PromoGuy's Monday Mission 2.39

1. Who has authority over you? This is a deceptively easy question. At first I could give an answer like this: Well, there's my boss, and all highers up at work. However, they only give me guidelines of behavior that are to be followed in the office. They don't dictate my life. The police have authority, and the District Attorney, and probably even Drinky. They get to have the authority of telling me when I've done something wrong and must be punished. If I am caught. However, this question is very deep and existential. WHO does have authority around here? God? Whose god? See, very difficult question for a Monday. I mean, the being having authority over you would be the one choosing your destiny, right? I choose me. I have authority over me.

2. Where do you go to get a feeling of community? #squeeze. I don't really get the urge to have a feeling of community. I live in a big ass city with lots and lots of people to commune with.

3. What do you do, or have you done, in your life that "goes against the tide?" Being a vegetarian is one of those. It damn well freaks people out. I'm a liberal, which is currently against the grain. I also understand that my slicing of bananas instead of mashing them in a banana and tahini sandwich is "against the tide". I'm a rebel.

4. Guilt can be a powerful weapon. Those who have mastered its power can very good at getting what they want. Have you ever used guilt to get you what you want? Have you ever had it used on you? How did you react? Of course. I don't think anyone on this EARTH can get away from the guilt factor. I hate it, because I know it is there, I see it coming, and sometimes I succumb. But not very often. I am good at shielding myself. But if it is the right person, say, my 91 year old grandmother - I respond to her guilt with no guilt feelings about having allowed myself to feel the guilt that someone tried to heap upon me. But if someone, hypothetically speaking, say a panhandler, who has sat in front of the Chicago Cultural Center with his hand out, every day for the past four years, always wearing the same foot cast, and who I don't believe is unemployed at all, and who has a very snazzy wardrobe and smells like yesterday's moonshine, were to try to guilt me into giving him a donation because he is homeless and has no job, it wouldn't work. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

5. I was walking through the mall Friday night and saw a lot of teenagers who dressed really wild and just acted like idiots - not caring who was looking or what others thought. And I remember being that way, having that kind of freedom. I must have looked like a fool then too. Did you ever do anything in public with your friends as a teenager that you would never do today? Tell me about that. God yes, of course! That is a side effect of puberty. I am much quieter and more respectful than I used to be. That's life. I'm in my 30s now. We are the people who the kids try to get a rise out of with their outlandish behavior.

6. I don't watch the television show "Survivor," but I did notice they allow each contestant to bring one "luxury item" to the deserted island with them (make-up, a book, etc.). If you were to go to an island for three months, what five "luxury items" would you bring and why? I would bring my laptop and insist that it be fitted with infrared Internet service. This way, I could listen to all of my music, keep in touch with people I felt like communicating with, and keep up on the news.

7. If you would have had a choice, in which time period would you have like to have lived? Why? I would have loved to have been able to hobnob with the elite of the Enlightenment. Those people and their absinthe - they really thought they had it all figured out. Rationalism pushed out pansy romanticism in literature and art, people felt empowered to take the arts, science and even God into their own hands, take responsibility for it, and develop themselves to their potential as best they could. Being alive at this time would also afford me the opportunity to kick Kant in the head for being such a classist, racist, verbose SOB.