What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Simple things:
- Loving and being loved;
- Sleeping in;
- Excellent sushi/sashimi;
- Whiskey on ice after work;
- A world with no ill-fitting undergarments.
What is your greatest fear?
- Fragility.
Which living person do you most admire?
A few admirable people off the top of my head:
- Christiane Amanpour;
- Barbara Ehrenreich;
- Bishop Desmond Tutu;
- The Right Reverend, Gene Robinson;
- Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir;
- Sonia Sotomayor;
- Indra Nooyi;
But most admire? Not sure.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
- Lack of patience.
- Superciliousness — oh, that was a typo — meant supersilliness.
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
- Of the seven heavenly virtues of chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness and humility, I’d have to go with temperance.
What do you dislike most about your appearance?
- My height.
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
- Nunc et semper, et unum amo (Now I know what love is)
When and where were you happiest?
- A summer day in the mid 1970s. I remember getting off the bus from summer camp. Mom was there to pick me up. I still can see her in giant sunglasses and a sharp cream-coloured pantsuit. Hearing her squeaky voice welcoming me home was the happiest sound ever.
Which talent would you most like to have?
- Writing beautifully.
What is your current state of mind?
- Content and hyper in equal measure.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
- Be more of a risk-taker.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
- TBC.
If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?
- I would not like to come back as anything else.
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
- Having no candy treats in the house.
What do you most value in your friends?
- Humour and intelligence.
Your favorite food and drink.
- Seafood. Whiskey. Not together.
If not yourself, who would you be?
Where would you like to live?
- Not where, but how. Well and honestly. (But if I could do that in New York or Santa Fe — all the better!)
What is it that you most dislike?
- Dingalings.
How would you like to die?
- Quickly.
What is your motto?
- In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.