Much as we love our game questions, there are always other possible questions out there that are just as good, sometimes even better. (Though our own questions are outstanding; make no mistake.)

My buddy Dresden is a genius when it comes to making up new questions. He is also a total character, in the glorious sense of the word. He has created the most unusual, vivid, and quirkily interactive tours of Portland (Throw Snakes Tours) which he is now in the midst of switching to a virtual platform – and that will be wild.  Another friend remarked recently:  “You’ve made your interactions with people an absolute art form, Dresden.” 

Here are some pics of Dresden cavorting and gallivanting with tour participants. In real life, he’s not always making faces.

At his Zoom birthday party last week, Dresden posed this original question to me and to everyone: “What do you wish more people knew about you?”

I loved the spirit of the question. Don’t we all want to be seen and known for some of our more attractive habits or qualities that are not always obvious? 

My answer was that I wanted people to know I dance joyfully around my living room nearly every day to music I love. I don’t go (well, “didn’t go” is now the right phrase, I guess) to the communal ecstatic dances in town because I generally don’t (didn’t) like the music, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to move!

Dresden also asked, “What makes you excited to be alive?”

My answer right now is, “Books.”  What’s yours?

Harder Questions

I’ve been asking myself other questions lately too. (As promised, per the last newsletter.)

It seems to me axiomatic that if human civilization is going to survive, we in the first world are going to have to give up things. Scarcely anyone is really talking about this yet, and that’s confounding. But unquestionably, we will need to collectively sacrifice in order to preserve our planet for current younger generations as well as generations to come, not to mention wildlife species, etc.

So I asked myself: What would I be willing to give up if I knew my sacrifice could help contribute to a sustainable world?

I didn’t realize it would be so hard to think of anything! 

Bananas? No!

Chocolate? Uh-uh, can’t imagine living without it. 

Home heating? Absolutely not! Brrrrr.

My car? Well, do I have to? I mean, I barely use it anyway. 

Electric lights? Excuse me, I’m a night owl, and asking me to give up electric light would be discriminatory. 

And so on.

But then I was walking in the park in the wee hours – about 3 a.m. – the other night, and it was cold. I had on four layers, and a hat and a scarf and … one glove. I had on one glove, and I kept the other hand in my pocket. 

I tend to lose gloves. I often wind up with mismatched pairs, because I lose so many single gloves during any given winter. (I’m sure my weed consumption has NOTHING to with that, by the way.) And right now I’m down to only one glove. It occurred to me that, though I won’t have much need for a second glove in the months to come, maybe I should buy a new pair anyway. 

And then I realized I was perfectly comfortable walking with one hand in my pocket and that that – at least – was something I could easily, willingly sacrifice: a second glove.

You gotta start somewhere, right? At least I had an answer to my question for the day. I would be wholeheartedly willing to live, indefinitely, with only one glove, if that could help in some tiny way to save the planet. 

From there, who knows? Maybe it’s a slippery slope from a glove to a car to electric lights. At least some electric lights for some portion of the night.