The Pivot Questionnaire

Hi there, from Quaranteam North, Tennessee Annex. The little boys and I have been here five and a half weeks, with one and a half to go before we head home to join Jack and the Prof, who we have not seen for the duration. My parents are helping us a great deal with virtual learning. We never leave the subdivision (except that last weekend, we drove up to Omaha to visit my baby sister in her new home – excessive, I know, but if you’re gonna go, go hard).

I work in my parents’ guest room, and my middle sister works in another guest room downstairs. My parents watch her toddler and my two youngest boys. We have lunch together, and sometimes dinner (sometimes she goes home for dinner). Every day after dinner we take a one mile walk around the subdivision. Most weekends we load the boys’ bicycles on the back of my Pilot, drive to a bike path, and ride a few miles, then get ice cream at Dairy Queen. Life has been narrowed, centered, simplified. A top layer of “largely content” over a foundation of existential angst. Missing our other half of the family. Enjoying time with our extended family that we wouldn’t otherwise have had. Existing, one day at a time.

Anyway, this does not lend itself to particularly interesting blog posts. I may write one about Omaha but not tonight.

I was listening to my favorite podcast (Armchair Expert), and they were talking about the Proust questionnaire and the Pivot Questionnaire. I thought it would be fun to do both, so I’ll start with the Pivot Questionnaire. On Inside the Actor’s Studio, James Lipton apparently asked this round of questions (I’ve . . . never seen Inside the Actor’s Studio. Bad theater major.)

I’m going to do this without putting upon myself the pressure to get each one ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, which is the temptation here. (Recently I had to choose a phone case and I felt SUCH PRESSURE to pick one that would amplify my very essence! So dumb. Finally I just chose flowers, Lord, what is wrong with me, so susceptible to marketing.)

1. What is your favorite word? Silence. This was the last question I answered, I could not think of anything, so I decided to sit, close my eyes, and let something float to my consciousness. That’s the word that did. So there you go.
2. What is your least favorite word? Panties. I can’t tell you why – maybe it’s the infantilizing nature of the word?
3. What turns you on? Vulnerability and competence. And serenity. And humor.
4. What turns you off? Any whiff of being controlling. Even the tiniest smidge, and I will rear back on you like a cornered rattlesnake. Perhaps not as dangerous, but just as unreasonable. Ask my husband how much he likes this.
5. What sound or noise do you love? My sons’ laughs (ugh, gag me, but true).
6. What sound or noise do you hate? My sons whining. It flips the “anxiety + annoyed” switch immediately.
7. What is your favorite curse word? Fuck. Man, it’s so good. It has flexibility, you know? It can mean a million things. It works in ALLLLL the contexts.
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Novelist, or musician. Or maybe movie director. I think I’d be good at the latter – I’m pretty good at managing a giant team of creative people with disparate jobs/personalities aiming toward a discrete end point. And I can make decisions, can pick from among multiple acceptable choices, which is really hard. And I get momentum from the accretion of those decisions – rather than feeling trapped by the doors my decisions have closed, I feel energized and propelled on to make the next one and build onto the edifice. Plus I’m really good at project-based work – I like frenzied periods of work followed by lengthy periods of rest. So maybe movie (or tv show) director is my answer here. I am a creative, but I like being the “practical one” among creatives much more than being the “creative one” among practicals.
9. What profession would you not like to do? What is the most repetitive, same-thing-every-day kind of job? That one. It’s partly why I never dreamed of being on Broadway. Not like I *chose* not to go on Broadway, haaaaaaaaa, but it’s not something I could imagine ever enjoying. Doing the same show 8 times a week, for months on end, sounds like a prison sentence.
10. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates? Welcome, loved one – your whole family is here.

OK, so that was a fun warm up, and now I’m gonna do the Proust Questionnaire. This was apparently popularized by Marcel Proust (though not created by him). It is longer, but what the hell – I can’t sleep since I watched ten minutes of the debate and now I’m crawling into a bottle of wine, so let’s do this thing. This one is way longer, and the Vanity Fair article I copied it from has these underscores ( __ ) on either side of the numbers, and I’m not gonna fix it, so there.

__1.__What is your idea of perfect happiness? No one is talking to me but I am surrounded by my family – to include children, parents, in-laws, siblings, nieces and nephews. The children are playing at a comfortable distance. The weather is fine, temperate, spring or fall. They’re all there and content. The boys check in on occasion. The background noise is children playing.

__2.__What is your greatest fear? Let’s eliminate “my children dying” because that’s a boring answer everyone would give. So besides that . . . being electrocuted in water. Why? Is this likely? Who knows. It just is there.

__3.__What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? I am a straight up know-it-all. I do not like to be wrong. I don’t mind being bad at something – for example, I will play golf with you or go dancing and have a good time and not be too self-conscious, though I am terrible at both of those things. But do not tell me that I am wrong about something I think I know. I do not accept it well, particularly from people close to me. (I can take constructive criticism at work and stuff, because I know EXACTLY THE PERFECT WAY to accept criticism, just like I know everything. I can also debate things, again because I’m PERFECT at debating. But I do not take criticism well from loved ones. Ask my husband how much he loves this trait of mine. I’m lots of fun to be married to.)

