Questions For Mister Clay

Which of your personality traits do you like the best and why? Which of your physical traits?


I like my eclectic interests because it they allow me to be able to take part in or start conversations with just about anyone. Also, I am happy for my ability to disarm most of the people whom I find interesting so that I can learn more about them. I like it when people's guards are down. Oh, and I think I'm funny.

Physical is harder because I perceive myself as pretty all-around average. But I do like the color of my eyes and the shape of my jaw so I’ll say those two.

Of the seven deadly sins, which do you commit the most often? And which would you like to commit more? (and nothing like, I don’t believe in the seven deadly sins or anything like that, please)

In order of most commonly committed to least commonly committed I would suggest that my seven deadly sins would appear thus. Sloth, gluttony, lust, pride, greed, and wrath.

It’s difficult to say which one I would like to commit more but lust and pride are the two that I think appeal to me the most, so one of them certainly. This also seems fitting because in the order I have placed the seven these are the first two that appear which I don’t think are inherently undesirable in a majority of situations.

Who is the most intimidating person you know? Why do they intimidate you?

I will have to generalize on this one because in all honesty it is more a type of person than any one individual. Still, I hope you find my answer satisfying.

I find that the most intimidating people in the world for me are beautiful, open, self-confident women. I’m not talking about women who make themselves look good with make-up and clothes (as our society seems to demand) and walk around with a sense of superiority. There is little to be intimidated by in someone who wears a mask and thinks they’re better than they are. So too, in those who wear the mask to cover up their own self doubt.

What I mean is a naturally beautiful woman who knows that she is and doesn’t seek the approval of others by sacrificing personal style. I know this might sound odd. Like, “What, you’re scared of women?” But really, what’s any guy going to do that can compare to the way a woman like that can get into my head?

It’s also odd because these are exactly the type of people I find myself most drawn too and who I like to spend my time with, but again, I think that’s where a lot of the intimidation factor comes from. What it really comes down to is that at this point in my life I value my freedom above all other things and I truly believe that the only kind of person that could make me consider giving up that freedom (perhaps to regret it later, perhaps not) is a woman of this type.

Of course, this opens up a whole bunch of questions about regrets and alteration of life goals due to circumstance and developments but you didn’t ask me to explain my explanation so I’ll leave it at that.


If you could go see a movie and then have coffee with any person from history, who would you go to the movie with, what would you see, and what coffee would you order? And of course for all those, why?


Well, I will suppose that in this hypothetical situation I can assume that the person can speak and understand English so that I could actually talk to them about stuff so I won’t let that issue hamper my decision.
I think I would meet up with Leonardo da Vinci to watch and discuss “What the Bleep Do We Know?!”.

I choose Leo because it seems like he was one of the most intelligent and eclectically talented people in history. His interests and abilities covered the spectrum of human thought and expression. I chose “What the Bleep…” because I think it’s a movie that someone like da Vinci could appreciate as a means to stimulate discussion.

I would order café mocha because that’s what I always order.

Runners up…Ralph Waldo Emerson (Waking Life), Shakespeare (Eternal Sunshine of A Spotless Mind), Nietzsche (Waking Life).


Describe your best day (either real or imagined/potential) using all five senses.


Potential

I wake and the first thing I become aware of as I surface from the world of dreams, before the sunlight warming the backs of my legs or the breeze from the open window tickling across my naked back and shoulders, is her presence. It has only been a few days and I am still surprised, upon awakening, to find her here beside me. You get used to waking up alone after enough time. At first it’s just the vague awareness that it is not a mass of knotted bedding curled up under my arm. Then the external warmth there, the gentle, steady rhythm of breath that leads my mind slowly back along neural pathways toward freshly stored images of last night. I smell the incense that we burned, the wax. I taste the post-coital cigarettes clinging to my throat and tongue. It was a night of combustion. All that potential energy released as heat and light.

I don’t move. It’s been too long since I woke like this and I want to savor every moment. She stirs slightly, turning toward me, disturbed perhaps by dreams, and I too turn my head slightly to look at the visible fragments of her face. The rest obscured by pillow, bedclothes and what seems an inordinate amount of auburn hair. I breathe in the scent of her body as it is released by the movement of the sheet in which she has cocooned herself. She smells of sweat and vanilla. Of course, only one of these is natural. The other is ritually applied every evening after she comes into the bedroom, still dripping from the shower. St. Ives. This thought fires reflexive neurons and I reach out, nearly unconscious, and slowly slide my hand between the sheet and her skin. Both are smooth, soft, and warm but my sensitive palm and erogenous digits, of course, are meeting her supple flesh, leaving my duller-witted knuckles and the ungracious back of my hand to caress the lesser glory of the white linen (like wing men duly taking one for the team).

