Garoo

1/ Have you ever endured the horror of a car deodorant hooked up to the rear-view mirror? Which one? What was it like?

When I had a car, I had a vanilla tree hooked up to the mirror. Because I love vanilla scent. I remember that a guy I dated then couldn’t stand the smell of car deodorants, and I had to hide it in the glove compartment at the time. But I really liked it. Why not? And it’s cute. A little yellow cardboard pine tree (because vanilla trees are yellow). If I had a car again, I’d buy one immediately (unless it’s a new car, because we’ve never had a new car in the family, so I’d want to enjoy the smell).

2/ Without too much explanation, how much time do you devote each day (on average, in the context of your own “routine”) to what you really like? Sleep is excluded.

If sleep is excluded, I’d say… zero minute. On average. Because.

3/ What is the city name that makes you less want to go there? Is there any conscious reason?

Huh.

4/ Do you feel ill at ease in the company of people you consider more intelligent than you?

It depends.

I hate it when someone looks down on me. So I couldn’t stand someone who’s more intelligent and condescending. But then, he wouldn’t qualify as more intelligent, since he’d be a dumbass.

So, someone really more intelligent? Mmh… I can’t say, I think it never happend to me.

5/ Does the Easter Island scare you ?

Why would it? It’s cute: giant rabbits and eggs of the same caliber, all decorated and bouncing everywhere (uh, the rabbits are bouncing, because, well, the eggs, huh, splash, you see).

Ok, must be another island. No, it doesn’t scare me. I know that, in the 80s or something, scary stories commonly used that location as a scenery. But, for some reason, it didn’t stick with me.

6/ When you’re bad-mouthing someone, do you have that paranoid instinct to check if that person’s number hasn’t been dialed by accident?

I don’t often bad-mouth somone. Maybe the paranoia is so deeply anchored in me that it stops me before I even start. But, when I’m saying bad things on ICQ, I’m always afraid Trillian would blow a fuse right then, and send what I’m writing to the wrong person. And, when it’s by mail, I sometimes check two or three times the message in my outbox to see if it went to the right address.

But I don’t bad-mouth people anyway. Well, really, I don’t do that often. And never in a mean way. Well, scarcely. Unless it’s about people that I’m in conflict with, in which case I could repeat it to their face.

7/ What percentage of your own vision of existence is an extrapolation from fiction, and not reality? (Overcomplicated formulation! To give an example, I have a certain idea of the way the CIA works, but I have to admit it almost only comes from the movies.)

I don’t know, I guess I’d say something like 5 or 10%.

Well, 5 or 10% of my understanding of real world. Because my conception of mysticism entirely comes from fiction. Since I don’t have a witchcraft expert in my family to teach me the truth.

8/ What is your favorite urban legend?

Uh.

9/ Would you write differently (I mean style, of course) if you went back to the pen, and gave up on word processors?

No, my style is rather independant of technique. Maybe I’d write a little more concisely, because I reached a point (a long time ago) where writing on a keyboard is faster, easier and less tedious —and less dirty too, since I’m left-handed.

I remember that time in high school (eleven or twelve years ago… eek) when my French teacher noticed I had typed the notes for my presentation, and she told me I should try typing my essays too, and they would be better. She was probably right, but I never accepted to do so, because I didn’t want to be singled out, I didn’t want to show off by turning in typed documents. I guess that, nowadays, it would be quite common, and there must be lots of high school students who do so. But, at the time, I was… well, i was a nerd, obviously.

10/ You find out that the Earth will be destroyed by a meteor, 65 years from now. Do you secretly wish you’ll die naturally before it happens?

I think I’d commit suicide a few hours before impact (so that I have enough time to miss myself and try again, and so that I do it only when impact is confirmed and inevitable, not like in the movies, where the planet is saved ten minutes before the end of the world), in case apocalypse should be painful. I think many people would do that.

Oh, no, better yet: since it would be a pity to kill myself while Bruce Willis or other was saving the Earth at the last possible second, I think I’d take a massive dose of sleeping pills, so as to be in deep sleep when it happens. In the movies, they have substances that almost cause a temporary coma. That’s what I’d need. Nothing better than going in your sleep. Well, one thing better: going to bed for your last night on Earth, and yet waking up the next morning (well, unless you’re agonizing in pain and you were expecting to be euthanized during the night).