Ink Tea Stone Leaf

After this last weekend, I took a step back from my long-running Tumblr blog in order to focus myself on things that make me happier (a category, one might conclude, that includes just about anything that isn’t “posting on Tumblr every day”). Before I left the hellsite behind, however, I reblogged a post by a user called chilope that I wanted to revisit here. Tumblr user chilope’s post is in the form of an Ask Meme, a venerable format with list of numbered questions that other users can request a person to answer by sending them a message with the associated numbers.

Usually when I reblogged Ask Memes, I would get few if any messages, which I always found disappointing. The worst thing is that I would typically want to answer all the questions, which isn’t quite in the spirit of the Ask Meme tradition but arises from my frequent, barely suppressed urges to run off at the mouth. On my blog, however, I can do whatever I want, and if that means answering 69 (nice) questions about life between 29 and 40, then that’s just what it means.

Without further ado, here are some questions to probe the experiences of us all us 90s kids here in the 2020s.

1. What was the first piece of furniture you bought?

The oldest pieces that I bought for myself and still have in my home today are a couple of cheap, collapsible bookshelves I got for my apartment eight years ago. Around the same time, I bought a coffee table from a consignment store across the street from my apartment, to replace my old coffee table, which wasn’t so much a coffee table as it was a plastic storage bin I kept in front of my couch.

2. What proportion of your meals do you cook?

Ariele and I switch off responsibility for dinner every night, and I’ll probably order out or take us to a restaurant about once a week. The rest of the dinners on my nights, I cook at home. For lunch, it depends on whether I’m at home or out and about in the day. For breakfast, on days when one of us is working I like to grab a chai latte and a bagel at a certain café downtown. On other days, we eat something here at home.

3. Foaming hand soap or normal hand soap?

This does seem like a question for thirty-somethings on Tumblr, specifically. I don’t really care, but I usually buy the stuff that doesn’t come out as a foam.

4. Favorite chore?

Probably laundry, actually! The machines do all the hard work, assuming you don’t get greedy and try to do in one load what should properly take two or three. After that, folding and storing the clean clothes is a nice thing to do while the TV or the radio is on.

5. Least favorite chore?

Probably anything involving scrubbing. There is a continuum of things that need scrubbing which ranges from mostly benign to totally unappealing. Most chores that really feel like “chores” to me involve some measure of scrubbing.

6. Most precious thing one of your pets has destroyed?

Many of my bookshelves are decorated with covers that have bites taken out of them by various small parrots, who took advantage of a momentary distraction to acquire some colorful nesting material. But the most tragic loss I’ve suffered to their insatiable need to chew on things has to be the first house plant, a camellia sinensis, that I ever bought. One of my lovebirds, Bonnie or Sherbert (it’s impossible to know which one) chopped it right down at the base of the main stem, like a beaver.

7. Any groceries you’ve been getting into lately?

Well, we all have our staples. Lately I found myself wondering why I don’t eat corn on the cob all the time, since it’s delicious. So I guess I’ve been trying to buy more of that.

8. What cleaning product do you swear by?

Ariele turned me on some time ago to Dr. Bronner’s, and I don’t think that man’s soap has ever let me down.

9. What’s your emotional support craft?

Probably writing poetry. I usually turn to it at some point when I’m in the grip of some feelings. It doesn’t always result in anything like a finished poem, but it usually helps.

10. Youtube, cable TV, or streaming?

I’ll quibble, as I do at every opportunity, that Youtube is a streaming platform and doesn’t deserve to be regarded separately. That being said, we dropped cable about a year ago. We also watch a lot of DVDs and Blurays, because I at least haven’t given up on the idea that you can buy something and keep it until the laws of entropy should take it from you, not the copyright holder or some licensee.

11. What’s something you saved up for and then regretted buying?

Since we moved into this house, I’ve made a few large-ish purchases, and I don’t really think I regret any of them. The neighbors were giving us looks before I got the lawn mower; I exercise way more than I would have without the elliptical machine; I have nothing but positive things to say about the hammock stand and the bidet. The barbecue is maybe a little harder to keep clean than I’d anticipated (what with all the scrubbing), but without it, how could I grill? How could I grill?

