Tagged.

Edited to fix nested links.

Someone bit me. I guess I'm it, but just this once. Hear me?

1. What were three of the stupidest things you have done in
your life?

1. I married a nasty man just so I could feel grown up. To compound the stupidity, I stayed with him for almost a decade.
2. I took advantage of a good friend and hurt him badly and he isn't my friend any more.
3. I really wasted the opportunities I paid for as an undergraduate. I would like to do my undergraduate education over again. I don't know that I would make different choices, but I would pay attention, at least.

2. At the current moment, who has the most influence in your life?

My daughter. She rules my life. She determines my schedule, my priorities, my plans, my moods... and I wouldn't have it any other way, for now.

3. If you were given a time machine that functioned, and you were allowed to only pick up to five people to dine with, who would you pick?

1. My father. God, how I miss him.
2. My grandfather. He was a self-made man, and listening to these and these, I keep wishing I'd paid more attention to his stories.
3. My grandmother. What an amazing woman she was, and ahead of her time. She was a foot soldier in the Women's Liberation Movement. I should have spent more time with her.
4. My husband's grandparents. Both were immigrants (from different countries) who came to the U.S. in the early 1900s. There's a lot of lost history on that side of the family.

4. If you had three wishes that were not supernatural, what would they be?

1. Health, happiness and long life for my daughter. I'll count that as one wish.
2. Neo-conservatives everywhere realize that they are terribly, horribly wrong and the North American continent becomes a powerhouse for social progress.
3. "The media" develops a social conscience and strives for truth and clarity rather than advertising dollars and advancement of agendas.

5. Someone is visiting your hometown/place where you live at the moment. Name two things you regret your city not having, and two things people should avoid.

1. Regret: No beaches. I'm going to retire to someplace with big, sandy beaches.
2. Regret: Outside of the university, there's no place you can sit and hear people speaking a foreign language.
3. Avoid: Strip-mall Hell on the East side
4. Avoid: Engineered faux-city downtown Hell on the North side.

6. Name one event that has changed your life.

At a really low point in my life, I moved into a really dreadful apartment (no heat, cockroaches the size of sparrows) in a run-down little house across the alley from the man who is now my husband.

7. Tag 5 people.

Nope, sorry. Tag yourself, if you want. These meme things are starting to smell like chain letters.