Light and Darkness

Questions, part deux

Woke up because of the puppy and her insane belief that two a.m. is playtime. Actually, I woke up because Emma saw some weird figure cross this little grassy knoll by our apartment and was spooked. Zelda took it upon herself to just be up too.

Anyway....been going thru old posts and I found this Questions post. Thought I'd give a new entry and ask other questions. So...here they are with my answers attached. Feel free to answer in the comments or in your own blog. Leave me a link so I can read them.

If you could get away with one particular crime, what are you itching to commit? Robbery. And I want it to be a huge heist like an Ocean's Eleven sort of thing. Plans and schematics and timetables and partners. I'd love to pull that off.

Without limitation or boundaries or barriers, what would you want to be when you grow up? A spy with a license to kill. I want the gadgets and the secretive, stealthy way of moving. I want the rendevous with sexy double agents and adrenalin pumping ninja fights atop skyscrapers. Talking about James Bond, baby! Naomi, Just Naomi....Double-O Me.

With unlimited funds to your name, what would you buy? An island. Just like Richard Branson's Necker Island. Now, if I could put that on an Amazon.com wishlist, I sure as hell would.

Favorite scar? Why? I love scars. I almost said that I don't know why but I understand perfectly my fascination with them. A reminder that we survived something that threatened our being. Granted, the little scar on my leg I acquired during a crabbing trip in North Carolina was not as a result from a death defying incident, but still. My favorite is a toss-up between two. I have one my left wrist below my thumb. I was in the fifth or sixth grade when I tried to hop a friend's fence. I flipped over it like an idiot and sliced my wrist open just enough to scar it forever. The other is on my right pinkie. Living in Indianapolis during my middle school years. I was washing dishes when a glass shattered in my hands. A large chunk of it sliced the skin, which folded like a flap on my finger. It's an ugly scar but I like it.

Worse gift you can receive? A stuffed animal. Don't get me wrong. I had my fair share of them when I was a child, teenager, etc. But as an adult, what do you do with them? I feel a tremendous amount of guilt and sadness when I donate them or get rid of them by other means. Those loved ones that gave them had thought of me and cared enough to show some affection in a sweet way. But what do I do with it? Don't you find it creepy when an adult has a million stuffed animals in his/her bed? And storing the vast collection of them in your closet? I still some that I can't bear to part with my favorite being a little brown bear I received for my eighth birthday. I don't know who gave it but I love the thing. Still....what do you do with it? Buy me a pen or a journal or paint or something like that.

What's your comfort food(s)? Mashed potatoes, cheese. Both of those things, I will walk into a grocery store and immediately pick up and feel happier.  No gravy on the mashed potatoes, please. Eck! I love the way they feel in the mouth. And warm and settling in the belly. And cheese! I can go thru a block of cheese like there will be no tomorrow and lactose intolerance is a figment of the medical society's imagination. Yum! people. I have a few others but those two are tops.

Would you go to a nudist beach/colony and be nude? Hell, freakin yeah! I am a nudist at my core. Naked skin is one of the greatest things. And having no hinderances like clothes or social restraints? Who could say no?!

Your turn.

Does Possession Validate Ownership?

National Geographic online has a video series regarding artifact ownership. It broaches the subject of who becomes the owners of objects taken as the spoils of war, archaeological digs, and thievery. What do you think? Hitler's practice of claiming artwork for himself robbed Jewish families of their prized possessions. Decades after the war, pilfered pieces hang in museums or private collections and descendants of the victimized families cry in outrage. Who owns it?

Euthanasia

The first time I ever heard that word was in my high school biology class. I couldn't understand why my teacher suggested Youth in Asia as a topic for a research paper in a science class. Yeah, I know. Moronic. I think I actually picked that topic for Mrs. Allen's class and discovered an amazing amount of information. If it wasn't my topic, then I sure as hell did read a lot on the pros and cons of euthansia for pleasure. Twisted.

Anyways...where do you stand? Are you for or against? Circumstances that you would allow it to occur? Absolute nos? Who should control the approval for such a final act? Should it be the government who allows it for population control and the survival of the human species? A Soylent Green show of altruism? Should private citizens take it into their own hands? But would that lead way to exorbitant numbers of suicides, especially those attempts acted upon during times of strife? Do we kill off the mentally ill or the physically challenged? Do different races, sexual orientations, religious subscriptions become deviant behaviors and do the practitioners of said afflictions become the poster children for euthanasia? Horribly, a dystopian view of the world.

It popped into my head whilst walking my dog, Jolie. I'm down. Miserably low because of the events in my life. The plaguing thoughts of suicide popped into my head. How could my death be a gift instead of my selfish act of not trying anymore? There is no proper way to answer that. But it did lead me to think about my life in twenty years. Could I survive being me for another fifty or so years? Or does the sweet silence of death appear reasonable when I'm sixty-five?

Is your concept of fat misguided?

Often we find out that our ideals are truely out of sync. Influences of others that generally take what we consider healthy, and then twist and distort them into some carnival mirror image. And over time, those once pure ideals become so much more contrived and compromised.

