Tomorrow, an old-fashioned blog post. Today, your questions.


Q. i would love it if my english professors would one day come to class and begin to lecture, instead of slumping down in a desk, arms crossed, and casually asking what we thought of King Richard III while lighting a cigarette.

A. I think it's actually pretty cool that you get to go to school in 1963.


Q. What did you major in?

A. I double-majored in Religious Studies and English lit.


Q. I don't remember if you said this on youtube or Maureen posted about it on her blog or you posted about it on your blog but I believe that the two of you were on a cooking show together. Can you provide footage?

A. That definitely sounds like something that Maureen made up.


Q. How do you pick the questions for both these blogs and the ones on question Tuesday?

A. There is certainly no system. I just go through and pull out questions that seem particularly interesting, or questions where I have a particularly strong opinion, or questions that strike me as lending themselves to funny answers.


Q. Do you think that our experience of the world is limited by language, or do you think it is possible to think and experience something we cannot verbalize?

A. See, this is an example of a question that is far too smart and difficult for me to answer. I have no idea. It is certainly possible to experience things we cannot verbalize, but I'm not sure whether that's our fault or language's fault.


Q. Would you die for your country?

A. Tough one. I mean, I should state as a preface that I'm not particularly convinced by nationalism. I find the whole my-country-right-or-wrong thing a little bit ridiculous. Even so, if we are talking about the right of a place to exist where there is representative democracy and citizens have broad freedoms of speech and expression: Yes.

Also: that moral calculus would totally change if I were to join the US Armed Forces (which at my age and fitness level is unlikely but not totally impossible). Members of the Armed Forces have an entirely different responsibility, not only to their country but also to their units and to the chain of command.


Q. I'm a library student and I have to do a book talk in a high school tomorrow and I'm really nervous. Any tips?

A. Oh, I don't blame you. High schools are terrifying. But that doesn't help. What helps me (and this may not help you either; if it's counterproductive I apologize although actually since your tomorrow is my today this advice is coming too late to matter anyway; now all we want to know is HOW DID IT GO?) but what helps me is to remember that my relationship with the thing I'm doing is very different from their relationship with the thing I'm doing.

Like, to me it is a VERY BIG DEAL because for however-many days/weeks/months I've been worrying about this talk that I'm going to give to high school students, but to them it is forty-five minutes out of a larger day, a day in which they will talk to boys and study and worry about boys and check their makeup and laugh about that thing that happened to that person and worry about the paper they've gotta write this weekend oh and also maybe pick up a book someone suggested to them. This helps me, to put myself in the periphery of other people's days.


Q. What do you say to the fangirly Nerdfighters who think they are in romantic love with you?

A. That doesn't really happen. I'm not saying that to be modest; I just don't think nerdfighters really construct me in a romantic-type way. (Hank, maybe. Maybe hot breakdancing Hank! But not me.) Which makes me happy. I don't want to be constructed in a romantic-type way except by, like, Sarah.