I’ve long been a fan of Vanity Fair magazine. It’s chock-full of intelligent articles on things I wouldn’t necessarily make myself read (much) about (like the art scene in China and how much the Iraq war is actually costing). And these days, with Bush in office, Vanity Fair is quite critical of U.S. Government, which I fully appreciate. Vanity Fair also has fashion ads which I actually don’t see anywhere else (because I don’t read trashy women’s magazines). So I get to keep up a little with the world of fashion without having to, you know, stoop.

In the back of each issue of Vanity Fair is the Proust Questionnaire; each month they ask a different celebrity to answer the questions. I’ve always wondered what my own answers would be, so we are going to find out:

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A vacation where I have time to exercise for many hours everyday and still have time to read and to play.

What is your greatest fear?
Being bored.

What is your most marked characteristic?
No idea, perhaps my busy self-deprecating mind.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
I sometimes have trouble saying “no” when I should.

Which living person do you most despise?
President George Bush.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Moving to Mexico and using so much of my savings in the process.

What is your current state of mind?
Happy and tired.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Chastity (make love not war).

On what occasion do you lie?
When the truth hurts or when I am not brave enough.

What do you dislike about your appearance?
My arms.

What is the quality you most like in a man?
The ability to listen.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?
The ability be realistic.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
“You know”, “I mean”, there are others I can’t think of.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My husband and my daughter.

When and where were you happiest?
The day I married my husband, April 6, 2001, on “the Hill” in Boulder, Colorado.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I would have started taking better care of my body at a younger age.

Which talent would you most like to have?
I always wanted to be a rock star, what do you call the “rock star” talent?

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Raising my daughter to think for herself.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
A cat.

Where would you like to live?
On the coast in Oregon, in the woods in New Hampshire, near my daughter in Colorado, near a trail up a mountain surrounded by wildflowers.

What is your most treasured possession?
My bed, or my hard disk drive, one or the other.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Living without hope.

What is your favorite occupation?
Loving my husband, discussing life with my daughter, petting my cats. Not in that order.

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

What are your favorite names?
Calais, Delilah, my family’s names.

What is it that you most dislike?
Dishonesty and lack of integrity.

How would you like to die?
In my sleep, after a long life.

What is your motto?
“If you are going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill

I feel like a zombie. My internal clock is completely whacked and I can’t figure out if a nap would help or just make things worse.

Last night we attended a small, really nice party. But seeing as we both needed to work today (yes, it’s Sunday, and no, I have not taken that day off yet) we decided to cut out of the party on the early side. We got home before 9 pm, walked the dog and went to bed early.

But the next thing I knew husbandito was waking me up with incessant moaning and groaning. He was, apparently, dying; and it was my duty as his wife to somehow save him. Poor guy was a big mess. Turns out it was a bit of food poisoning. At yesterday’s party he’d eaten a hamburger and had been generous in his use of mayo (using mayo at an outdoor party here is not on my list of wise moves).

He spent several hours writhing in pain, swearing, telling me “estoy muriendo” (I’m dying) and making frequent trips to the bathroom. Finally, around 2:30 am, he was able to sleep. But by that time I was wide awake.

And so, in my sleepless state, I watched the second half of the Star Trek Generations movie. This one features Captain Kirk coming back from the dead (well back from the Nexus) to save the day. There’s little in life that I find more comforting than watching William Shatner overact. And by the end I was finally sleepy.

But at 4:22 am I was awakened by a loud BOOM followed quickly by the squealing tires of a car taking off down the street. At the same time our street’s security guard was blowing his whistle and I could hear him running and yelling. Of course we both woke up and then husbandito went out to see what was going on.

It turns out that someone had thrown a concrete block through the windshield of my next-door neighbor’s pick-up truck. At first we thought it might have been random vandalism. But now I think my neighbor was targeted deliberately. There were lots of other cars in the street to throw things at, and the other cars (including ours) were all lower to the ground than the truck. The truck is so tall that hitting its windshield took a very special effort. Why pick the toughest target?

So now I’m thinking that someone over there must have been schtupping someone they should not have been…or something. Anyway it sucks for them.

It turns out that there was a witness who saw the car leave in a big hurry (the guard was at the opposite end of the street when this began so he just saw tail lights). The veterinarian at the end of the street was performing emergency surgery on a dog when all this was going on. And the dog’s owner was hanging around outside right when the windshield smashers were tearing out of the street. So now the neighbor has a broken windshield and a good description of the car. That’s something, I guess.

Husbandito finally crawled back into bed at 5:30 am, that gave him one whole hour to sleep before getting up for work. Poor guy. I tried to get him to call in sick, but he wouldn’t do it. When he left he looked like he’d been beaten up.

I was able to sleep after he left. But I’m so off-schedule now that I feel weird, I’m even a little dizzy. Maybe I will take that nap…