Questions from Deep Space
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Trick Questions.”
A Pulitzer-winning reporter is writing an in-depth piece* — about you. What are the three questions you really hope she doesn’t ask you?
Question I hope she’d ask: “Are you named after the Magnolia Fabrics wallpaper ‘Lourdes Mint’? (Me: Why yes, I am!)
Assuming I MUST answer 100% truthfully, I’d dread these Qs:
What is the weirdest or most anti-social thing you’ve done, thought, enjoyed, sought out, etc.? Anything along those lines would really put me in an awkward position. Still, even though I’ve always feared what I’ve felt to be my weirdnesses, I’ve never thought of them as unusual in the extreme. I’m sure I would not be alone in any of my answers, but I shudder to think of my company… and, truly, of judgment. My freak flag is on the larger side probably, but I usually wave it alone, in the dark, etc. I sometimes find that those that wave them most vigorously and visibly are not very freaky at all.
How many books have you read, really, all the way through? I hope/bet it’s more than I think, but I don’t track these things very carefully. I have no idea. I don’t claim to be a voracious reader or even a particularly good reader — space out quite a bit, need to reread again and again. I also don’t feel obliged to read anything I don’t strongly desire or feel a compelling need or responsibility to read, anymore. BUT I have yet to hear of a single successful and good writer who is not also a huge reader. Overall, one could say I’ve lived a very unwriterly life … on the surface in any case.
What’s your favorite [fill in the blank]? I am bothered by the fact that I’m so bothered by questions about favorites. One problem is that I’m never sure what mine are — in pretty much any category. I just don’t look at things this way and I guess I feel like that points to some significant lack in me: lack of identity (conviction?), something unformed inside me. I also don’t like Qs about who’s been the biggest influence in my life or which are the most significant, formative experiences of my childhood or life thus far. If I had to answer with something other than, “I really don’t know (yet?),” I would have to completely fabricate a response.
*Funny? When I first looked at this prompt, I read “A Pulitzer-winning reporter is writing in deep space about you.”
Lourdes Mint's Mid-Life Miracle 