What do you love about vampires? Since there are so many different depictions of them, please describe your favorite(s) and the one(s) you can't stand.
Great! Here’s a question I can really sink my teeth into! Ha, ha!
I think that I love vampires so much because they are the embodiment of all the traditional feminine sexual desires. They are beautiful, mysterious, powerful, charming, dangerous. They are driven wild by the smell and the taste and even the sight (in blushing cheeks) of a woman’s essence. Blood is a symbol of life force; the pumping heart of vitality. A vampire actually survives by consuming life. Nothing could be more primal or intense. And really, what woman wouldn’t want a lover who wanted her so much that he wanted to absolutely drain her, take everything for himself, master her completely even unto death. I wouldn’t literally want to die for sex, but metaphorically, I want to be annihilated by it. The vampire’s whole existence is driven by doing just that.
Of course, the fantasy is only good when the vampire is able to restrain himself, at least somewhat. That’s why the animalistic portrayal of vampires in Buffy is not appealing. Angel and Spike, though, feel the desire those other vampires feel, but they don’t act on it, at least not all the way, so the seduction can continue and the girl can live another day. I don’t like Anne Rice’s vampires all that much (though I love the Mayfair witches) because they are so effeminate. Are they all gay? Cause that’s not in my vampire fantasy. I LOVE Eric, one of Charlaine Harris’s vampires, because he is everything above plus a super smart business man. Sort of Hank Reardon meets hot creature of the night. I found Dracula (a la Bram Stoker) kind of gross. More like a bloated mosquito than a dreamy demon lover. I like the Twilight vampires for all the above reasons, though they are poorly written compared to the others I have listed. Underworld vamps were meh. I can’t think of others I should critique off the top of my head.
Another appealing thing about vamps is their immortality; it always makes for an interesting perspective in a story. I love to see how authors handle that. Are they still thriving (Eric)? Are they tired of life? (The Anne Rice vamp who gives the interview – can’t remember which one he is) Are they tortured by the things they have done? (Angel) Do they try to blend in with human society? (the Cullens)
On a purely physical level, are you more attracted to men or women? On the level of a prospective long-term relationship, are you more likely to consider men or women?
On a physical level, I am more attracted to men, but also very attracted to women. Maybe 60/40?
For a relationship, I am generally much more attracted to me. I have only had one relationship with a woman that I thought had any real long term potential, but as it turned out, she wasn't quite as gay as she thought. I also had one date with a girl that felt emotionally right, but that one didn't work out either. Almost all of my liasons with women have been either purely physical or physical relationships with friends. I'd make my percentages for relationships much more dramatic, like 95/5.
Do you think "shrugging" is ever appropriate outside of the fictional setting of Atlas Shrugged? What about revolution by force? What conditions would have to be met before you committed to either of these actions (shrugging or revolting)?
If by "shrugging" you mean leaving the mainstream world and hiding out somewhere with loved ones and making do with what you can produce yourself, I think shrugging is always appropriate. It seems individual to me. It would depend on how much you like civilization and how much you enjoy homesteading values and how bad things have gotten for you personally.
It wouldn't take all that much for me to shrug. If I had tons of money and if my closest friends were able to now as well, I'd go now to some remote place, live with people I love, produce most everything ourselves, and start learning to do the rest. For now, though, we depend on that heavily taxed income of Aaron's, and life here is too good to give it up.
As for revolution, I think that I have the right to end by force any rights violation that the government perpetrates on me. So, I technically have the right to revolt now. But, I think that things would have to be pretty bad before I would make that decision. I would have to believe that the life I am living is so bad that I cannot live in it anymore. My values would have to be so threatened that I would face death rather than continue in the way things have been going. We certainly aren't there for me yet, and I haven't given up hope that change is still possible without a violent revolt.
Do you think pornography is a degredation of sex? Do you enjoy watching it?
Oh. Thanks for the clarification.
I love pornography! I find a lot of the visual kind cheesy, but that might just be cause I am a girl. I love written erotica even more.
I think everything can be a degradation of sex if you are a degraded and degrading kind of individual. But if you use porn because you enjoy it and because your motto is "The more sex the better, even in media," then I think it is a great value.
I think that most people who label some sexual activity or porn degrading are the kind of people who want sex to be always clean and for dramatic music to play from the heavens every time. A realistic view of sex - that it is sometimes holy and intimate and sometimes physical and earthy and sometimes both at the same time - will go a long way toward clearing the good name of porn.
If you could choose, how would you want to die?
When I was a child, I wanted to spontaneously combust in the mall and turn into a towering pillar of flame and get on the news.
Now, I would just go with dropping in the harness. Wylie Henderson, a resident of Caledonia, MS about 100 years ago, literally dropped in the harness. He died in the field, and the mule dragged him home. That's what I want. I want to die in the middle of reading a poem out loud to a class (preferably Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar") or in the middle of a big party. Many, many years from now.
Then, I want to be buried at Egger Cemetery with Wylie Henderson, and I want this epitaph (by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie,
Glad did I live, and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse they 'grave for me:
Here she lies where she longed to be,
Home is sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
Are all of your major parenting decisions mutual between you and Livy's dad, or does one of you have final say if you disagree?
I don't completely know what you mean by major. I'm just gonna give some examples, and you can ask more specifically, if I don't get what you mean.
We discussed parenting and education a lot before she was born and when she was a baby. So we are on the same page there. We do some different parenting things, but when we don't completely agree, we are just honest with Livy about the disagreement and carry on doing what we do in each separate house. I think we have slightly different rules about food, for example. Livy can eat whatever and whenever she wants in my house; she has to ask about eating sweets at his house. It's easier to be different about that kind of thing when you are divorced, I think, because it is so easy for the child to know what the rules are at each house. It would be harder to disagree about how to handle food if we lived together.
We talked about a list of people Livy can spend the night with, without talking to the other parent. We agreed that if she wants to spend the night with someone not on our list, we will talk about it and either parent has veto power.
An interesting disagreement came up recently. I am much more Free Range than my ex, and when Livy told him she could go and get stuff from another aisle at the grocery store or walk to Jenn's neighborhood pond by herself, he was very worried. Though I am not willing to hold off from these things for years, I was willing to wait a while for him to feel safe about her. Worrying about her safety is too big an issue, so I agreed that I would wait until she was 7 to let her do these things. We both wanted him to have peace of mind when she is with me. I told him that I would only give him that year, and he was fine with that. When she asked why she couldn't do those things anymore, I explained that Daddy and I disagreed about them. I told her that he had asked me to wait until she was older, and I agreed to do that because I wanted him to feel safe about her. She accepted that pretty easily.
We often talk on the phone, especially when we are going through some problem with Livy, giving each other advice and support. We try to work as a team, and by and large, I think we succeed pretty well.
Because I am so bossy, I have had to practice not getting all in Livy and her dad's business. Unless an issue is very big and important, I just stay out, even when he parents a little differently than I might. He is loving and involved, and since he is a great father, I just butt out as much as possible.
Once she called me crying because he wouldn't let her do something she really wanted to do. I empathized with her feelings, told her how much I loved her, and told her that since she and Daddy both loved each other so much and were so good at solving problems, I knew they could work this out. Then got off the phone. It was hard, but I do want them to have their own relationship without me in it.
If you meant legally, we have joint custody.