12. How many cups can you see from where you’re sitting?

My favorite tea mug and the teapot are on my desk here with me. If I turn my head, I can see another mug and a tall glass on Ariele’s desk, and a water bottle on the coffee table. As usual, I find myself wondering where I’ve left my tall San Diego Padres cup.

13. Which filter are you most likely to go “eh, it’s probably fine” when you find out you need to change it?

I’m going to have to be a bit of a scold on this, because changing filters is extremely important to your health and well-being. I bought a portable air filter for the birds after the bad wildfires we had a few years ago, because they are very sensitive to adverse changes in air quality. Humans, however, need clean air just as much. As for any other kinds of filters, I really can’t think of one that I’d be comfortable just ignoring.

That being said, I did go an uncomfortably long time without changing the AC filter in my house last year. But that was mostly because I thought the guys I hired to check my system twice a year were going to do it.

14. How often do you take baths?

It varies, but maybe once a month or so, on average. Our bathtub is just a little too small to lie down in fully, but it does have jets. I’ll opt for a shower most of the time, but sometimes the temptation to lie down and soak in the warm bubbles is so great that I’ll consent to bend my knees.

15. Do you go down each aisle when you grocery shop, or only the ones you know you need stuff from?

I mean, that really depends on why I came to the grocery store, right? If I show up looking for one (1) item, I’m not going to do the whole circuit like a mouse in a maze.

It also depends on which grocery store I’m at. If we’re at Grocery Outlet, where we get most of our essentials on big trips, then we usually find it worthwhile to scan every aisle. If we’re at Safeway or Roth’s, then there are big sections of the store that hold no promise. Something in our cart may be melting, and time is a factor!

16. Where do you go when you need to get out of the house but it’s raining?

I’m such a homebody that I’m not sure I’m on the same wavelength as the premise. However, I might spend a little time at the certain café I mentioned earlier, or even at the public library.

17. What’s a movie you saw recently that you liked?

I really haven’t watched a lot of movies lately, have I? The last time we bought tickets to the theater was when we saw The Boy and the Heron back in December. The last feature film I put on at home was probably Star Wars, for a lark on May Fourth.

I did watch some things on the flights to and from Italy this spring – I recall enjoying Kiss Kiss Bang Bang a lot, and remembered how much I enjoy noir-ish comedies in general. Also, in the hotel in Naples we caught 80% or so of the Italian dub of Gladiator. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think it was Latin!

Oh, there was one other movie I saw; a friend of ours recently booked a small private theater for his birthday, and we watched Miami Connection. It’s not a masterpiece, but it is endearing.

18. Pro or anti tchotchkes?

It doesn’t matter what I think of tchotchkes in the abstract. Tchotchkes are all around us. I like to think that most of my tchotchkes are a little nicer and more dignified than what is usually meant by the term. I make no guarantee that you will agree.

19. What’s your go-to tape?

Duct tape for big jobs, scotch tape for paper stuff. Straightforward, no?

20. What’s in your freezer right now?

Ice.

Also a large tub of brown rice, some homemade iced tea popsicles that Ariele made, a few non-homemade fruit flavored popsicles, a tub of vanilla ice cream, a couple of jars of homemade jam, a box of filo pastry, some bags of millet for the birds, and a container of chicken bones that will one day be the basis of a chicken bone broth.

Also a few of those freezer packs that come in the box when you ship something that has to stay cold.

21. Last concert you attended?

A couple of weeks ago, we went to the community college to see the last choir concert put on by their retiring music director. The first half of the program was songs by the composer Christopher Tin; I’m told that some of the singers had recently performed those pieces at Carnegie Hall, which is very exciting for them! The second half was a small set of spirituals and other choir classics.

I enjoyed it so much, I bought one of Tin’s albums.

