MORE QUESTIONS!

MORE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

(Hannah McCrane Strikes Again!)

Let’s pretend you’re broken down to your main personality traits. What are they and what fuels them?

Gracious! I just googled personality traits! There are 638 personality traits!!! 234 of them are positive; 292 are neutral; and 292 are negative.

So, where do I begin?  I’ll guess I’ll pick five of each that jump out at me (for which I have explanations as to what fuels them) and stop there!

Positive:

Creative. (What fuels it?  I think we’re all creative in some way. It’s part of what makes us human. So, my DNA?)

Contemplative. (Curiosity is what fuels my contemplative nature, I suppose.)

Decisive. (My drive to reach goals is what fuels my decisiveness.)

Disciplined. (Same as above.)

Ebullient. (My core nature seems to be JOY. The undamaged, essential me is bubbling over with joy and positivity.)

Neutral:

Amusing. (My desire to entertain and not be taken too seriously fuels this. I used joking as a kid to hide my insecurities, too. I don’t feel insecure anymore, so I probably come across as less amusing than I did when I was younger and more insecure.)

Boyish. (Self explanatory! What fuels this is I am a boy!)

Cerebral. (What fuels this is my desire to be taken seriously, to be respected. I don’t take a stand half-heartedly. When I take a stand, I have thought it through carefully and feel I can defend it as a result.)

Moralistic. (I’m not sure what fuels this. I guess growing up watching shows with designated good guys and bad guys, and my basic sense of fair play and justice, fuel this personality trait.)

Solitary. (I’m not sure if this is nature or nurture; that is, if solitariness is natural to me or if I felt ostracized for being gregarious as a youngster. I feel more comfortable alone than I do with other people. I need my space.  My best friends understand this and they are very much like me in this same way. People who aren’t this way can really be put off by people who like frequent solitude and alone-ness.)

Negative:

Abrasive. I can be abrasive when I’m tired, overly hungry, or uncommonly frustrated.  And I don’t suffer fools lightly. (But rarely do I come across as abrasive to them. I just make myself scarce so they don’t get an inkling about what I’m feeling because I hate hurting people’s feelings. I don’t like it when my feelings are hurt, so I do my best to avoid hurting others’ feelings.)

Aloof. If I don’t have an answer to someone’s challenge or dilemma, I can come across as aloof.  When I feel inadequate to serve, I usually withdraw emotionally by saying (as Lisa will tell you!), “I don’t know what to tell you…” But this doesn’t mean I’m usually aloof. I’m only aloof when thrown for a loop. I’m a “fixer” at heart.  What drives this personality trait?  Perhaps I adopted my mom’s stoic nature. (“If you can’t fix it, why stress over it? Change the subject. Move on.”)

Blunt.  Some people might consider me blunt, because I don’t couch my opinions in diplomatic (or feminine) jargon. My words are transparent and straightforward; there is no grey area.  Examples: “Your website could really use some professional copy editing and enhancement.” “Wearing that color makes you look green.” “Seriously?! How can you believe that in spite of your own eyes and ears?!”  What fuels this personality trait varies.  Honesty is crucial to me. Unless I tell the truth as I see it, as clearly as I can, the other person isn’t given the information they need to decide what to do next, or what to think about me.  My political bluntness is another manifestation of wanting to be clear and unambiguous about my political priorities:  fair play and justice for all, celebration of diversity. etc.

Impatient.  I’m less impatient now than I have ever been in the past, but my dad was impatient and I adopted that for a lot of years because, by golly, it worked to keep me moving forward.  But I was impatient with other peoples’ more patient ways for a very long time.  I can still be put off when someone says they’ll arrive at a certain time and don’t show up until 20 or 30 minutes later. I consider that rude and disrespectful of my time.  But of course, that extra time belongs to me, too, so I haven’t really lost it–I’ve just had to think of something else to do with it, and that’s hard because I don’t know how long that extra time will last, so starting something else seems dicey.

Repressed.  I’ve been repressed most of my life and still am in  some ways. Being transgender and celibate means repressing my sexuality. I don’t think I’m repressed in many other ways, though, except by patriarchal and cis-normative parameters. My book Womb Man goes into some of that…

What do you look for in a friendship? Someone who’s well-read, “gets” me, loves many of the same things I do (critters, good books, live plays, local and exotic adventures, etc.) and has a sense of humor. Someone I can laugh with, and someone I can call at 3 a.m. if I have a crisis or just need to vent. (I’ve never had to call anyone at 3 a.m., thankfully, but I know that if I had to, my best friends would jump into their clothes and come running.)

If you could describe life in one word, what would it be?  I love Anatole France’s quote: “The truth is that life is delicious, horrible, charming, frightful, sweet, bitter, and that is everything.”

There is no one word to describe life. Life is varied, as beautifully expressed above.  I have this quote framed on my wall, to remind me to expect it all!

If you could successfully implement one thing into society, what would it be? (This could be something you feel was once there but was lost or something that you feel was never part of society to begin with.)  

A reverence for diversity. Human, animal, environmental. A universal awareness that, “everywhere beneath the sun, everyone needs everyone.”

If you had to switch lives with someone for a day, who would you pick and why?

Only if I HAD TO would I switch lives with someone else.  And I guess it would be Barack Obama.  Why?  I’d want to grab his katra (Star Trek, folks) and see if I could hang onto some of it when the day was over. I’d like to get that close to Michelle Obama, too, without her thinking it was creepy. She amazes the stuffing out of me! SHE is the reason I worked so hard for and voted for Obama the first time!

What do you think De and Carolyn would think of the world today?

God, I’m glad they aren’t here to see it.  I am soooo glad of that. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t here to see it.

The Kelleys were part of the so-called Greatest Generation.  They gave and gave and gave.  The powers that be these days seem to be myopic, greedy, selfish and uninterested in helping anyone but themselves and their “familiars” in ivory towers.

I’m with Mark Twain, and I think the Kelleys and Mister Rogers would be, too. Twain wrote in his 70’s,  “People call me a pessimist in my old age, but I’m not. I am an optimist who did not arrive.”

I expected our nation to EVOLVE between the time I was ten and seventy but we’re still fighting the same battles.  And we damn’ near lost this last one.  I think De and Carolyn would be appalled.  I know I am!

Since it’s almost Christmas, let’s keep pretending for a minute and say you were visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past. Just as Scrooge’s ghost did, yours takes you to significant moments from your past that made you who you are today. Where, or when, does your ghost take you?

My ghost takes me to visit with Alpha Rossetti (my most significant junior high teacher), Mister Dobbs (my most significant high school teacher), DeForest Kelley, Ted Crail (Creative Services Director at the Animal Protection Institute where I worked for four years–he wrote APETALK AND WHALESPEAK) so I could thank them all for believing in and encouraging me as a writer.  If I could do anything in the past, that’s what I would choose to do: to take the time to let them know how grateful I am for having yaysayers who kept reminding me I was destined to string words together, no matter how long the road or how steep the climb.

UPDATE

RESPONSE FROM HEIDI SMITH

(a dear friend, but not a relative, just so you know!) 

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