I need your help! And there's something in it for you...

Greetings slackers friends,
I need to pick your big beautiful brains – this will only take a few minutes of your time. A few months back, I shared a list of questions (see below). Click here to read the original blog post.

Please answer these questions no later than January 1 (For you slackers out there, that's technically next year so scoop yourself off the floor...for you realists, that's 4 weeks away so giddy up.) So far, I've gotten close to 100 responses - through my blog, email, face-to-face, in dark shadowy recesses of back alleys throughout the country - and I've started to compile all the answers.

By sharing your responses with me, you hereby to and furthermore with fore-here-to-with-and-in grant me permission to use them as part of my essays. (Incidentally no, I'm not a lawyer. However, I should likely get one.) I will never use your name; all responses will be kept anonymous. Your thoughts will be compiled as part of the overall response to each question. Just flip an email with your responses to janita@sasktel.net. Create an anonymous email account if you want; I don't need to know who it's from, I just want to hear from you. In the coming months, I will share the results in my column for Grainews as well as here on my blog. Please forward this on to anyone else who you think may be interested in participating.

Your responses are what I want to share with my children one day.
Your responses are what I want them to know about real life.

Why?

Because learning from each other is the magic of life.
Finding humour in our collective ridiculousness is the magic of life.
The ability to laugh at ourselves is the magic of life.
Recognizing regrets, and doing something about them, is the magic of life.
Finding beauty in the unexpected is the magic of life.
Finding beauty in others is the magic of life.
Finding beauty in yourself, and sharing your gifts with the world, is the magic of life. 

And who knows? It may even become part of a book one day. Now that'd be a book I'd want to leave for my children, seeing as I'll be spending a significant portion of my time explaining my first book to them. I imagine that conversation will go something like this:

"No, I was not a raging alcoholic. We just used to drink a lot. Of course it's fiction! Who told you that? As if. Don't believe everything you hear. I suppose you'd jump off a cliff with that person, too? What do you think I am, a monster? Repeat after me, fiction. What? Me, smoke? Never you mind. If I ever catch you smoking, I'll make you chain-smoke Export A Green Death until you spew. If that doesn't kill you, I will. That's all you need to know. What's that? Go to your room." 

What’s in it for you? By responding, you’ll have a chance to win a limited edition hardcover copy of my book Postcards Never Written. If that doesn’t get you all geared up and excited, then you’re likely made of wood.

 

 Time permitting, I may even toss in all the crap on the back table.

Don't ever accuse me of not caring...

 

Here's a photo of some of the actual loot I'll include along with my book.

 Child not included. Although that may just depend on the day we're having when the mail gets packed up.

Incidentally, if you've never heard of the company BlueQ, then you don't know what you're missing.
And no, this isn't a paid sponsorship. This is simply me telling you that their shit is very, very funny.

 

 

They have the perfect gifts for those friends who have everything. (I guess that would be all of us.)
Check out their site by clicking here. You won't regret it.

You may pee your pants, but you likely won't regret that either.

How can you not like something packaged with the slogan:

"Horrify your family. Entertain your friends."

Act now. Put joy back into your holiday season.

So without further ado, here are my questions to you: (Only answer the questions you feel like talking about and then flip an email back to me.)

1. Who (or what) is your greatest love?
2. What (or who) is your worst fear?
3. What is your biggest regret? Have you done something about it?
4. Which of your nipples hurts more, the right or the left?
5. What's the one topic we should talk about more openly? (Translation: something you wish you could bring up more often but just don't, for whatever reason...)
6. What's the most useful lesson you've ever learned in school? (from Kindergarten to PhD...pick the most useful lesson.)
7. What's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done? (This was a tough choice for me as I only had 3,624 embarrassing incidents to choose from.)
8. What's the best financial advice you've ever received?
9. If you could go back and tell a younger version of yourself just one thing, what would it be?
10. What's the one thing you wish you'd spend less time worrying about?
11. What's one simple, magical thing that makes you smile every time you experience it? (Example: the sound of a child giggling, the smell of freshly-mowed grass...)
12. What's the one thing you wish someone would have told you?
13. If you could ask God one question, what would it be?
14. What's the greatest lesson you've learned in life thus far?
15. If given the opportunity to have a one-minute glance at your life 10 years from now, would you take it? Why or why not?
16. Thinking back to your ideals and dreams for the future when you were younger, has your life turned out as you thought it would? Why or why not?
17. At the end of each day, when you pause for a second to contemplate your life, what do you say to yourself?
18. What's your secret to leading a fulfilling life? Put another way, what's the motto you live by?
19. If you could make just one wish for your children, what would it be?

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your responses.
It really means a lot to me. Janita xo

ps. So long, November...you were such a bitch.