Do you listen to podcasts? Are there any you'd recommend?
Inspired by Alex.
No, I hate podcasts for the pod part: iPods are populace pacification devices. They're small, fragile, and will be as useless as Furbies in the near future.
What is your earliest memory?
Submitted by Megan.
Taking a bath in the big stainless steel kitchen sink in the house my family grew up in. It was literally big enough to bathe a baby in with no garbage disposal, thankfully! I remember it being high enough to see the world from the adults' points of view while being safe, warm and clean. It was a sad day when I was too big for the kitchen sink. I still wash my hair in the sink at my house once in a while just to recapture the magic.
Tell us about your first kiss. Who was it with? How old were you?
I was 18 and it was on New Year's Eve at the movie theater I worked at. Her name was Shannon and it was a nice polite, chaste kiss. I didn't have my first "real" kiss until I was 22.
I've made up for lost time... :-D
Mom fell victim to a secondary infection that shut down her lungs and heart. My sister was with her during Mom's last few moments, exactly a day before I was supposed to be there. Mom died exactly two weeks after lapsing into a coma. She was in-urned a week after that. I was fortunate enough to place her ashes into the vault next to my Father's.
The past is gone. Only shreds of it remain with my siblings. My fond memories and childhood have been ripped from this plane and now are black and white, archival records of time long ago that can never, ever be relished in again without melancholy.
For those of you with living parents: Call them today for no other reason than to hear them. Visit them if possible. Pour through old photos with them and have the descriptions of each written on the back. Treat them extra kindly as their mortal coil may be sloughed all too soon.
My Mom's was.
Now I'm an orphan. Annie made it seem all so much more glamorous.
What's the most memorable building you've lived in?
Submitted by Shelly.
It had to have been Brendenwood Apartments in Mishawaka, Indiana. I can say that so freely without repercussions because the "memories" there were so bad that the complex changed its name.
It was nearly 11pm on a warm summer night. I was playing video games with my girlfriend and my best buddy. We were having a grand time until we heard the bottles shattering against the door. The door shook as a body or many bodies slammed against it. The screaming was horrific, but from their tone and urban diction we discerned that it was a group of black young man beating the crap out of another black young man. 911 was called and the fight continued down the stairs and out the door into the parking lot. Once the police arrived, we opened the door to find a myriad of brown beer bottle shards and more blood than I had ever seen before. No one died, but you couldn't tell from the looks of it.
A week later we signed the lease on a new apartment.
First apartments are great lessons for life, and some lessons you never forget. That qualified as both.
(FYI, my Mom is in a stupified coma. She opens her eyes and tracks objects, but doesn't move. Not fun.)
