Sunshine Scribe Wants to Know

Updated below with links to those who I interviewed.


As part of a "tag, you're it" kind of thing, Sunshine Scribe took up Mama T's offer to be interviewed and then paid it forward. So, what the heck, I took her up on the offer. I admit to being a little nervous but these questions look okay. I think I can breathe easily and jump right in...

Sunshine Scribe: What is the worst job you ever had?

Me: I had to think about this one. I've had a lot of "McJobs," but other than the monotony involved, they weren't horrible. I spent almost a year working in a sheet metal fabrication shop after high school. I answered phones, typed up invoices, took orders, etc. The only female in the immediate vicinity, I endured a lot of innuendo, whistles and questions as to whether or not I was wearing my Underalls. After doing that job for 10 months, I was ready to fling myself headlong into college life. But, just now, as I started to type, I remembered the WORST JOB EVER--babysitting a toddler. Two summers in a row, I filled in as a babysitter for a couple when their regular sitter took her vacation. I have to tell you that at 15 & 16, I was completely unprepared and too emotionally immature to handle watching a two year old from 6 am to 6 pm, M-F, for two weeks. The couple were lawyers and worked in Los Angeles, thus the long commute and work day. The money was great but I thought I would go insane. I didn't drive, so I couldn't take her to the park. There was no pool. I don't remember there being much in the way of food for me to eat. Why one year of this didn't convince to stop, there and then, I don't know. I guess the year in between dulled the memory of my wanting to run screaming from the house each and every day. Somewhere, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a woman in her late twenties, answering interview questions on her blog and typing that the worst babysitter she ever had was two consecutive summers when she was a toddler and her regular babysitter went on vacation.

Sunshine Scribe: What is your guilty pleasure?

Me: Oooh, I have so many guilty pleasures. The BBC show Coupling is one. The show has no redeeming qualities whatsoever but I laugh so hard at every episode. Naughty Mary-LUE! There are a variety of Hostess snack foods that fall into the guilty pleasure category: cupcakes, Ding Dongs, lemon pies. Chemical-filled, trans fat-laden, chaotically caloric... the nectar of the gods! I could go on and on, but I think I'll quit with Dick Francis novels. They are the reading equivalent of fluffy, pink cotton candy--so yummy and dissolves in an instant. I've read so many that I can't keep the plots straight in my mind, but that's okay because I read them over and over again. Whenever I'm bored and more serious literary offerings are not appealing, I pick my dear, sweet Francis and I know that I'll be finished with it in a couple of hours.

Sunshine Scribe: What will you be doing 10 years from now?

Me: Having completed my Master's, I'll be teaching Reading Development at the local community college, where I will be a most beloved teacher. Most. Beloved. That income will allow Paul to take a job which does not require so much traveling. Colin will be finished with his college education and (fingers crossed) be at the start of a satisfactory career. Marley will be nearing the end of high school and will NOT, I repeat, will NOT be one of the Mean Girls. We will still live in this area and will finally have a small house, decorated as much as I can manage, in an Arts and Crafts style--sort of. I will have either a Harlequin Great Dane or an Irish Wolfhound. My friends who were foolish enough to move out of the area, will have come back and all live in a one mile radius, my house being in the center. I will be completely over my fear of flying and during the summers, Paul and I will travel to parts of Canada, Ireland, England and who knows where else.

Sunshine Scribe: What do you like most about blogging?

Me: The community. Blogging keeps me company. Blogging provides a sounding board for me. Blogging brings affirmation. While I began blogging to process some grief and to get in the habit of writing, the community aspect of it does my heart good.

Sunshine Scribe: What do you like least about blogging?

Me: Two things:

1) The tendency for hot topics to be addressed ad nauseum. In What is the What by Dave Eggers, he describes a conference of Sudanese refugees in America. Each Sudanese has such a strong desire to be heard that the conference takes forever and often each person spends most of their time reiterating what someone else has already said. I think that the ability to have your own space to say whatever you want is one of the appeals of blogging but sometimes I get tired of one more post about (fill in the blank).

2) Blogging brings out a lot of my old insecurities. I don't write as well as... My ideas aren't as brilliant as... So and So never comments on my blog... It becomes a little paralyzing at times. A big struggle for me in high school and parts of college was feeling like everyone's second best friend, the person you call after your best friend tells you she's busy. (Insert the world's tiniest violin, playing just for meeeeeeeeeee!) I want to be clear that this is my struggle. This is in no way a message I get from the blogs neighborhoods I visit.

Thanks Sunshine Scribe. It's been a pleasure being interviewed by you.

(I sooooo have in my head right now a line from The Last Remake of Beau Geste where Ann-Margret tells the gentlemen in her bed: "It's been a business doing pleasure with you." That movie probably qualifies as another guilty pleasure.)


In the interest of paying it forward myself (to follow Sunshine Scribe's most excellent example), if you want to be interviewed, email me at aseveremary at pacbell dot net. I will send you questions which you can answer on your own blog. If you don't have your own blog, I will post them here, if you wish.


The few, the brave, the interviewed:

Beck
atypical

Coming soon:

Julie