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Perhaps an hour later I am on the veranda in the sun, slowly turning pages on a novel I have heard the name of umpteen times in the last year, all in passing conversations with friends and acquaintances. I have not once heard it referred to on television or seen a review in a magazine or a newspaper. It is as good as I have been told it would be. It has drawn me in and created another world, one of escape. Looking up as I reach to take another sip of my solid, heavy mug of joe I survey the view from where I sit consider, “Of course, this is just as much a world of escape for me as any book will ever be.”

The surf comes in as always, rhythmically. It keeps perfect time in its disciplined effort to gain a foothold on the sand. Column after column of water surges forth in a spray of saline droplets only to be repelled in its assault by gravity and the inertia of such an expansive territory. Once in a while a frond of seaweed, a coconut, or other, more unnatural flotsam appears on the front, unwanted; another collateral victim.

I sometimes think of myself reflected in those bits of refuse when I am feeling fatalistic or melodramatic. After all, here I am on the shore of some foreign land, unable to either gain any real berth in this new region or to navigate my way back from whence I came. Even if I did find myself washed up on my native shores I would likely find them as strange as these, and as difficult to settle.

Disturbed by this thought I close my book, set it down next to my chair and down the remaining coffee in my cup. It has gone cold and seems to have taken on a new density. It coats my roof of my mouth and my throat as a swallow. I can feel it in spreading in my empty stomach as the small bumps on the back of my tongue send impulses to my brain that tell of bitterness.

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It is late afternoon and I look down across a long valley full of thousands upon thousands of unfamiliar but apparently deciduous trees. As this thought drifts away across the open air I realize that here, all trees are evergreens. The thought makes me happy but slightly nostalgic as I breathe deeply the scent of these strange species and rich, foreign soil. In this humidity, with the perpetual warmth of equatorial existence, it is easy to miss snow.

There are birds in those trees as well, not that I can see them. At least seven different calls can be heard from all directions. I choose a long drawn out warble in the upper registers as my favorite. It sounds like the noise a pie-plate UFO might make, as it’s monochromic form hovers over a secluded farmhouse, cornfields stretching out in all directions. The image makes me smile but soon another call, this one short and sharp brings me back into the world.

I have spent the last four hours hunching forward toward this view, fighting through dense underbrush, and I take it all in with a remembrance of that struggle. The sea is behind me now, over at least two ridges and I know that I only have a few moments if I am going to get back to my kitchen before darkness descends. This is important because I have no flashlight and the path I took to get here is really not much more than an idea. You can find paths like this on any mountain, any secluded area really, but most people don’t know how to look for them. They look out and up across the distance at some patch of ground where they would love to be but there is no sidewalk, boardwalk, or even a simple marked trail for them to follow so they file it away as unreachable and continue on their way, their footsteps overlaying those of thousands who came before.

Again, I smile. Slowly getting to my feet I feel the returning freshness in my legs and know that by the time I get home it will be gone. I’ll be tired, maybe even sore tomorrow, but, talking one last look around, it will have been worth it.

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I am in my kitchen with steam rising in front of me. It carries fragrant vapors into the air where they mingle into unknown recipes and float around the room. It’s almost ready. I step to my right, set down the glistening chrome spoon and wrap my hand around the ergonomic handle of my knife. I pick up a green capsicum and make a circular incision around its stem before tipping it upside down above my leavings bowl to shake out the seeds. I love that smell.

I cut it into halves and then quarters, each mathematic procedure registers with a satisfying crunch and the augmentation of aroma. I pick up one of these four pieces and take a bite off a corner. My mouth, awoken into anticipation by the intelligence gathered by its olfactory counterpart, rushes to dispatch reports of sensation to my brain. I put down the bit of shiny green flesh, stir the noodles with the shiny spoon, and continue to do my culinary arithmetic.

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The stars. My god, the stars.

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I lay with my head upon my pillow, numb in that way that presages sleep. I can hear the shower against the wall and imagine her movements. She is soaping her face in tiny circles with her fingertips. She is pouring thick glistening liquid into a spreading pool in her palm. She is rinsing her hair, water running in courses down her back and jumping in a small waterfall from her chin. I hear the water stop, reality taking less time than my reverie to make her clean, and the glass of the shower door tap gently on the wall. The bathroom door opens and I hear a light switch click. Her footfalls, almost too soft for me to hear, move closer until they stop at the open entrance into the bedroom. She probably thinks I’m sleep. Asleep with the light on. She flicks this switch too. The gray-pink of my world goes darker, becoming near black. Soon I smell vanilla. I dream.