Anyway, here’s the survey I teased yesterday.
1. Your name:
Marina Rose Martinez
2. Your Web page:
http://www.marinarosemartinez.com
3 What have you been up to this past year (please be as detailed as possible, because we actually want to know)?
I’m not sure. I tend to live in a state of perpetual present. I understand intellectually that my life hasn’t always been exactly the way it is right now, and yet it doesn’t really feel like that. It makes good days awesome, but bad days interminable. Also, is kind of crap for long term planning. Which may be why we live in a shack in Hawthorne, where I (this is gross) just killed two baby roaches as they walked across my cutting board. Don’t worry, I washed the board. Or I will.
It’s in the sink.
Short answer: sitting in my apartment in Hawthorne, killing roaches and thinking about myself and my fate.
4 How much longer do you think you’ll be doing what you’re doing?
Forever.
5 Why are you doing it?
Mostly because I still enjoy it. It’s no secret that I’m pretty much done with living in LA and dealing with the traffic, the douchebags, high rent, low pay, and massive competition for aforementioned low paying jobs. But on days like this, when the sky is blue, the temperature is perfect and the birds are chirping in the honeysuckle that grows outside our window, I can stay a little bit longer.
I can take some of the money we save by living here with the roaches and I can go out to breakfast with my sweet boyfriend, and sit outside under the perfect blue sky, and then we can go to the movies, and walk by the beach, and stare out at the water, and be completely present in this amazing gift of a day.
6 What do you want to be doing?
This. Minus the roaches, plus a garden and a dog, in a neighborhood with most of the things I like within walking distance, where walking around would be a pleasant experience instead of depressing.
7 What’s next in your life?
Probably moving out of LA. All that’s sort of dependent on jobs and industry and other things like that. So who really knows? A million different things could happen before that or instead of it.
8 How You Doin’?
I’m a little sad and somewhat conflicted. Also excited, and hopeful and hungry.
Oh wait, that question was about how I was doing, not how I was feeling. I’m doing functionally, thank you.
9 What’s the best book you read this year?
Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia.
10 Describe a perfect day?
I don’t even know! There are about a million different things and combination of things that would lead to a version of my perfect day. This calls for a bulleted list.
- Cunnilingus
- A nap outside in the afternoon sun
- Warm chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream
- Swimming in a cold ocean on a 100 degree day
- Being the big spoon
- Garlic cheddar mashed potatoes with bacon bits mixed in
- An email from someone telling me I’ve significantly improved their life just by being true to myself and trying to live by my own principals
- Hanging out with an awesome dog
- Seeing the people I love happy
- Picking and eating something I grew myself
- A perfect cup of coffee
- Tacos
- Watching the sun set over the ocean with my awesome boyfriend
- Good chocolate ice cream
- Falling asleep with a sense of accomplishment and being excited about what’s coming next
11 Assuming that all things come to an end…how do you think humans will go extinct?
The civilizations that come after us will say quickly, but for us it will be agonizingly slow.
12 How are you feeling about kids these days?
For the existing kids, I feel hopeful. I think their lives will be fascinating and exciting and full of opportunity.
For kids I may or may not have, I’m feeling better than usual. Ben and I have little conversations about children: how we’d raise them, what a parent’s role is, what expectations we’d have, and so on.
Kids are still a lot of years (and a lot of money) away, but I think these little check-ins are really important. If we do raise kids together, we should know in and out where the other person stands so we can work together to provide the best possible environment to grow up in.
13 (- In this space, compose your own question, and answer it -) If you could bring your mom back, but fundamentally stop her growth as a person and stunt her experience, would you?
No. Every dark hole is not just an opportunity for growth, it is growth. Whatever her experience needs to be is something greater than me, and my petty neediness. I need to get right with the mom thing. I can’t keep walking around with this mom-shaped hole in my chest.
14 Ambrozzo tastes better than anything else, what does ambrozzo taste like?
Corn on the cob on a stick with mayo and parmesan cheese on it.
15 If you were a cliché, what cliché would you be?
I’m an Etta Candy. The loud fat friend who loves men, and food, and doesn’t apologize for either.
16 What is your least favorite part of any given day?
The part where I’m sitting in traffic.
17 Do you enjoy science fiction?
Yep.
18 Cheese or Chocolate?
Cheese forever.
19 Where would you live if you could live anywhere?
I don’t think I’ve been enough places to answer that question with any measure of reliability.
20 What was your first concert?
The Offspring in 8th grade.
21 If you could start a business that would be instantly successful, what kind of business would it be?
Something where I could make money laying on the beach and playing with my awesome dog. I don’t have a dog yet, but that’s pretty much perfect for me. So, blogging?
22 Invisibility or Time Travel?
Invisibility. I don’t like the kind of life I would live if I knew that time travel was an option.
23 What’s wrong with the world?
I want to say something smart like “that we think there’s something wrong with it,” but that’s only because I have no idea what’s wrong with it. Bad parenting, maybe. It seems like that’s where a lot of shitty people learn how to be shitty.
I leave you with this: