Proust Questionnaire: Steve Shives's answers

[Answer the Proust Questionnaire] [Answers by name or age] [Random answer] [Image gallery]

On Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:18:05 UTC Steve Shives (29) answered the Proust Questionnaire (click on a question to read other answers):

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?: To be out of place.
Where would you like to live?: In a big enough house, on enough wild land for me to take long walks.
What is your idea of earthly happiness?: Having the means to meet my needs, having the time to spend with my girl, my family and my cat, having the time to write and read and watch and discuss.
To what faults do you feel most indulgent?: To my big mouth. I talk far too much.
Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?: Odysseus, Chaplin's Tramp, Batman
Who are your favorite characters in history?: Thomas Paine, Voltaire, Eratosthenes
Who are your favorite heroines in real life?: My girl, my mother, my granny
Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?: Norma Desmond, Linda from "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl", Mary Magdalene
Your favorite painter?: Picasso
Your favorite musician?: Johnny Cash
The quality you most admire in a man?: Honesty, particularly intellectual
The quality you most admire in a woman?: Also honesty. Isn't it a little sexist to expect a different answer because the question pertains to a different sex? What should I say—I admire a woman with great tits?
Your favorite virtue?: At the risk of sounding repetitive, intellectual honesty. I admire the ability to see things as they are, to hold your own perceptions and opinions to the same standards as those of others.
Your favorite occupation?: When I've got something to write about, writing.
Who would you have liked to be?: The position is currently filled, but assuming it was possible, I'd love to be Clint Eastwood.
Your most marked characteristic?: Unfortunately, probably my tendency to talk too much, and laugh at my own jokes.
What do you most value in your friends?: Loyalty, and willingness to tell me when I'm being an asshole.
What is your principle defect?: I'm a lazy bastard.
What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?: In hindsight, to not have been in a Martin's grocery store on a certain date over four years ago.
What would you like to be?: Me, but better.
What is your favorite color?: Now it's blue. As a child, green, because that was the color of my father's pick-up truck.
What is your favorite flower?: The dandelion.
What is your favorite bird?: The robin.
Who are your favorite prose writers?: J.D. Salinger, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Voltaire, Carl Sagan, Thomas Paine, Christopher Hitchens
Who are your favorite poets?: William Blake and Emily Dickinson
Who are your heroes in real life?: My parents and my paternal grandparents
Who are your favorite heroines of history?: Harriet Jacobs, Hypatia, Emily Dickinson
What are your favorite names?: I used to hate it, but now I quite like my own middle name: Clay.
What is it you most dislike?: Bigotry, and self-righteousness. They often cohabitate.
What historical figures do you most despise?: Generally speaking, the instigators of wars and the originators and promoters of religion.
What event in military history do you most admire?: The Vietnam War. Just kidding. The detainment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
What natural gift would you most like to possess?: Musical talent.
How would you like to die?: As a very, very old man, in good health and free of pain.
What is your present state of mind?: Just as happy as a pig in shit.
What is your motto?: Try to take others as you find them, and hope they do the same for you.

Check out my daily blog, Steve Likes to Curse, at http://www.stevelikestocurse.com

Clicking on the left button will increase the likelihood of Steve Shives's answers being displayed as featured answer.