"Most Hated" questionnaire

A day later, I’m still reeling from that goddamn Six Feet Under finale. I cried off and on throughout the evening, including during my shower, and this morning when I was driving to work, I decided to be a masochist and blast Sia’s song “Breathe Me,” which is what played during the wrenching final scene of SFU. I’ve liked this song ever since I first heard it on a mix made for me by my friend David, but it now has a new, and somewhat devastating, meaning. A meaning that made me bawl during the first half of my commute. (I finally forced myself to focus on other things and listen to different music so my eyes would have a chance to dry out before I lurched into my office.)

It got under my skin so badly. It’s a suit of barbed fishhooks lodged into every pore. I still have knots clenching and unclenching in my stomach. In the past, whenever I thought about my loved ones dying, I thought of it in terms of isolated incidents. One person dying in a few years’ time, another person following suit a few years after that, and so on. I never thought of the whole cohesive picture: the fact that someday, everyone I love will be dead, and I could very well be the last person standing. I just can’t imagine outliving everyone. And my family is tiny to begin with. What if, god/dess forbid, I outlive them and have no family left whom I’m close to? (That’s assuming I never marry someone with a big family and/or have kids of my own.) Who will be with me when I finally die? I’m not a person who hates and/or fears aloneness—I absolutely relish it—but I want it to be my choice. I don’t want to be abandoned by everybody through death. What if I outlive all my friends like my grandfather has done? How would I survive going through loss after loss after loss? The mere thought of it horrifies me. I don’t want to live to be 102 and have no one left when I’m at my most helpless and vulnerable point. I don’t want to be the last person left to keep everyone’s memories alive.

I know that, barring any major terrorist attacks or bird flu outbreaks, all of this is so far away, but life speeds by so quickly—we all know that.

I suspect that all of this would be easier to digest if I were religious and had some clear idea of what exists after death. My rational mind says that nothing exists, and you just enter nothingness. But part of me wants to cling to the idea of reincarnation or a heaven like that seen in The Lovely Bones. If I had absolute faith that this is what I’d find, maybe I’d be better equipped to handle the thought of losing everyone bit by bit.

Anyway.

To distract myself, I filled out one of those questionnaire thingies circulating across the net. Here goes:


MOST HATED...

FRUIT: coconut (yeah, it’s considered a fruit)

CANDY: dark chocolate

BEVERAGE: A tie between iced tea and lemonade.

COLOR: teal

TOWN/CITY: Probably Newark and Elizabeth, and that whole bleak industrial area in New Jersey that’s just over the river from Manhattan.

TV SHOW: Nothing in particular...I guess any one of the sleazier-than-thou reality shows currently populating the airwaves.

MOVIE: There are some movies I didn’t like that everyone else seems to think are da bomb: Slingblade, Moulin Rouge, American Beauty...and probably more that I’m just not thinking of right now.

ASPECT OF MYSPACE: I don’t use MySpace.

ASPECT OF INSTANT MESSENGER: I never IM anymore. I used AIM on occasion in the past, to chat with friends, but I haven’t done that in at least a year, if not longer.

ANIMAL: I don’t hate any animals!

INSECT: The mosquitoes in St. Petersburg. The mosquitoes around here are bad enough, but I’ve built up a resistance to them, so I recover from their bites within, like, a half hour. But the mosquitoes in St. Petersburg left welts that took weeks to fade.

BIRD: I don’t hate any birds, but I do hate their shit that is splattered all over my birdfeeder.

SEASON: Summer. Well, the extreme heat and humidity. The other aspects of it are fine.

AGE OF KIDS: I don’t have any kids, so I’m not sure which age is my least favorite. The teen years, maybe?

...WHAT ANNOYS YOU MORE THAN ANYTHING WHEN...

DRIVING?: Tailgaters, people who don’t use their turn signals, rubberneckers, people who leave their blinkers on even when they don’t plan to turn/switch lanes, people who drive too fast, people who drive too slow, people who drive in two lanes.

