Proust Meme

This meme comes courtesy of Slice of Pink.

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Knowing that the way I live and the way I want to live are the same.

2. What is your greatest fear?
My children dying before me.

3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Lack of honesty.

4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Hmmmm. Lack of honesty.

5. Which living person do you most admire?
My mom.

6. What is your greatest extravagance?
Clothing.

7. What is your current state of mind?
Pretty positive.

8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Loyalty. It's rarely deserved.

9. On what occasion do you lie?
When it makes for a better story.

10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
This changes daily. Sometimes it's a wardrobe issue, sometimes it's the acne scars. Sometimes it's all about lipstick.

11. Which living person do you most despise?
Woah, that's harsh. I'm not answering that.

12. What is the quality you most like in a man?
Strength of character.

13. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Strength of character.

14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Like.

15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
I love my family. I can't pick favorites.

16. When and where were you happiest?
Pregnancy was a great time both times.

17. Which talent would you most like to have?
Perfect pitch.

18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
My employment situation.

19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
My kids. They're amazing. Such cool people. I sometimes envy them, because they're much better equipped for this world than I am, even now.

20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
A monkey. It looks like fun.

21. Where would you most like to live?
Here. I like it here.

22. What is your most treasured possession?
I don't have one. Really. I love living things (kids, pets, etc.) but don't care too much about non-organics.

23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Directionlessness.

24. What is your favorite occupation?
Anything that involves making people's lives better.

25. What is your most marked characteristic?
Extroversion.

26. What do you most value in your friends?
The ability to be friends with me. I'm not so sure it's all that easy, despite what my husband says.

27. Who are your favorite writers?
Milan Kundera, Charlaine Harris, Nikos Kazanzakis.

28. Who is your hero of fiction?
Jesus Christ in "The Last Temptation of Christ"

29. Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Wow. This is the hardest question in this meme. Joan of Arc is a good choice, although I never would touch her courage. I'll go with Lee Krasner. Look it up if you don't know who she is.

30. Who are your heroes in real life?
My parents, my husband, and Mr. Rogers.

31. What are your favorite names?
Emma, Roland, Darby, Marley, Grace, Eliza, Eudora, Sophie

32. What is it that you most dislike?
Selfishness.

33. What is your greatest regret?
Having only two children. The two we have are fabulous. Who's to say we wouldn't have had an amazing tribe of four if we'd kept on?

34. How would you like to die?
Quickly. Hit by a bus sounds good.

35. What is your motto?
I don't have one, but the verse from Micah leads me a lot: seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your god. That's excellent advice, and if everyone heeded it, our world would be an amazingly just and good place.