2005-06-09 ~ 3:41 p.m.

First Multi-Question Interview

YAAAAAAY! People are submitting to my superego...

Katie D of KatieDoyle dot diaryland dot com fame has asked me a few questions...

1. If your house were about to burn down and you could take one single item from it (and nothing else), what would you save?

Tough one. (And I'm going to assume you don't mean any living beings, so my doggie would be a given-and I guess my husband too...) I would probably take a photo album. My mom and I have moved around so much that I am the one that has hung onto the family photographs. (And there aren't that many left.) I have two albums, both of them are only half full. They have pictures of me as a baby, but more importantly, pictures of my father. My father passed away when I was 5 years old, so there are very few pictures of him and me. My aunts have pictures of him when he was younger, but pictures of us together are mostly all in my possession.

A very close second is a baby doll and pillow that was given to me at my birth. It's one of those freakish Kewpie dolls that were all the rage back in the day. (Not the first or second time or third they were the rage in the early 1900's 20's and 30's, but when they made a comeback in the 70's) But it, naturally, is cuter than the other ones I've seen. It's a plastic one. I used to put my mom's make up on her, you can even still see eyeliner and lipstick that got stuck in the creases of her eyes and mouth.

When I was about 12, my mom and I had moved in with my stepdad. He had a dog, and I had accidentally left my room door open. The dog got in and attacked my sweet Kewpie doll. She was maimed and is missing one hand and a few fingers from the other. But she's a survivor. That night, I cried and cried and cried and cried and cried and cried and cried. I realize it's "just a doll" and that I WAS 12, but it is another thing that links back to my father, and, again, I was only 5 when he died, so he never had the time to fall from grace in my eyes.

Kewpie doll nestles soundly in the baby pillow, which is super soft for being a baby pillow in the first place, plus the cover is super soft from being close to thirty years old. I had always imagined that they would be the doll and pillow I gave my own child, but they are old and close to retirement, and seniors just can't take care of kids the way I would like, so I believe they will stay on my shelf and live out their lives peacefully.....unless that raging fire you are warning me about happens and I can only grab one thing, even though the album and doll and pillow are in the same place.. Fffffffff...

And, of course, a close third would be my iPod.

2. What is your favorite sinful/guilty pleasure?

Pop culture. I love it. LOVE it. LAAAAAAAAAAHV it. Everything about it. Celebrity, Star Wars, Pokemon (at their height of fame, not the piddly crap they're peddling now), Garbage Pail Kids (the first time around, I didn't have time this time around), Macarena, angst. (Yes, I believe angst was a pop culture trend.) Everything. My iPod has something from every single one of Britney's albums. I occasionally pick up Star magazine. I also occasionally pick up Weekly World News to see what BatBoy is up to.

Star Magazine and WWN are my mom's fault. She reads those like they're the Bible. I've never really been clear on if she believes it or not. In mixed company, she'll say she just reads it for entertainment, but sometimes in an argument (either theological or conspiracy theory related) she'll site Weekly World News as a source.

In conclusion, I am never, ever embarrassed to admit I like something trendy. My favorite are 21 year old hipsters who walk around like they're cool and own the world. My husband calls them "gay", I call them ADORABLE!

3. What is one thing about you no one in your family knows?

That I'm actually very level-headed, fair and just, and that I'm NOT a spoiled brat. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. heh.

There are many things my family doesn't know about me or things that only one or two know. I'm closest to my mom, and that's not saying much.

The thing is, I was raised different. I'm not trying to sound special, even though I am, (hah!) but I was raised different than anyone else in my family. Both sides. If you count my step-family, then all three sides. I have always been odd person out. Everyone always meant well, I don't fault them for that, but the fact is I was treated like a leper. Because my dad died when I was so young, I was treated as the "poor little girl whose father died". Plus my mom and my dad's family didn't get along so well, so I didn't get a chance to see them often anyway. So they all hung out during vacation time, and I could only come occasionally. So I also heard a lot of, "Too bad you couldn't have been with us when we made these awesome lifetime memories." Then when my mom brought her family over, well, shit, they were all vietnamese, so no one could speak to me for a long time, then when they could, they had all their weird frickin' asian values that I do not agree with. Love the food though. And my step-family, well, fantastically, I was going through puberty and hated everyone anyway, and everyone was either too old or too young to relate to me.

What was the question? Oh yeah... in conclusion, the one thing that no one in my family knows is who I AM.

4. When you were 6, what were you most afraid of?

When I was 6 and even now...I'm still afraid of the dark. More specifically, mirrors in the dark. I run through dark mirrored spaces thinking, "Don't think Bloody Mary, don't think Bloody Mary, crap, does that count as thinking 'Bloody Mary'?? crap crap crap."

5. If you could learn any foreign language in one day, what would it be, and why?

American Sign Language. or the foreign one, it doesn't matter. And, yes, it counts as a foreign language and I'll tell you why...

I currently work with a deaf person, which is really odd. I'm a table games dealer, and I just never would have thought to have a dealer who can't hear anything. So much of what we do involves talking to people and yelling out "change 100" or "rolling" and requiring a response, but we're not allowed to turn away from the table, so it just never occured to me that a deaf person would even WANT the job. But at Wynn we have two deaf dealers. The other one is on day shift, so I don't see him, but the other one has become a dear friend of mine.

He reads lips very well, and he follows my makeshift sign language fantastically. And he loves to talk. Man, I'll be going towards the bathroom, and he'll see me, and he'll talk and talk and talk, and I can't get a word in edgewise to tell him that I HAVE to go.

Anyway, when I've seen him on dead tables, people will come up to ask him something, and sometimes they'll be drunk and slurring their words, and he'll ask them "what?" 4 or 5 times, and one lady the other day got angry and said, "Oh, fuck it, you don't know anything, what, are you foreign or something?" The dealer at the next table (also a friend of his) yelled out, "JESUS CHRIST! Where do you want to go? He's deaf and can't understand your drunken slurring." And the lady didn't even apologize. I mean, sure, she stumbled away without getting directions, but nary an apology.

But that's how people treat him even in general. I'll see him talking to other dealers or supervisors, and you can see the look in their eye like, "ooohhhh, crap... I can't have a normal conversation....crap crap crap" and look for ways to get out of the uncomfortable situation. Which, again, I don't fault anybody, it's just not a situation that we're used to.

But he is such a great guy. He's so sweet and has a wonderfully optimistic disposition, so that's why I would want and am pursuing learning American Sign Language.

Close second is Spanish because, as you know, "Las Vegas" means "we're all going to be speaking Spanish in 20 years or less."

Thank you, Katie, for preparing me for a world of interviews. Hopefully, someday, I'll learn to keep my answers to under 30 words. :)

{ previous ~ next }