Everything you never wanted to know about Andrea, but she's going to tell you about anyway

There are 7.5 hours left until I see Frances, and I am a wreck (mama bloggers leaving the kiddos for the weekend for BlogHer, take note). I have half a dozen almost finished posts in the queue, and I can't look at any of them. Too much Frances. What I need for today's post is something light and distracting, something like a meme.

Something like -- oh! Something like Her Bad Mother's questionnaire, from Mama Blogs TO:

Please answer the following if-Proust-blogged questions

What is the quality you most admire in a blogger?

Tactful honesty. Anyone can be insincerely nice all the time and never offend anyone (though they might make you nauseous) and anyone can spout their mouths off and offend everyone with their unfettered opinions, but it takes skill to both say what you mean and not insult people in the process.

Right behind this would be humour. Not snark, which is humour's inbred cousin, but good-natured humour. (I know I snark. I didn't say I wasn't a hypocrite.)

What is your most marked blogging characteristic (or, how would you describe your blog)?

Wordy.

Or even: wordier.

What is your greatest virtue as a blogger (what do you most like about your blog)?

Being a bridge; knowing that some of my readers are leftist witchy types and others are conservative catholic types; some are single and some are married and some have kids, with many different genders and persuasions represented; some readers from Canada and some from America and some from Spain and Australia and (if sitemeter is to be believed) Holland, Japan, England, Scotland, and a few other places; some whose kids are the picture of a Parenting Book kid and others who differ from normal in varying ways and degrees, and the Readers themselves include the totally-normal-and-healthy as well as the not-so.

In other words, it feels good to know that by being honest to an experience that is narrow in a lot of ways, there's still something here for people who share few of those circumstances.

What do you regard as the principle defect of your blog?

Wordiness.

How do people write short blog entries? I practically have to cut off my hand to stop myself from typing more.

What character of fiction do you most wish had a blog?

Well, but the thing is, isn't that what the novel is? Or the story? I mean, if there are a lot of unanswered questions left at the end, it wasn't a very good book, was it? Unless it was a minor character.

I'm stumped. All the books I can think of with characters I'd like to spend more time with were satisfying and complete and I can't think of what about them I'd want to know.

Even historical characters where it might be fun to see what they'd do with the technology, I can't help but think that without their historical setting they would be so different that they wouldn't be themselves anymore. I'm taking this question way too seriously, aren't I?

What historical or real life person do you most wish had a blog?

Frances. I'd love to know what she thinks.

What is your present state of blog (present state of mind as a blogger)?

Shifting.

That's not new, mind you. I spend too much time trying to figure out exactly what it is I'm doing here, and how I'm doing it, and how I should be doing it, because (as noted above) I take everything much too seriously. Especially when it comes to writing. I have been known to take ten hours to write an email. Not all at once, but in bits--I'll write a paragraph and think, "No, that's not quite right, that's not what I mean, I'd better come back to it later." I try very hard, in every medium, to get every word as right as I can, and it takes a long time, especially when you are writing something every day.

I used to think this was a problem. I know it isn't the way most people approach it. Now I tell myself it's probably good practice for other kinds of writing, so I shouldn't feel badly about taking so much care with it.

But trust me: the moaning over the blog's purpose, and its narrative arc, and its lack of cohesion, and its Frances content, and the ratio of the political to the personal, will continue.

What is your blog motto?

The official one is: "Half the size, twice as sweet." Because she is: half the size (29" and 19 lbs at 2 1/2) and twice as sweet. A contentious claim in a group of mothers, I know, but if you've ever met Frances you'll know how true it is. Other children are excellent, wonderful creatures. I have always loved kids. But Frances was born good--patient, well-behaved, sensitive, generous, caring and happy. Her worst moments are a momentary pout or a wailed "NO!" They end almost before they begin. Her misbehaviour is no worse than mischevious fun (I have pictures of her on my desk at work of her refusing a nap--by standing up in her crib and jumping up and down with the hugest, most contagious grin on her face). We never have to worry about taking her into restaurants because she is quiet and she doesn't throw her food on the floor and she doesn't run around and disturb the other patrons. And she was just born like that. It's amazing. I count my lucky stars every day.

My unofficial motto is: "It's supposed to be fun."

I'm very picky about my writing. I didn't choose a field where writing would be part of my regular working day specifically because I never want to be put in a position where I have to write something I don't believe in. I look at those articles in Writer's Digest about how you can make money writing slogans or greeting cards and it makes me feel a little sick and a lot sad, because to me that would be worse than not writing at all. For me, writing isn't just the act of putting words together, it's also what those words say, and I have to believe in and enjoy both parts of it or it's very, very bad.

Which is why I have exactly one pending publication credit, I know.

In any case, ultimately, the blog is supposed to be fun. For me, that means writing (a lot); it also means saying something I really mean and believe in, and that changes over time. This is why I have so many categories (and now that I have 3.3 installed and can use tags, watch out!). I try to allow myself to write about what I'm interested in and what I'm obsessed by at any given time and trust that the natural audience for it will find me. This is probably the exact opposite approach of anything that might bring me Freelance Success.

