Scenic Route

Vonnie did this the other day in her journal. I decided to participate and her questions arrived this morning.

Here are the instructions:

1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying “interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions — each person’s will be different.
3. You will update your journal/blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Here are your five questions:

1. Your hair is beautiful. Explain why you started to grow it and what it means to you now that it is long and luxurious.
2. What is the best thing about being a Mad Scientist?
3. Describe your favorite meal.
4. “We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it.” Which part of your past has moved from regret to gratitude?
5. Take us on a walking tour of the library, photos optional.

Have fun!
xoxoxo
Von

---

Here are the five answers:

1. Your hair is beautiful. Explain why you started to grow it and what it means to you now that it is long and luxurious.

I’ve always liked how long hair looks—on both genders. I like the way it moves, bounces and flows. I like the way curves around and frames a face. (Let’s not forget oral sex.) And at least on men in our society, I like the the way it visually and publicly marks a man as someone who is a non-conformist in some way.

My father was of the “Men wear [50s-style] flat-tops” mind-set and right into the early 70s I was forced to wear a flat-top. This, of course, was very counter to counter-culture, which was were I felt I belonged.

In high school when finally I was allowed to wear my hair longer, it was only just to below the ears and to my shoulders. That ended in the 80s when I got a corporate job. The corporate cut survived until 1998 after I met Jeffrey. I figured if I let my hair grow out like his (and his girlfriend’s), maybe he’d dump his girlfriend for me. There was one last cut for a job interview in May 2000, only a couple of weeks before my sober date.

In rehab I found out how easy it is to beat the urine tests. Plus, the pee tests capture only a instant in time. I wanted a better, more difficult to beat measure, one that would also show the history of continuous abstinence. I wanted to pass the hair test, end-to-end. Conveniently, I also couldn’t afford a haircut then. So growing it out became the measure of time in recovery. When people asked, “How long have you been sober?” I could turn around, wave my tail at them and say, “Oh, about that long.”

[Of course, now that I’ve found a length that works for me, it’s no longer a complete measure of my sober time since I have Louise Marie of Longhairs trim it once or twice a year.]

Since then, I’ve also recovered my identity as a longhair. It is who I am. I like the look and the image. I also like how it feels, both when I run my fingers through it and when it brushes my chest, arms, shoulders and back, (another reason I like summer—no shirt). I like how it feels too when the breeze tugs at it and when I shake it. Finally, I like that it’s part of me that’s never quite in control. It obeys wind and gravity, and that’s about it.

I’m happy with the mid-back length. At least for now, I don’t care for it longer than mid-back because of the way the ends get damaged by my backpack or when I slouch in chairs or bus seats. Would I go longer someday? Maybe. Shorter? Not likely. It will, however, be a tough decision when it gets tangled in my oxygen hoses.

2. What is the best thing about being a Mad Scientist?

Being able to laugh like this: Mmmmm-bwahahahaha! (Thank you, BTW, for the opportunity to plug my business, The Secret Labs.) I could say that I enjoy the basic and applied research, but really, I just like playing with stuff. And if anything blows up, there’s no emergency vehicles, hospitals or bodies to be buried.

3. Describe your favorite meal.

My favorite meal is less about the food, and more about the company.

Food is life. We would die if we don’t eat. So I enjoy sharing food (life) with friends, especially if I’ve made it myself. The menu doesn’t matter, just that there are friends willing to receive the gift offered. Bonus points if they like it. Super extra bonus points if they understand the food-is-life, shared-meal-is-a-gift-of-life thing, or if they also understand something gave its life for everything we eat, (including all the vegan stuff.)

As far as the menu goes, if it ends with chocolate, it’s all good.

4. “We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it.” [from “The Promises”, pages 83–84 of Alcoholics Anonymous, a.k.a. the AA Big Book] Which part of your past has moved from regret to gratitude?

My addiction. Thank heavens for crack cocaine. Without it, I’d probably still be out there, since alcohol wasn’t quite enough to break me.

Strangely, I made the decision to become a crack addict because it fit with the tragic view I had of myself at the time. (Yes, it was a conscious decision to become an addict. Most folks will tell you, “I didn’t set out to become an addict.” Well, I did.) Little did I know that, given time, it would lead to the biggest gift I could ever give myself, recovery.

Plus, I learned a lot about people during that time. I’d never have dreamed of getting to know people in the ‘hood, let alone moving there, had I not become an addict.

I have a much different view of people—myself included—for having had that experience.

5. Take us on a walking tour of the library, photos optional.

Of course they are, dear. http://www.brucew.com/gallery/libtour/

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 7th, 2005 at 7:15 pm EDT and is filed under Generic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.