Question: Memo RE: What do you do all day?

RE: Work (or, A Memoir of Paychecks Past)

As a recently re-employed person and after many, many interviews, I find I am fascinated with the idea of work.  What is work?  How did you get your job?  Why work?  How do you feel about what you do all day?  When you break your job down to its core elements, what would be the actual function?

What do you do all day?  Please give your job description in a sentence.

And no, answers are not tax-deductible. 

Thank you for your cooperation. 

-The Management

Question: Is wine fine, or is whiskey quicker?

I fear this is turning into the Fail Blog, only not funny.

Question: What would your subliminal dress say?

Have you ever written or said a word over and over until it lost all meaning?  Then, rather than letting it rest in peace, continued to write or say the word over and over until it became possible that it could have entirely another meaning, and another use in your life?

When I was 19, I came up with the idea of a subliminal musical dress.  If you take a part of a song, and fixate over it, as I do, it can take on another meaning.  Or the meaning of the words can be so much clearer because it is being sung, and in particular, how they are being sung in that particular song, in that particular sentence.  At that point, the stanza, uncoupled from the rest of the song, takes on its own meaning.

I wanted to harness the snip of sound and make it visual and attach it to clothing to make sort of a mood-dress.  Each dress would have a particular snippet of sound (I had lists of my personal choices) which would be triggered submliminally by the design elements of the dress. (Any psychologists, researchers or evil military mind-control specialists out there, email me so we can get going on this.)  When you, the wearer, walked by and people saw you, a faint perfume-waft of song entered their heads leaving them to wonder why and where it came from.   

So, with that lengthy explanation, we get to the question:  What would your subliminal dress say?

(edited) Please submit the piece of song lyric that you would use, and make sure to include the artist and song title.  It should be no longer than a sentence, requiring some very difficult editing if there is a whole stanza that you like.  Difficult work, but worth getting down to the very essence of what you truly love about the song. 

If there is a link to the song you’d like to include, by all means send that as well.  And for the gentlemen in the audience, please remember “dress” can also mean “mode of covering your being,” not just “pretty frilly thing preferably with lace, a nice sash and black sparkly decoration.” 

Question: In 7 words, can you write your memoirs?

I’ve set the table with the finest of my mismatched wine glasses, chilled the 3 Buck Chuck and rouged my knees in anticipation of a very special guest this week. In the interest of expanding the dialogue of the Questions Project, this week’s question will be posed by a guest.  So starch your collars, mend your stockings and join our soiree.

This week, The Seductress asks: Please write your memoirs in 7 words.  Since Ginsu knives envy her sharpness and she is known for her questioning mind and whip-smart analysis, please make sure your answers at least give us a mental papercut with a sharp insight into what you should know best so far, your life. 

Question: Where do you kick heaven?

This question presupposes that if you were texting the universe right now, your text would read “WTF, Universe.  WTF.” 

Of course you get no reply. 

When that happens, like most humans, your fifth reaction is to take matters into your own feet, as it were.  Oh sure, you tried faith, summoning inner-confidence, bravery in the face of these newest unfortunate adventures, honesty, drinking (lots).  But really, your inner toddler is unsatisfied with all these bullshit attempts at constructively dealing and at some point, that yowl you’ve kept down is going to come tearing out, as your limbs go flying with angry abandon.  You’re going to kick heaven.  Even though the act itself is akin to dropping a pea onto a waterbed, you’re going to do it anyway. 

So, puny worm, where do you kick heaven? 

Question: Chemistry Pop Quiz

I know we’ve spent a lot of time collectively studying Biology lately.  It is in fact an endlessly fascinating topic, especially when we dissect the functions of our biological urges and those of others.

However, we haven’t really been paying attention to the elements, and how they function.  Yes, we’ve had some volatile experiments in the past, as well as certain solutions that just didn’t crystallize no matter how long we left them over the Bunsen burner.   What are our observations?  Can we alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements?

 Class, we’re overdue for a pop quiz in Chemistry.  Please put away your books and take out a #2 pencil. 

1.) What is the half-life of love? 

2.) When does attraction become inert? 

3.) Is the natural state of indifference a liquid, gas or solid?

Goggles are recommended during this test and any lab-work as I cannot guarantee something will not splash in your eye.  Please remember to document all lab-work.  You will need to show all equations and work in your answers.  There are no extra-credit but this will be graded on a curve.

Please answer via email or comments.

This test is timed. 

Question: What is your ordinary super-power?

What is your ordinary, everyday super-power?  What are you doing, every day, that can be quantified, and named?  This isn’t asking what you would do.  We already know you would fly, shoot lasers from your eyes or seduce women without consequence.   The pages of pulp novels  are already filled with these stories.  Yours is as-yet unwritten and unrecognized, because the unsuspecting public most likely doesn’t know you exist.  This question is asking you to out yourself and what you do. 

 So…are you in, or are you out?

Question: What does space smell like?

The question:

The inspiration for this question came directly from boingboing.net several weeks ago.   The below information was not shared with the responders until after they answered, to avoid creating a bias in their answers.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/20/astronaut-describes.html

On NASA’s website, ISS Science Officer Don Pettit describes the “smell of space” — long a staple of science fiction stories.

‘Each time, when I repressed the airlock, opened the hatch and welcomed two tired workers inside, a peculiar odor tickled my olfactory senses. At first I couldn’t quite place it. It must have come from the air ducts that re-pressed the compartment. Then I noticed that this smell was on their suit, helmet, gloves, and tools. It was more pronounced on fabrics than on metal or plastic surfaces. It is hard to describe this smell; it is definitely not the olfactory equivalent to describing the palette sensations of some new food as “tastes like chicken.” The best description I can come up with is metallic; a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation. It reminded me of my college summers where I labored for many hours with an arc welding torch repairing heavy equipment for a small logging outfit. It reminded me of pleasant sweet smelling welding fumes. That is the smell of space.’

Question: What are you made of?

The question

What if someone who didn’t know you asked you to give a list of what makes up your being?  Could they recreate you from this list?  If they did, would you recognize this creation as yourself?

This is asked with the intention of getting an off-the-cuff remark, a haphazardly witty choice of words and will then be recorded as-is to keep the original snap, crackle and pop.  Ideally, the answer should be given in sound-bite form.  

The question itself was devised several weeks ago during a daydream on the train. It is also partially derived from song lyrics and a personal desire at the time to break things and let someone else clean them up.