22. Favorite grocery store?

I mentioned that we do most of our shopping at Grocery Outlet, since it is cheaper and has most of what we need at any particular time. When we need something a little more niche, or I don’t want to go all the way over the bridge, I confess I do like the vibe of Roth’s. If we want something very specific, and that specific something is Asian, we might go out of our way to visit the Asian market in our old neighborhood on the other side of town.

23. Paper bags, plastic bags, or reusable bags?

We do have a bunch of reusable bags, but like dopes we usually forget to take them out of the pantry before a shopping trip. So, paper it is.

24.Do you get your government mandated 8 hours every night?

What are you, a cop?

More like six or seven a lot of the time, but closer to eight if I’m not going anywhere.

25. Favorite old person activity?

I have a few, actually. Sunday crossword, on paper, in pen. Reading on a sunny day while lying in the deck hammock. Looking at birds. Annoying my wife with stupid jokes. Reaching for antacid tablets when I eat anything spicier than a slice of bread.

26. Would you rather sit on the porch drinking sweet tea or sit by the lake drinking beers?

You lost me at “sweet.” I love tea, I adore iced tea, but it should be bitter, with perhaps a bit of lemon or some floral and spicy notes; sugar should not be involved. I’ll take a pale ale or an amber ale by the lake (though I think I should be allowed to drink them on the porch too).

27. Do you prefer Boardgame Night, Build-Your-Own-Pizza Night, or Movie Night with your friends?

Look, they all sound lovely. I’d like to do all of these things with a few friends on any given evening, and I don’t see why I should be forced to choose. If I am being forced to choose, I’ll take the board games, because I love games of all types; but if I can’t have my pizza too, and my friends have categorically ruled out staying for a movie, I’m going to be crabby the whole time.

28. Be honest, do you like all of the pictures of their babies that your friends send you?

Of course I do, why wouldn’t I? Though the fact is, the pictures I get of my nieces and all the other very young humans I know are hardly overwhelming in their multitude. They are not, I’m glad to say, being photographed to within an inch of their tiny lives, and that’s a good part of good parenting.

29. Go-to holiday card format?

To be honest, I’ve never sent one. But when I do, it’s going to have poetry on it.

30. How many pairs of scissors do you own?

I can think of at least five that I could track down now if I were of a mind to go looking, and I wouldn’t be surprised if others turned up. Six if gardening clippers count.

31. Do you still own your first car?

I lost the first car I ever held title to, a Chevrolet Aveo, after sliding over an icy road into a ditch seven years ago. I still think about that car all the time; I learned to drive stick in that car, three days before driving it from Eugene, Oregon to San Diego, California.

After that I bought a Prius, which I sold this year after buying my dad’s Chevy Bolt. I still miss driving stick, but I’m very much about driving electric at this stage of life.

32. How do you take your morning coffee/tea?

In the mornings I enjoy a good chai latte, with cinnamon if you’ve got it. I have learned that some people like theirs with a shot of coffee in it, and they call it a dirty chai, much as a glass of water is called a dirty glass of water when you drop a shot of mud in it. I have learned this because some baristas in my experience have assumed that anybody ordering a chai latte must actually want a dirty chai, because why would anybody order a tea-based drink without any coffee in it? That is why I am particular about where I order my drinks.

33. What’s something you collect?

I actually have a lot of small collections of things I enjoy: art works, comic books, minerals, foreign coins, video games, vinyl records and CDs, things of that nature. I’m not a hardcore, completionist collector of anything, though I do own five globes (and a beach ball with a world map printed on it) and I’ll admit that’s kind of a lot.

34. What’s your commute like?

The school I work at most of the time is on the other side of town, and it takes me about twenty minutes to drive there in the morning. Usually, I’ll set out early so I can have my customary breakfast latte downtown. On days when Ariele is working an evening shift at the community college a few minutes down the street, I’ll end up driving to that part of town and back three times, which is more than I’d like, but that’s usually only a couple of times a week during the school year.

35. Aisle at the grocery store you never bother walking down?

No, I hit them all up. You never know what you might forget you need until you’re looking straight at it.

