Friday Five
Jul. 19th, 2002 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
semperfionaThank you to whoever came up with this set of questions, I found them inspiring.
Where were you born?
Oxnard, California
If you don't live there, do you want to move back? Why or why not?
I don't even remember it. We moved away when I was two. I used to wish we lived in California, if only because many of my favorite relatives lived there. But now I'm no longer as attached to my relatives, because my life has changed so much since then (read: they're fundamentalist Christians, I'm something between atheist and pagan. Not to mention bi and poly.) Now, I do occasionally wish I lived in California, if only because then I could attend more Wombat gatherings. But I can't really leave St. Louis as long as Ray and I have joint custody of Rosa, so I'm finding ways to be happy here, and slowly finding my community locally.
Where in the world do you feel the safest?
In my house.
Do you feel you are well-traveled?
Yes. I've visited every state of the US except Alaska and Hawaii, I've been to Peru, Colombia, Venezuela--though those three don't really count as I was only 3 1/2--Spain, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Macao, Thailand, England, Wales, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Mexico and Canada. I got to spend several months in Spain, a school year studying in Japan, and two years working in England, so I really feel like I experienced those places in particular. When I came back to the US from England, people used to ask me if I was British because I have a chameleon accent. (There's a word for that, I've forgotten what it was. But I pick up the speech patterns and accents of the people I'm near.) In fact British people asked me if I was British, which I took as quite a compliment, as by the time I'd been in England six months American accents really sounded loud and out of place to my ears, accustomed as they were by then to my colleagues' accents.
What is the most interesting place you've been?
Probably Thailand, if only for its differences from here, and the great story I get to tell about flying there on Iraqi Airways. The cheapest fares from Tokyo at the time were a tie between Iranian Air and Iraqi Airways, a flight actually from Tokyo to Baghdad with a stopover in Bangkok. I chose the latter for no particular reason. When the time came to board my flight, I had to go outside, identify my baggage before it would be loaded into the plane, then climb the stairs. At the top of the stairs were two flight attendants in military-style khaki uniforms, one male and one female. They examined the contents of each carryon bag, then frisked each passenger. My seat turned out to be next to a pair of cigar-smoking men in turbans. Shortly after sitting down, the female attendant came and asked me if I'd like to move. Not wanting to be a bother, I said no. Then the male one came and asked again, a little more insistently. I went with him, and he reseated me all alone in the last row. I suspected that it was because I was female, wearing shorts, and offended the religious sensibilities of my erstwhile row-mates. I'll never know for sure.
This story happened in 1989, and it seems somewhat less interesting now that US airlines are using many of the same security measures. But it troubles me that such an analogy can be drawn. The US government is behaving like a paranoid third-world dictator.
Where were you born?
Oxnard, California
If you don't live there, do you want to move back? Why or why not?
I don't even remember it. We moved away when I was two. I used to wish we lived in California, if only because many of my favorite relatives lived there. But now I'm no longer as attached to my relatives, because my life has changed so much since then (read: they're fundamentalist Christians, I'm something between atheist and pagan. Not to mention bi and poly.) Now, I do occasionally wish I lived in California, if only because then I could attend more Wombat gatherings. But I can't really leave St. Louis as long as Ray and I have joint custody of Rosa, so I'm finding ways to be happy here, and slowly finding my community locally.
Where in the world do you feel the safest?
In my house.
Do you feel you are well-traveled?
Yes. I've visited every state of the US except Alaska and Hawaii, I've been to Peru, Colombia, Venezuela--though those three don't really count as I was only 3 1/2--Spain, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Macao, Thailand, England, Wales, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Mexico and Canada. I got to spend several months in Spain, a school year studying in Japan, and two years working in England, so I really feel like I experienced those places in particular. When I came back to the US from England, people used to ask me if I was British because I have a chameleon accent. (There's a word for that, I've forgotten what it was. But I pick up the speech patterns and accents of the people I'm near.) In fact British people asked me if I was British, which I took as quite a compliment, as by the time I'd been in England six months American accents really sounded loud and out of place to my ears, accustomed as they were by then to my colleagues' accents.
What is the most interesting place you've been?
Probably Thailand, if only for its differences from here, and the great story I get to tell about flying there on Iraqi Airways. The cheapest fares from Tokyo at the time were a tie between Iranian Air and Iraqi Airways, a flight actually from Tokyo to Baghdad with a stopover in Bangkok. I chose the latter for no particular reason. When the time came to board my flight, I had to go outside, identify my baggage before it would be loaded into the plane, then climb the stairs. At the top of the stairs were two flight attendants in military-style khaki uniforms, one male and one female. They examined the contents of each carryon bag, then frisked each passenger. My seat turned out to be next to a pair of cigar-smoking men in turbans. Shortly after sitting down, the female attendant came and asked me if I'd like to move. Not wanting to be a bother, I said no. Then the male one came and asked again, a little more insistently. I went with him, and he reseated me all alone in the last row. I suspected that it was because I was female, wearing shorts, and offended the religious sensibilities of my erstwhile row-mates. I'll never know for sure.
This story happened in 1989, and it seems somewhat less interesting now that US airlines are using many of the same security measures. But it troubles me that such an analogy can be drawn. The US government is behaving like a paranoid third-world dictator.
