The First Kiss and Other Stuff Too!

The stunning and consistently amazing Sher over at Sherendipity (go read her...if you don't, you're only hurting yourself) has provided me with an interview meme which is sort of cool as far as memes go. I even volunteered for it. One of my answers even has a story attached to it, because that never happens on my blog.

1.  Do you remember your first kiss?  C'mon, dish.

(This is the answer with a story...it would be a disservice not to tell it all.)

Ahh, my first kiss. I remember it well. I was at a camp for gifted children in eighth grade. I don't know where all those smarts went, but they were there once evidently. It lasted a week and there was the cutest girl there. We met on the first day during some sort of nerd activity and it was love at first sight. The night of the same day, when the others were singing Kumbaya or some sort of similar crap around a camp fire, we were off talking. We could hear the fire crackling and it was a nice, cool evening. We stopped talking at some point and just stared into each other's eyes. Then we leaned in for the The Kiss. It was a first kiss for both of us, but there wasn't any awkwardness, it was just sweet and tender and it felt right.

We spent the rest of the week alternately sneaking across the camp grounds and crawling into each other's respective tent to steal away whatever moments we could. The counselors only watched the front of the old army tents and left the rear of the tent unguarded. C'mon people, we were gifted. You had to do better than that.

When the week was over, we said our goodbyes. Our schools played each other in football, so once a year we would meet at the game since we were both in our respective school's band. We never kissed again, we just caught up and shared stories and went our separate ways after the game.

My freshman year of college, I got a card in the mail for my birthday that had a picture of Miss Piggy on the front of the card laying in a tent. When you opened it, Kermit was pictured entering the rear of the tent with the phrase, "You can sneak into my tent any time." It was from her.

Good times.

2.  What lesson did you learn from your parents (good, or bad) that will, or has, influenced your style of parenting?

From my mom: Stand up for for your child no matter what. That and I have her sense of humor... that plays a huge part in my parenting.

From my dad: "Because I said so" is a good enough reason. Also, give your kids enough rope to hang themselves and pull their butt out of the fire when they need it because most kids (or maybe it was just me) are too dumb to learn otherwise.

3.  Was there ever a time in your life that you passed on an opportunity that you really wanted, only to realize later that it was more of a benefit that you didn't take advantage of it?

Not really. One of my favorite things to do is jump at the chance to do just about anything, regardless of whether I've thought it out or not. It's a bumpy road sometimes, but I have some great memories and haven't yet wound up killing myself.

4.  The year is 1999.  Ten years ago, today, what were doing?  Better yet, what did you THINK that you'd be doing ten years later, and how close were you?

I was working at the university that I work at now and had been married to my wife for almost five years. We had bought our house a year or so earlier and were so excited about it. We had finally climbed out of debt, so that was pretty awesome too.

What did I THINK I'd be doing ten years later? I pretty much envisioned myself where I'm at now (it's a good job) except that I thought I would have had a book published by now. I also didn't expect that we would have had to have adopted, but I wouldn't change that for the world.

5.  If you could write a letter to the future you, reminding yourself of anything at all, how would that letter read?

Dear idiot,

Just a few things in case you managed to forget them in the interim... Remember to find the humor in everything that you possibly can. Practice patience, you know how you get if you don't. Put your mind to it (and your back if you have to) and you'll get to where you want to be. Spend as much time as you can with your wife and your child. No one ever said on the deathbed, "I wish I had worked more."

If you forgot any of that stuff, you deserved to be called an idiot. If not, you can just crumble this letter up and toss it... job well done.

 

Okay, that's that with the interview questions. I'd like to give a big thanks to Sher for coming up for such great questions and for just being Sher. You're awesome, babe. No question about it.

If anyone is interested in being interviewed, just leave an "interview me" or "do me" in a comment and I'll come up with some questions for you. All shiny new and personalized! I'll take the first two "do me's" because I'm too lazy to come up with questions for more than two people ;)

 

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