36. Do you keep a daily journal or agenda?

This is the most embarrassing question so far. I kept a daily journal from the beginning of 2010 until around November of 2021, at which point I fell out of the habit. Even when I was committed to it, however, I often found myself behind, sometimes by as much as two weeks. Consequently I’d often spend hours out of a day writing down everything I could remember over an arbitrary length of days, only to fall behind again. It got to be a lot to grapple with, mentally.

This year I decided to restart journaling on a weekly basis, and I made it about four months, without ever having quite given up. So this weekend, I promise, I will write in my journal. I won’t even worry about what I would have written the last however many weeks it’s been.

37. Do you still listen to the same music you listened to in high school?

When I was in high school, I fell really hard for the Beatles and the Beach Boys, and I never stopped listening to either one. Most of what I listened to in those days was what was playing on the oldies station or the classic rock station (and this was twenty years ago, when classic rock didn’t mean 80s’ and 90’s music). That is to say, I was mostly interested in artists that had already stood the test of time.

Starting from when I was in college, however, I made a deliberate effort to expand my musical horizons. Part of that was revisiting bands that were contemporary at the time (or even just more recent than 1980 or so), but another part was making an effort to listen to and appreciate types of music I knew nothing about. I mostly listen to jazz when I’m in the car, and I play jazz or classical music often when I’m sitting with my birds. Ariele and I are even growing into opera enthusiasts these days. I learned to love a lot of different styles that I was closed off to, and it’s helped me to learn to love music on a deeper level all around.

But anyway, this morning while I was weeding in the garden, I had my Beach Boys playlist on. Why on Earth would I stop listening to this?

38. What’s the last filter you changed?

Again, filters are important. I just bought a three pack of filters for my refrigerator water, which will hopefully arrive soon. If the lint trap on the dryer counts, then I cleaned that yesterday.

39. What little treat do you always get when you run errands?

I don’t get one every time (it depends where I go), but I love a warm, soft, chocolate chip cookie.

40. Grocery list or no grocery list?

It just depends on how important it is that I not forget something. If I’m going to the store for a lot of things and I don’t have a list, it’s a roll of the dice. But sometimes, I don’t think it’s worth the effort (or I overestimate my abilities).

41. What’s the oldest thing you own?

Great question, one that I might not know the answer to for sure. As far as artifacts go, I have an antique coffee table in the bedroom that once belonged to my great grandmother; the engagement ring I gave Ariele, which was previously given to my mother by my father, also belonged once to the same person. However, I also have a dollar coin in my display case with a date of 1878, which is probably going to be tough to beat.

That being said, my display case also contains a small trilobite fossil, the last species of which went extinct nearly 260 million years ago. I also have a fossil mosasaur tooth from about 70 MYA, but the trilobite has that beat by more than three times, minimum. So if fossils count, I suppose the trilobite is the clear winner.

42. What’s an unjustifiably expensive appliance that you really want?

Honestly, I think I’m good right now! But Ariele keeps talking about a box freezer, which could be pretty useful. One day I’d like to install a second bidet in the hall bathroom, but the one in our bathroom suits me just fine.

43. Favorite book you’ve read recently?

This year, I’ve read a novel called The Howling Miller by Arto Paasilinna, and a collection of short stories by Ken Liu called The Paper Menagerie that I both really enjoyed. Right now I’m stuck trying to plow through what is essentially a reference guide to opera, but I have some other books I’d like to get to before the end of the summer that I expect I’ll enjoy just as much.

44. Honest feelings on Settlers of Catan?

Do some people have a hard time being honest about Catan? It’s a great game! It might be a cliche in a certain class of millennial party staples, but it has earned the right to be there, as much as a board game can be said to.

Several years ago, when I was teaching high school economics, I actually incorporated a game of Catan into some lessons. It was tricky, because a standard game takes somewhat longer to play on average than a typical class period, but I made it work by adjusting a few rules. It was a fun way to talk about things like value theory and factors of production, and my students came up with some very interesting ideas about what the sheep were really for.