Then, select and answer the questions from the list below that you feel will most reveal the person behind the blogger, as many or as few as you like (from the original – abridged – Proust questionnaire)

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

a) Franceslessness

b) war, starvation, torture, inhumane working conditions/sweatshops, you know, the obvious ones. All of the varied and countless ways we've invented misery for our own species and others.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

a) Francesness

b) A warm, sunny day; a stack of good books to be read; a decent notepad and a nice pen; a happy garden; birds singing nearby; a glass of something cold and some freshly baked cookies or banana bread; silence from the neighbours; a stretch of days off in front of me.

Lucky me, I get those things or most of them on a consistent basis.

Who are your favorite heroes & heroines of fiction?

What, all of them?

Emily Starr. Jo March. The hero/ine of Self. Alice. Elphaba. Those are the main ones, anyway.

I think if I could be Elphaba, I would. Not so fond of the melting-to-death part, but she is just such an awesome character.

What is your favorite virtue?

Idealism.

Seriously, that saw "if you're not a capitalist by thirty you have no brains" is just horseshit. Stick to your guns. Don't give in. Just because you're forced to compromise your actions doesn't mean you have to compromise your beliefs. Keep them, and trust that someday it will make more sense and there will be more options if you do. If we all give up our passions to become an adult, then the world will never change. Be passionate, be a pain in the ass, know who you are and where you are and what you want and NEVER give up. Just take a long view.

Who or what would you have liked to be?

A full-time writer would be groovy--I know, who'd have guessed?--but considering how picky I am about what I write, it's not likely. Especially in fiction, good god, no one ever makes a living from fiction. Except Margaret Atwood.

Where would you like to live?

a) Here. What, am I silly? No, but I am a bioregionalist, and I believe in having roots to one's living place, to knowing it and thinking of it as a community not a backgrop or stage setting. And, having lived with that belief for a long time now, my roots here feel very deep indeed. I can't imagine living without chickadees or black squirrels. I have a post about that coming up, actually.

b) If I absolutely had to move, if Canada were about to be nuked off the planet, my first choice would be New Zealand. I'm not thrilled about snow, so somewhere warm would be nice; but it couldn't be anywhere really hot because my brain shuts down over 29 degrees C, and it couldn't be anywhere I felt a feminist anarchist environmentalist witch wouldn't be generally welcome. That is, if I thought I could never wear a pentacle again, I wouldn't live there.

What is your most marked characteristic?

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I'll say the brain.

What do you most value in your friends?

Kindness.

What is your principle defect?

Inflexibility. Not for other people--I don't care what you do, as long as you're not hurting anyone--but for me. Which ends up making problems for other people, because I can't bend.

What is your favorite bird?

Chickadees. They're not flashy, they're tiny little black and white birds, but I love to watch them. They are playful and sociable, and it's a joy to see them dive together through the air, chatter on the branches and bring each other sunflower seeds.

And as the song goes, "The Littlest Birds Sing the Prettiest Songs." Which always makes me think of Frances.

Who are your favorite prose writers?

What, all of them?

You do know that I read like five books a week, right?

OK, here goes: Ursula le Guin. Margaret Atwood. Bill Bryson. Yann Martel. Starhawk. Liz Williams. Patricia McKillip. Robert Charles Wilson. Carol Shields. Octavia Butler. Jared Diamond. Charles Dickens. William Thackeray. Jane Austen. L.M. Montgomery. George Orwell. Gregory Maguire. Lots of others, but that will do for a start.

Let me put it this way: One of my favourite places to go is the World's Biggest Bookstore, and when I do, it's a day trip. You will not get me out again in under two hours, and it's usually considerably more. When I was a student, I spent $20/week on food and $75/week on books, outside of school books. I can finish a 600 page novel in one night. I read books while I'm watching television, while I'm playing with Frances, while I'm surfing the web, before falling asleep at night, over dinner, out on the deck, and during phone conversations (so if I ever seem a bit distracted, now you know why). I read a lot of books and, as a result, I've become very picky. I can no longer enjoy escapist fiction of any stripe, because the lapses in prose style and the cliches and the implausible scenarios drive me insane. Which means that not only do I read a lot now, but pretty well all of it would rank on a favourites list somewhere. There are so many fabulous books in the world; I don't have time for crap anymore.

Who are your favorite poets?

Anne Carson. T.S. Eliot. e e cummings. Others not as well known. You can read over the "Friday Poetry Blogging" category (menu on the left) if you want to see more.

How would you like to die?

Of old age, without diabetic complications, with my hands and feet still attached and my eyes still able to see, my nerves still working. I would, in other words, like to be cured soon enough that I get to die like most other people do.

What is your present state of mind?

Lonely. I miss my baby. Why did I let her go so far away?

Six hours to go. They've probably started driving back.

I'm going to get nothing done at work today.

Posted by Andrea at July 27, 2006 8:46 AM under Me

EMAIL this entry

(comments fields are below this section)

Email this entry to:


Your email address:


Message (optional):