WordPress Default Gravatar: The Japecake Interview

What do you call that color? Off-lavender? Dusty mauve? Grayple?
I don’t know. I’m not into labels. I guess I’m somewhere in the neighborhood of Pantone 5225, 5235.

My first impression when I saw you sitting there was “patchwork quilt square.” Was I right?
I get that a lot. I’ve also been described as an Art Deco pinwheel, a cyberpunk rotary saw, and the bastard child of an Easter egg and a Chinese throwing star. I got an e-mail from a guy who swears he knows me from Phillips Exeter, though I prepped at Phillips Andover. People read into you what they want to see.

To be honest, there is kind of an unapproachable air about you. I have to admit that when you stood up to greet me a few minutes ago, I was nervous as hell to shake your hand. I really expected a serious laceration.
Let me see your hand. See? Not a mark.

And you ordered us some sushi and sake, which was nice.
Well, look. I’ve never claimed to be a saint, but I like to think that basically I am a nice guy. Do I look like I’m studded with shards of broken glass and razor wire? Maybe. Does that mean I’m going to shred you to ribbons? Absolutely not. People get so hung up on appearances. It’s a shame. I pay my taxes, give blood once a month, and volunteer as a Big Brother. I clip coupons, play on a hockey team, and watch the History Channel. Apart from my ridiculously large collection of antique shaving mugs, I guess you could say I’m as normal as they come.

Is there anyone special in your life?
Well, the job makes anything like a real relationship pretty difficult. The hours are so unpredictable. You’re always on call. Some blogger is completely convinced that she’s writing the Great American Novel, so she’s posting about her “process” three times a day. And then you get the guy who’s all gung-ho to blog about building a log cabin for like three days, then not a word for two months.

It must be frustrating.
Not really. You just need to know what you’re getting into with this line of work. Gravataring is a service industry. The customer is always right. You’re not there to judge, tempting as it may be sometimes. I try to just go with the flow. My yoga instructor has gotten me sort of curious about Zen Buddhism, so I’ve been exploring that some, and I find that it really helps to keep me on an even keel.

The more I hear you speak, the more I do sense a kind of pervasive calm about you. Is there anything that upsets you?
“Anything that upsets me.” Hmm. I don’t know. [Long pause] You know, there is one thing. You know those guys who put those nickel-sized holes in their ears and wear those goddamn ear plugs? Did you ever see one of those guys walking around without the plugs, and they have these huge, stretched-out, holey ear lobes that are just kind of hanging there and flapping? That I could do without. One man’s body modification is a freaking horror show for everyone else.

When I first contacted you about an interview, I was surprised to hear that you were actually familiar with Japecake.
I’d love to blog myself, but, again, I just don’t have time for that kind of thing. But yes, I do follow a few blogs, including Japecake, which I dip into whenever I have a spare moment.

Oh, yeah? What do you think of it? Be honest.
Generally amusing, and occasionally quite funny. You’ve been a little hard on the Amish, for my money, but you could stand to go a little harder on Mitch Albom. By the way, WTF was up with the fornicating popcorn? Sick, dude.

You mentioned an interest in Zen Buddhism. Would you say there’s a philosophy that governs your life? 
You know, we all like to think that we’re here for a purpose, but in the end, it may just be that each of us is nothing more than the product of a program that automatically generates symmetrical, rotationally symmetrical, or quasi-symmetrical monochromatic geometric formations within the confines of a square. And then randomly assigns us to a new user. 

That’s pretty insightful, if a little bleak.
No, not at all. I’ve learned to embrace and cherish the ephemerality of existence. One day you’re here, the next you’ve been replaced by a photo of a cat wearing Groucho glasses, or one of the Scooby Doo characters smoking a joint. One of my best friends, an azure-verging-on-cyan guy with a really striking Moorish tile kind of pattern, disappeared into thin air one day, only to be replaced by a unicorn barfing a rainbow. Sometimes, that’s just how it goes. [Long pause as his expression tenses.] Sorry. Wasabi went down the wrong way.