45. What’s something you wish you had more time for?

Writing – that is, it’s something that I wish I made more time for. I wish I could make a living at creative writing and never have to worry about anything else. I wish I had the discipline to write every day, or even write most days. I think that is something I can give myself, and in fact it’s something I’m actively trying to do right now. That’s really why I’m writing all this, that’s why I’m trying to make the best of what is a ludicrously opportune set of circumstances to develop new habits. I tap tap tap the keyboard, and I feel a satisfaction that nothing else quite touches.

46. What kind of stuff do you keep on the door of your refrigerator?

The usual things: silly magnets, magnets with phone numbers (pizza, the avian vet), souvenir magnets from places we’ve visited, almost two dozen left over magnets from our wedding. We use these magnets to hold up things like holiday cards (we still haven’t taken last year’s cards down) and informational papers (the garbage and recycling schedule, conversions between different kitchen measurements). We’ve got a white board for scribbling down shopping lists, we’ve got a thank you card I got from some students a couple of years ago. There’s also a picture of me and my family all together on vacation in Hawaii, from a long time ago. The usual things.

47. Lamps or overhead lighting?

Well, I have a mixture of both, as I assume most people end up with sooner or later. The most important lamp in my house is the UV lamp I bought for my birds, since the room with their cages gets no natural sunlight (unlike the living room, where we have skylights). There are reading lamps on either side of our beds, and a couple of lamps here and there for brightening up darker regions of rooms. Overhead lights mostly do the trick though.

48. If you could build your home from scratch, what outrageous feature would you want to build into it?

I’d probably keep this house mostly the way it is, but because we are situated on a hill, underneath our single floor there is actually a large unfinished basement space, big enough that it could be finished into a couple of large rooms. In our fantasies of much larger budgets, Ariele and I have talked about turning it into a “speakeasy,” complete with a pool table and bar, and even a secret elevator up to the pantry. Basically a rec room and lounge, but we’d play swing music and make people say a password to get in.

More realistically and practically, I’d like to build a ramp down to the backyard and garden, in case either of us develop mobility issues and find the stairs hard to navigate.

49. Do you bring a bag with you everywhere you go?

I bring a brown messenger bag to some places, particularly work and any place I think I might want a book to read. For day to day goings-on, I make extensive use of jacket pockets to carry the various things I want or need while out and about. My phone and wallet go in my pants pockets (front, not back, because that would make sitting weird), while in my jacket I carry my keys, my sunglasses case, my fountain pen, a spare face mask, and (lately, once again) a portable video game console.

50. Pro or anti throw pillows?

I think they look nice. I use them as regular pillows when I’m napping. I have normal feelings about throw pillows.

51. How many blankets do you keep in your living room?

Four, typically. One’s a decorative blanket for the top and back of the couch, the others are for snuggling. Sometimes one or more of them may migrate to the bedroom.

52. Did your relationship with your parents get better when you stopped living with them?

Does the wording of the question subtly imply that my relationship with my parents was bad before I stopped living with them? Again, a very Tumblr kind of question.

The first time I lived anywhere other than at home, I was eighteen, going to college in another state, and my mom and dad had just separated. Naturally I had a lot of feelings about what was going on, and overall I think I was happy and relieved not to have to look at what was going on in the face all the time. But I never stopped coming home, and I never stopped wanting to see either of them when I did.

53. What’s worse, the DMV or the Social Security Office?

When Ariele and I got married, she made the choice to take on my last name. I understand the people at social security did not make that easy for her. By contrast, I don’t really have anything against the DMV in particular. I just don’t like waiting in lines is all.

54. Do you decorate your house for holidays? Which ones?

I have always loved Christmas and Halloween decorations. I try to add new ones every year, but having only had an entire house of my own to decorate for a few years now, I’m a long way from anything truly impressive.

55. Favorite high-effort meal that you make?

I won Ariele’s heart in the early days with a mushroom risotto dish, which is also how I learned that she passionately hates mushrooms. I don’t bust it out very often, but when I do it’s delicious.

