Answer Me This, Vol. 12 - Shoes and Maps

Welcome to Answer Me This! The Q&A style linkup hosted by Kendra over at Catholic All Year which is super fun and easier than coming up with my own content. It's also known as the internet's favorite virtual cocktail party! (in my opinion, at least)

1. What's something you've won and how did you win it?
When I was 11 (6th grade) I won the class English Award. My Language Arts teacher made a very lovely speech about my writing and my poetry and said, "It is my hope that one day she will give me an autographed copy of her first published work." Every time I get a poem published I send her a signed copy. She fostered my love of writing and words and inspired me so very much. Someday I hope to be able to hand her a properly published novel or chapbook of poems, not just literary magazines.

2. Do you save old greeting cards and letters, or throw them all away? Why?
I generally save these kinds of things, primarily because I've been consistently writing letters to friends and loved ones for several years. (You can read more about my letter writing in this post and this post.) I don't get that many greeting cards, but I save the best birthday cards from each year, handmade cards from little people, and letters I'll generally save forever. I try to go through and bunch them up by sender periodically so I don't have dozens of loose letters laying about in odd places.

I obviously made attempts to blur out my address as well as the return addresses
of my pen friends because there are weirdos on the internet.

I have a big box of letters, cards, notes, etc. from my bff which I've had since middle school. She and her mom relocated and we went to a lot of effort to keep in touch any way we could. I still save my birthday and Christmas cards from her that I get most years. Someday I'll scrapbook all of them, but not today.

3. When you're at home, do you wear shoes, socks, slippers, or go barefoot?
BAREFOOT for me. SOCKS for the person I live with (because he's weird and has to constantly be wearing socks which I don't understand). My Asian friends tease me because there's a giant pile of shoes by my front door and I automatically enter my house and kick off my shoes. Part of this is because I like the feeling of carpet and I don't like wearing shoes unnecessarily in general (I went through a whole phase in college where I just didn't wear shoes, at all, ever. I wasn't the only one, either.), and part of it is because I like to keep our carpet as clean as possible because it was brand new when we moved in 3 years ago and still looks fantastic. This is due in part to the no shoes policy and partly because I make my housemate vacuum every afternoon.

But I don't have a problem with other people wearing shoes inside. When folks come over (which is almost never), I tell them they can take their shoes off if they wish, but they don't have to. I want my guests to be comfortable. Sometimes that means they take off their shoes and sometimes they don't. I'm not fussy about it.

In other people's houses (except my parents' house), I generally leave my shoes on unless I'm asked to remove them. For me, keeping my shoes on feels more respectful of the fact that it's their house, not my house.

Otherwise, the only time I'm wearing socks is when I'm wearing sneakers/tennis shoes, and I only wear slippers/slipper socks when it's freezing cold and I want to be able to feel my toes.


4. Who's the most famous person you've ever met?
 I met Andy Grammer before he was famous. Oh yeah.

5. What has been your best work of art?
The essay I wrote about rainbows. It's actually about tattoos and stories and my friend Harriett. I wrote in my second year of college and of all of my essays, that one was my favorite and definitely the one I was proudest of. (If I can find it, I'll see about transcribing it into a post of its own and linking it.)

6. What's your strongest sense? 
I have an excellent sense of direction. I very rarely get lost and if I have east/west directions, I can find my way if I can orient to large landmarks. I still remember being about 7 years old and my dad saying that as long as I was home in Southern California, the mountains were always north, the beach was always west with the sunset. Even when my mother and I were in Europe I was good with directions and finding my way around cities I'd never seen before. As long as I had a map, I was pretty much set.

So that's it for this round of Answer Me This! If you have a blog, answer the questions and link up with us over at Kendra's in this post. Don't have a blog but still want to play? That's okay because this whole thing is made up and the posts don't matter - leave your answers in the comments either at Kendra's post or right here! I'd love to hear from you.



love,
Willow


Photo Credits:
Andy Grammer photo: By Mikec6282 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

"The Best Coast" credit: Know Where Co. 


*Author's Note: The "Answer me This" logo image belongs to Kendra Tierney over at Catholic All Year. The photos of my shoes and my letters are my property.  The other image(s) in this post are not my property and I have given credit as best I can where possible. Thank you for not suing.*