Chocolates are not the only fruit

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
The moment between wanting something very badly and then getting that something.

What is your greatest fear?
That everything I do is futile because for every me there are a few hundred thousand (million?) others and we’re all going to die one day.

What is your most marked characteristic?
My morbidity?

What is the trait you deplore most in yourself?
My reactionary nature – it’s forever getting me into trouble and it makes me seem unstable.

What living person do you most despise?
This girl at work who looks a bit piggy and is very smug and unfriendly for reasons I’ve yet to discern (maybe she won a blue ribbon for scratching her own name in the dirt).

What is your greatest extravagance?
On a semi-regular basis, it’s Orla Kiely. Her dresses are too expensive for the likes of me but I can’t seem to care.

What is your current state of mind?
A bit out of sorts – I’ve spent the last three days in Brussels and now have to think about moving flats, all the while trying to be a good host for my Canadian houseguests. My routine is completely mangled.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Beauty.

On what occasion do you lie?
At work (no problem, I can/know how to do that).

What do you dislike most about your appearance?
That it’s mutable and completely unreliable.

What is the quality you most like in a man?
Loyalty.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Humility.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Sorry.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Bruce.

What and where were you happiest?
Pick most times between today and nearly two years ago and you’ll have your answer.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would that be?
I would be less anxious.

Which talent would you most like to have?
I’d like to play a musical instrument very well.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Escaping the trappings of small-town histrionics; stepping out of a psychopathic ego and into the real world.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
That’s a silly question.

Where would you like to live?
Muswell Hill, but we’re incapable of packing.

What is your most treasured possession?
Don’t really have one.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Childhood.

What is your favorite occupation?
I met a girl who translates for NATO. She has a work-issued gas mask in her desk drawer and a sign on her door that reads: No bombs No bombs No bombs. That seems pretty cool.

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Troilus, because he was such a dufus!

What are your favorite names?
Beryl, Astrid, Greta, Max (they sound like names belonging to people who’d want nothing to do with me)

What is it that you most dislike?
The sounds made by people who eat indelicately.

How would you like to die?
Quickly.

What is your motto?
If it feels bad, don’t do it (too often).