56. Favorite low-effort meal that you make?

I make a stir fry with a simple brown rice recipe I learned from Alton Brown on Good Eats a long time ago: one and a half cups brown rice, two and a half cups boiled water with butter or oil, salt, and any herbs and spices you please, in an eight by eight glass pan under foil for an hour in the oven at 370 degrees. Combine the finished product with pan fried broccoli, bell peppers, onions, garlic, mushrooms, and whatever else you want to put in there; I like to mix in a dab of gochujang.

If I’m going really low effort, I use garlic and onion powders. If I’m going supremely low effort, I just put some cheese on the rice when it comes out.

57. Do you tend to bring an appetizer, entree, dessert, or drinks to a potluck?

My instinct is something like chips and salsa. If it’s a party with beer and I don’t trust the hosts to have good beer, I’ll bring some of that.

58. What kind of bag do you use for your bag full of bags?

Look, plastic grocery bags are illegal in this municipality. We get paper bags, and we cram them in the pantry until Ariele prevails upon me to take them out to the recycling bin. We also have our reusable grocery bags and tote bags for whenever a spare is required.

59. If you died and your ghost was stuck in the outfit you’re wearing right now for the rest of time, would you be happy with it?

At this very moment, I am wearing nought but a bathrobe and slippers. I could work with that in a haunting.

The other day when I was working on the earlier questions I was more fully dressed, and I would say that I’d like the shirt I was wearing to be a little larger. There were times in my mid-twenties when I could go as low as a medium, but I am more comfortable in an extra large these days. I still have a lot of those shirts, though.

60. Do you have an opinion on your local weather reporter?

I must confess, I don’t even know their names.

61. Do you have a favorite brunch spot?

I’ve mentioned that certain café downtown, where I frequently go for lattes and bagel sandwiches. If we are looking for a fuller breakfast or brunch experience, there are actually a number of places we like to choose from. I don’t have a strong favorite among them.

62. Where are you on the minimalism-maximalism kinsey scale?

Predominantly maximalist, but more than incidentally minimalist (so like a two, if maximalism is heterosexuality in this rather bizarre metaphor). I like to decorate the walls, but I like, you know, some breathing room around the pictures.

To answer a little more seriously, I consider minimalism a necessary corrective to the tendency to overdo a design or an artwork or a piece of writing, or the tendency to be unsatisfied with any of those things when they aren’t overdone. I believe in balance as an aesthetic principle, and I think minimalism is more obviously concerned with balance, but embracing it as the epitome of balance in and of itself would feel like a contradiction. I like things with stuff in them, but not too much more than they need.

63. Opinion on Bath and Body Works?

None, really. We may have some of their products in our bathroom, but I can’t confirm this without getting up. I am, however, in favor of pleasant fragrances.

64. Last time you visited a farmer’s market?

A couple of weeks ago, at the Salem Saturday Market. We should go again next weekend, and get some fresh veggies, and maybe some useful crafted goods.

65. Anything you’re procrastinating on right now?

I mean, I think I’m allowed to do this during summer vacation, but I guess looking for a new (full time) job?

Less seriously, there are at least two major video games I have stalled progress on, despite the fact that I enjoy playing them. But I enjoy other things too! I enjoy too many things.

66. Do you get your taxes in as soon as possible, at the last minute, or late?

My taxes are prepared by a CPA who files an extension for me every year, due to some peculiarities in my financial situation. He then sends me the paperwork in the summer, and I write the checks right away.

67. Do you keep any stuffed animals on your bed?

We’ve got a few, you could say. If you saw, you’d probably say it’s more than a few. But there’s nothing wrong with having a few soft guys around.

Most of these soft guys belong to Ariele, and I won her heart a second time by buying her the first of many shelves specifically so that her collection could have somewhere to sit, rather than be stowed away in a box forever. But I’ve got a few of my own, and I keep them close by.

68. Are your garbage bags scented or unscented?

Scented. I don’t know if that makes them more expensive or not.

69. What are you looking forward to next week?

We’ve got dinner and trivia night tomorrow, we’ve got the Fourth of July and that probably means I’ll grill something, and with any luck those refrigerator filters I ordered will finally be shipped.