__4.__What is the trait you most deplore in others? Being controlling. I am, weirdly, very controlling about other people NOT being controlling, particularly being a controlling parent. Let your kids be who they are. I think this is related to my answer to no. 3.

__5.__Which living person do you most admire? Hillary Clinton. It’s hard to choose, but if you force me I really think it’s her. Look – she worked for decades in a world that maligned everything she did because she was a woman intruding into male space. I feel this VERY KEENLY, as I ALSO often intrude into spaces which are predominated by males (lawyers and judges) who are irritated by my presence based solely on my gender – perhaps without even being fully conscious of it. She has persevered, evolving over time, performing with competence and equanimity, stumbling but keeping going, even through absolute malignant press and hatred from the very people she helps. She was the first female candidate for the presidency (INSANE, we have had 45 presidents and 45 vice presidents and of those, 0 have been women and 89 have been white men). She was a million times more qualified than the man she ran against. She won the popular vote ably but still lost, because of the electoral college. And she’s still out there, working for change in America, working to do good. She has a podcast now! I love her. I love her humanity, her compassion, her ambition, her willingness to do the work. I love what she represents, because my life is curtailed in the same way hers is. I now see that in my entire lifetime there is no hope of me being seen as equal to my male peers. I will always work circles around them, and be shoved into subservient positions where I make less than them. There is no profession or role or country where I could go where this isn’t true. And I will persevere, like her. I look to her as an example. I look to her for hope, that even though I’ll never have the respect or position I would’ve had if I had been exactly me, but male . . . I still have value. I still have worth. And I can still contribute. (Doesn’t mean I ain’t mad about it, but it’s still true).

__6.__What is your greatest extravagance? I’m a Xennial, so I’d have to say my education.

__7.__What is your current state of mind? Unsettled and losing patience.

__8.__What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Obedience.

__9.__On what occasion do you lie? Besides saving male egos to preserve my own safety, I also lie when people will blossom if they hear something that makes them believe in themselves. That’s less lying, but more anticipating who they could become, and treating them like they’re that already?

__10.__What do you most dislike about your appearance? This seems sort of a loaded question. But I don’t love that I gain weight in the belly to the point that people think I am pregnant. I don’t think I’d mind so much being heavier, but for that.

__11.__Which living person do you most despise? Rush. Limbaugh. He is poison.

__12.__What is the quality you most like in a man? Willingness to be vulnerable.

__13.__What is the quality you most like in a woman? Assertiveness.

__14.__Which words or phrases do you most overuse? “just”

__15.__What or who is the greatest love of your life? Let’s exclude family, since that’s a boring answer everyone would make. So my answer then would be the piano.

__16.__When and where were you happiest? 2002-2003. I was 24, 25, working as a naturalist. I made no money, but spent all day outside, I was young and my back didn’t hurt, I had access to horses and kayaks and canoes and mountain bikes and my job was to teach children of all ages about how to love the outdoors.

__17.__Which talent would you most like to have? Quick wit – being funny.

__18.__If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? It’s a toss up between eliminating my anxiety, and eliminating my Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

__19.__What do you consider your greatest achievement? My children.

__20.__If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be? A wild duck who lives at the zoo. I could be outside and swim a lot, but be safe from predators and well fed. Sounds awesome.

__21.__Where would you most like to live? It’s a tossup between Manhattan and just outside D.C.

__22.__What is your most treasured possession? Lots of choices here. Things that make my life really good, but easily replaced if a fire destroyed my home? Library card, foam roller. Much beloved skills that I’d hate for dementia or other physical ailments to take from me? Ability to play piano, cook, sing, do Pilates. Things that are irreplacable, but less relevant to day to day well-being? This blog, my boys’ baby books, old pictures and videos.

__23.__What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Repetitive, routine, low-level tasks.

__24.__What is your favorite occupation? I interpret this as “ways to occupy my time” rather than “job.” Anything creative – learning new pieces on the piano, making movies on iMovie with the boys, sewing costumes, sewing embroidery, reading books, writing blogs, working in earth/garden, traveling.

__25.__What is your most marked characteristic? Maternal

__26.__What do you most value in your friends? Lack of drama. Perspective, I guess?

__27.__Who are your favorite writers? Julia Glass, Carol Warner Shields, Kathleen Norris, Bill Bryson, Anne Tyler, Kate Baer, Margaret Maron, Louise Penny, Mary Oliver, Agatha Christie, Amy Tan, Terry Pratchett. I love writers who evoke place, things that are small and evocative.

__28.__Who is your hero of fiction? Heroes are overrated. Who needs to be a hero? But I suppose most of Terry Pratchett’s characters are my heroes. Plucky, persevering, in an irredeemably broken world.

__29.__Which historical figure do you most identify with? Gosh, none, really. Nobody remembered in history is as small and inconsequential as me.

__30.__Who are your heroes in real life? The mothers of small children who also manage to persist as lawyers.

__31.__What are your favorite names? Besides my children’s names, I love Theresa. Virginia. Cecelia. Emilia. Malcolm. Reid.

__32.__What is it that you most dislike? False bravado.

__33.__What is your greatest regret? Any time I have been unkind to my siblings.

__34.__How would you like to die? Quickly, without pain.

__35.__What is your motto? Suck it up and keep moving.