sitakali

1. I first became concerned about the welfare of the planet around age 5 or 6. I thought that trash on the ground literally “hurt Mother Earth” and would pick it up, throw it away, and then kiss the ground if I found any.

2. My least favourite female vocalist is Joanna Newsom (“Lisa Simpson on helium”).

3. I have a very strange version of Body Dismorphic Disorder. I think that my back is too big, and that I look kind of like a hunch back. I am terrified of people seeing me bend over in a way that rounds my back. (It’s gotten better over the years)

4. My favourite animal is the owl. I believe it is my spirit animal.

5. Possibly my biggest pet peeves are “innocent bystanders”—people who don’t want to “get involved” when others are getting hurt—and the “tattle-tale” taboo—the idea that reporting a bully is a far greater offense than anything the bully could do. These are examples of how extremely fucked up our society’s priorities are.

6. I rate at 0.9 on the Kinsey scale (I actually calculated it). 0 is straight and 6 is gay.

7. When I was twelve, I wrote an article about homeless children for the homeless newspaper in Berkeley, the Street Spirit. Yay homeschooling!

8. I have a deep empathic connection to oppressed peoples of the world, especially the Dalits of India and the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert.

9. My first boyfriend was when I was fifteen.

10. I am a pantheist.

11. My beliefs have changed a bit as I’ve grown older; I used to be less anarchistic and more of a full-blown socialist. I also used to be more agnostic about the existence of a god (in the broad sense) and the supernatural. I’m now an atheist skeptic, and I do not believe in anything supernatural.

12. I always take it personally when someone yells at me, even if we’re having an abstract debate.

13. My favourite singer is Anggun, an Indonesian pop-star who lives in Paris and also sings in French and English.

14. I am in love with two places on this Earth: Nyack, New York, where I lived for the first seven years of my life; and Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where I went to university.

15. I care too much about what people think of me, and consistently have anxiety that I just made a social faux pas that I didn’t think about.

16. I shave my legs because I am self-conscious. If I were my ideal person, I wouldn’t care about things like that.

17. I have a spiritual connection with India. I was an Indophile starting at age fourteen.

18. I am terrified of throwing up.

19. I have the tendency to automatically expose myself to the things I fear. When I was arachnophobic I petted a live tarantula at a museum; when I was afraid of dogs I asked my friend to let her huge German Shepard greet me.

20. I never give myself enough credit, and frequently apologise to myself after the fact.

21. I have a good musical ear, which drove my classical piano teacher crazy, because I would sound things out instead of reading the music.

22. I pride myself in my “lateral” thinking; I try to look at things from many angles and always have a couple alternative ideas.

23. I have the plots for thirteen novels in my head. I have yet to finish any of them.

24. I have another blog in addition to this one: a more personal one.

25. I shamelessly promote my blogs.