being madeuser tougher by folks that either can’t see the forest for the trees or by folks that simply have no compassion for their co-workers and fellow human beings.

It’s about day 250 of my seven year going to school five days a week and every day it is the same things:

"Where are your clothes?  Where are your shoes?  What do you want for breakfast?  Finish your breakfast.  Have you brushed your teeth?  Why don’t you have your shoes on yet?  Where’s your backpack and jacket?  why don’t you have your shoes on yet?  Stop watching television.  You need to get your shoes!"

Then it’s Thing Two mimicking everything everyone says, tattling on everyone and crying about whatever you ask her to do.

Thing Three?  Don’t worry.  He’s screaming AND crying because you opened the cheese for him but he can’t open it so he cries about that too.  Oh, and he doesn’t want to sit at the table to eat breakfast, and if you take your eyes off him for .0008 seconds, he’s off to somewhere carpeted with his yogurt or whatever and you know that ants will be on the horizon for the day.

I haven’t folded a piece of laundry in three weeks and I feel like I’ve lost all the traction we had built up in the house.

I’d like to take a deep breath again sometime just to see how that feels…