Just Finished Working

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Living in a gorgeous seaside house with the person I love the most.

What is your greatest fear?
Genetic Manifest Destiny, or turning into a hideous little ball of nothing but my family's ugliest traits.

Which living person do you most admire?
I can’t choose just one. I admire many people for many different things.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Procrastination.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Meanness of spirit.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Uh, flowers? I have not been extravagant in some time.

On what occasion do you lie?
When it keeps the peace among the natives.

Which living person do you most despise?
I don’t want to despise. There are a few people who totally annoy me, though, but let’s not go there.

When and where were you happiest?
Again, I can’t name one thing above all else. But I was ecstatic walking the streets of Florence, and visiting the Louvre.

Which talent would you most like to have?
I would like to be able to draw and paint like a fiend.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Self-preservation. With style.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
To be dead while one is still alive.

Where would you like to live?
By the sea.

What is your favorite occupation?
Art.

What do you most value in your friends?
Their sense of humor and intelligence.

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
I adore Count Ladislaus De Almasy in Ondaatje’s English Patient. He’s tragic and crazy and utterly romantic.

I also think Lara Croft is cool, and wish she were around when I was a kid.

Who are your heroes in real life?
Carlo.

Ellen McArthur, who now holds the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the world.

What is it that you most dislike?
Rudeness and arrogance.

How would you like to die?
Under the direction of the guys who conceptualized the Athens Olympics Opening Ceremony.

What is your motto?
Cultivate personal pleasures. Do not live small. Be happy.