Once more, breaching my intos

Another question go-round. 5 questions have come my way, and I am internets-honor bound to answer them. Ask five of me, and I’ll give them. Post the responses in your own space, along with these instructions.

lj user scarlettina puts forth :

1) From which of the First Nations peoples does your family come and what percentage of your background is it?

My father is a Creek Indian. His father was not. Unless you’re particularly geeky, you’ve probably never heard of them, since according to Mr. 20 dollar bill, we’re all Cherokee now. He has a white man’s name, and gave it to me to carry after him. I have no idea what my grandmother called him, I have no memories of her.

Percentage is a wacky term. In every way but one, my father was a white redneck from Alabama. And yet. the drums beat in his heart. If I’d known him, I could tell you more.

2) What’s the one greatest way in which your Native American heritage has affected your general perspective?

Until high school, it was just this thing. Most folks just assumed I was part Mexican or (no joke) Japanese. Since I knew my mother and her heritage more, I more strongly identified with them. But it’s hard to explain Bohemians and the rape of slavic culture by Wilson and the League of Nations to a bunch of pre-alchoholic teens in Northern Idaho.

But Indian, everyone can get behind that. So many creative things that can be said to the dark-skinned, slanty-eyed kid.

In college, I started to study tribal cultures like the ones from which my parents came. Not finding anything of value in the books provided by the “system,” I started reading the ones that were not so easy to find.

And then I got angry. -Er.

Americans forget things. Or more accurately, they chose not to Know them. But I don’t want to go off on a rant.

3) In answer to someone else’s question, you said (to paraphrase) that you love Seattle because it has all the cultural enticements of a large city but still feels small enough to keep you comfortable, but that you could do without all the trees due to allergies. How big a city would make you uncomfortable, and at what point does a lack of green become dehumanizing?

More accurately, I like Seattle because it is a big city (one absolutely poised to explode into a Great one), and I like all the neighborhoods that people actually live in that are essentially small towns.

I would happily live in the Caves of Steel. I sit and type these words in a small, comfortable room with white walls and no plants, in an artificially maintained and regulated environment.

And I like it.

4) You regularly assert that you hate people, but you seem pretty social and pretty genial to me (though no one can deny you have an edge). What’s up with the people-hating, or do I misunderstand?

People suck. A lot. They make me angry, what with all their people-ness, and general suckitude.

And as often as I do it, I don’t like being angry.

There are small, controlled groups of people (mainly composed of those with whom I have pre-existing relationships) in which I can be comfortable. Then there is everywhere else

5) What profession other than your own (and excluding fulltime writing) would you like to attempt? (When all else fails, Bernard Pivot’s questionnaire ia always a good back-up….)

Attempt, or be interested in? I wanted to be a theoretical physicist (which , of course, would involve full-time writing). Things just got turned in a different direction.

I would like to teach. I would also like to be a cop. Or a pilot. Or a musician/performer. I think of those options, only the first is possible, but the latter happen in the dream world every so often.