Fat people. Western societies have a general dislike for anyone who doesn't fit in the category of weight healthy or "normal." According to nutrionists and the medical field, normal is a marginally slim section of the spectrum. However, have you ever been introduced to an Asian's perspective? Or a third-world people's ideal? Some consider the belly paunch an indication that you are wealthy. You always eat well. You are beautiful.

Kate Harding has a series of photos up that questions your idea of fat. View it two ways. Play the slideshow without info. Guess who's normal. Then play it with info. Or just play it with the info. If you roll your mouse over the picture as it begins, you'll see the "i" to click for captions.

Thanks to and I wasted all that birth control for the direct and to Kate Harding for the beautiful illustration of why our self images tend to be false.

Interracial Adoptions

Should people adopt children not of their own race?

With the seemingly scary world of private adoptions here in the States, many couples and individuals are turning to foreign lands and their overburdened orphanages. The paperwork, counselling, money, background checks, and time weed out potential baddies from the parenting pool as well as cement adoptions.

But what about those children here in our group homes and orphanages? Many children outside the infant the years wait impatiently for people to bring them into their homes and give them last names that stand for love and committment and security. And, sadly, many of these children are African-American boys.

In any case, whether it be an infant, Asian girl from China or an African American, male toddler from Tennessee....should a parent outside the child's race adopt him/her? Would a white mother be able to provide the cultural history for that child? Will the child lose part of his/her identity being immersed in a culture and surrounded by a race not of his/her own? Or are there too many children out there that have been abandoned and discarded, waiting for homes and love that color and culture do not matter?

I want to know your thoughts. I'm not swaying you with my opinions....yet.   

I Have Questions...You Have Answers

New category. Very simple. I pose a question and I hope you answer. Let's christen this bitch, shall we?!

I'm infatuated with the show Taboo on National Geographic. Tonight it was all about old practices in medicine, which are really frowned upon. Not new to me but very interesting and very squeamish (I'll save you the torture and not post pictures)....please don't hesitate to include any other new medical practices you've happened upon....faced with a non-healing wound, would you allow your physicians to treat it by alternative means including the application of maggots?

Questions

The thought process at work. Things to ponder while doing the boring stuff. I'd love to hear responses on these: Guess I owe answers, hmmm?

Would you date a mentally ill person? Doesn't matter when you discover (s)he has a mental illness, but how would you respond? What mental illnesses would you deal with and what ones would cause you to head for the door? Well, I'm sure I've gone out with a person or two with some sort of mental illness. HOWEVER, I think it would be difficult for two people who similar to me trying to maintain a relationship. ALOT of work but good relationships are worth it. And I wouldn't want anyone discriminating against me.

If the bartering system was implemented again replacing all monetary exchanges, what do you have for trade? Can you provide goods (do you have hens or a garden, can you make clothing, dog pregnant with pups, etc) or are you service oriented (great cook, can teach, awesome mechanic, etc)? Examine what and who you are. Well, I've been told I've got a natural flair for decorating. Also I can teach/tutor and have. Wares? Pretty good gardener so I'm sure I could survive in a farming capacity. I learn quickly so I can probably pick up a few tools to help me survive. I'm a Jill of all trades, sort of girl

Do you wait to give help until you're asked or are you the first to say what can I do? how much do you need? I'm a little bit of both. I offer and leave an open ticket for what I can do to help. Sometimes I will just give. Other times I will wait until someone asks me specifically. Matter of reading the situation.

Borrowed from Pulp Fiction: do you really listen or are you waiting to talk? I've answered this question in the past as waiting to talk. BUT I don't think I'm really one of those type people that talk constantly over another without listening (I know people who are seriously like this). I think I really do listen. I try to ask questions that will get the other person talking. I think I'm a pretty good conversationalist. And I do talk in order to give frame of reference. So yes, I'm a very talkative person but I'm actually quite a good listener.

What do you regret saying to someone and who was it? I regret how I stood up to myself to my parents. I don't think I was wrong in telling them that I am worth more than the shit they've given me but it came out very angry and unfocused. Lots of other regrets but not as dominant in my life's foreground.

Ever give/send flowers to someone (doesn't have to be a professional bouquet)? Oh yes. A few males in my adolescence and early adulthood received flowers from me in declaration of my crushing them. I also share flowers I've gotten myself with coworkers and friends. I love giving flowers. By the way, if anyone would LOVE to give me flowers...my favorite are Gerber Daisies. ;-)

Middle name? Like it? Germino (pronounced Her-me-no) and I do. Story of my middle name...it wasn't originally my middle. It was my last name, my mother's maiden name. My biological father and my mom never married. So when I was six years old, I was legally adopted by the man my mother eventually married and had my siblings with. Thus, officially my previous last name became my middle name. When I attended Lambuth U., many people got used to calling me Germino. And the name is both a Spanish and Italian surname. And to digress even more...my mother's grandparents immigrated to the Philippines from Spain....little Nae trivia for you.