Becoming Known

If you ever watch The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, you may have seen the segment where he uses a "highly scientific questionnaire" of 15 life-defining questions to interview his guest celebrities and make them "known" to the world. Those interviews are always fun and I often give my own answers along with the celebrities. Some of them are quite witty and somewhat educational, I think, so I've decided to write them down.

1. Best sandwich?

From childhood: Grandma's freshly baked bread with a layer of home-made butter half-melted into it, face-dunked in sugar. As an adult, I rarely eat sandwiches. You should ask me what my favorite soup is (borsch and Turkish lentil soup that I make quite often).

2. What's one thing you own that you really should throw out?

I'm a purger, so there's not much I keep that I don't use. But I do keep the clothes I don't fit anymore that were made by my sister. I hope my niece would like them enough to wear them one day.

3. What is the scariest animal?

Grisly bear.

4. Apples or oranges?

Oranges. Apples make me gassy, which is embarrassing at my age.

5. Have you ever asked someone for their autograph?

Yes, from the Russian astronaut Sergey Krikalev, when I met him in Houston in 1996, where he was training alongside Americans. At the time, he held the record for the longest human stay in space: He had been sent on his second international space mission by the Soviet Union on 19 May 1991 and returned to a newly independent Russia on 25 March 1992, after the USSR collapsed, having spent a total of 311 days in space. I did get his autograph but I don't know where it is now.

6. What do you think happens when we die?

We become stardust. Hopefully, our loved ones will keep us in their memories and hearts.

7. Favorite action movie?

The most recent one I loved. Right now, it's The Fall Guy. But I watch a lot of action movies and love many of them, hard to pick only one favorite.

8. Favorite smell?

Lavender and vanilla. Can't stand lavender alone, reminds me of the only scented soap we had access to in my Soviet childhood, the lavender soap. Too much of a good thing, I guess. But when lavender is mixed with just a touch of vanilla, I find it beautiful, pleasing and relaxing.

9. Least favorite smell?

Pine-scented air freshener. It was the first type of air freshener that was available in the post-Soviet space in the 1990s (lots of pines in Russian Siberia). If you walk into the restroom where someone used it after going #2, it smells like someone took a dump under a pine tree.

10. Exercise: worth it? (I never hear that question in actual interviews with celebrities, so I believe they replaced it for the show with 10a).

Absolutely, if you can be disciplined enough to stick with it.

10a. Earliest childhood memory?

A trip to Moscow with my father by train around my 3rd Birthday. I wrote a story about it, which is available here on Vocal.

11. Flat or sparkling?

Sparkling. If you mix it 1:1 with an organic pineapple juice, it's the best drink in the world.

12. Most used app on your phone?

Vocal Reader. You should check it out, it's full of great stories and poems by modern writers.

13. You get one song to listen to for the rest of your life: What is it?

Bach's WTC, both volumes. It will keep me going forever.

14. What number am I thinking of?

Please specify the range: is it 0 to 10, 0 to 100, or something higher? I want to know my odds of guessing it right before I tell you.

15. Describe the rest of your life in 5 words?

She taught some people well.