TALKING ON THE PHONE: In general, I’m not a big fan of talking on the phone. I try to avoid it as much as I can. Worst part? When people call during one of my can’t-miss TV shows. I don’t answer!

WATCHING TV OR MOVIES: Watching TV: too many commercials, and those semi-transparent logos that now stay on the screen all the time (and sometimes even make sounds, too!). Watching movies: at the cinema, I hate noisy people—especially teenagers! Also, chair-kickers and people who noisily chew their popcorn and candy and noisily slurp their sodas.

EATING IN RESTAURANTS: Kids running wild, and a lack of vegetarian dishes. Also, now that all the restaurants in my county are smoke-free, I can no longer stand dining in restaurants where people smoke.

GOING THROUGH DRIVE-THRUS: Intercoms that are crackly and make the employee’s voice difficult to hear. Also, there seems to be an increased risk that they will screw up your order.

YOU’RE AT THE MALL: Loud teenagers (I know; I sound like I’m 80 years old), people who leave no room for me to walk around them, people who stand two astride on the escalator, rather than keeping open a passing lane. That said, I rarely go to malls anymore.

SLEEPING (OR TRYING TO SLEEP): On weekend mornings, when my upstairs neighbors wake me up with their screamed prayers, hymn dirges, and clomping footfalls. And, as much as I love my cats, I hate when Plath screams and screams on weekend mornings (he wants breakfast), and when both cats paw at my pillow for some reason which remains unknown to me.

SHOWERING: The size of my shower. It’s so damn small.

YOU’RE AT THE BEACH: Kids running pell-mell across the beach, kicking sand onto my blanket and disrupting the tranquility of the setting.

YOU’RE AT THE GROCERY STORE: People who leave their carts blocking an aisle, people who pay with checks (it’s so sloooow!)

WHAT HOUSEHOLD CHORE DO YOU HATE THE MOST?: God, all of it. I hate cleaning, hate taking out the garbage, hate paying bills.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WOULD BE THE ABSOLUTE WORST WAY TO DIE?: In pain and/or in terror, like in a plane crash, or being burned alive. Where you know it’s happening and know you can’t do anything but suffer and wallow in terror and let it happen. Dying alone and having nobody discover the body for yonks.

WHAT’S THE MOST ANNOYING HABIT IN OTHERS?: Too many to choose! Excessive talking, invading my personal space, cell phone dependency...

WHAT IS YOUR WORST HABIT?: procrastination and laziness

WHAT FASHION TREND (PAST OR PRESENT) HAVE YOU HATED THE MOST?: I really don’t like trends in general. Just because some nameless, faceless person in NYC or Milan says that flares are out and gauchos are in, you have to obey them? Bollocks! I say: wear what you like, when you like. Don’t feel obliged to change your whole damn wardrobe every season just to be trendy! But, that said, I think that most—if not all—of the fashion trends of the early ’90s were particularly disastrous. And I’m ashamed to say that I used to peg my jeans all the time back then.

WHAT POPULAR SONG (PAST OR PRESENT) HAVE YOU HATED THE MOST?: Oh god, there are so many songs that fill me with rage. Two Dave Matthews songs in particular fill me with rage (“Ants Marching” and that “What Would You Say” song), “Lovesexy” from The Cardigans, that “every time I look at you I go blind” song from Hootie and the Blowfish, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You,” super-repetitive dance/techno songs, most country songs, most rap and hip hop songs.

WORST OR MOST HATED PICKUP LINE: Nobody ever uses pickup lines on me! *sniffs*

TO BE COMPLETELY STEREOTYPICAL, WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE MOST ANNOYING THING ABOUT GIRLS/WOMEN?: Too much of that “Oh, I’m nothing without a man!” nonsense.

TO BE COMPLETELY STEREOTYPICAL, WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE MOST ANNOYING THING ABOUT GUYS?: Not enough sensitivity.


song heard most recently before posting: Szombateste Búcsúztató—Muzsikás