Like every man of sense and good feeling, I abominate work.

Green lines (don't do it). Table Cape, Tasmania's North West. February 2012.

Tuesday Q and A which normally means theft from Sunday Stealing. This week, The OC 25 Meme!

1. What is your origin of your first name? What about any nicknames?
My actual name is a shocker. Apparently it was quite a common male name in Scandinavia, as Kristen is the Danish and Norwegian form of Christian. Unfortunately, around about the time of the late-1970s (funny that) it emerged in English-speaking countries as a female name. Yes, it caused me no end of frustration through my formative years.

As for nicknames, well, my surname is McCracken, so what do you reckon they called me?

Bitter, Moi?

2. Have you any claims to fame?
None that I am aware of. Perhaps one day one of my children will make a splash!

3. If you were famous, how would you introduce yourself to someone who had never heard of you?
If they'd never heard of me, obviously I am not famous enough!

4. Which of your country's achievements do you hold in highest regard?
Australia's boring stability through over two hundred years of intense global change.

5. As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I really wanted to be a ladies man.

6. What was your most prized possession as a child? Do you still have it?
I can't really recall one. Stuff is stuff.

7. What would you change about yourself, if you could?
Oddly enough, I think that I would care less...

8. What are you obsessed with?
Finding out just what it is that I'd like to do next.

9. What is your greatest achievement so far, or the high point of your career?
Somehow I have managed to make it this far without assaulting anybody!

10. When/where were you happiest?
Whenever I get a kiss and a cuddle from the boys, I feel pretty happy.

11. And the lowest point in your life thus far?
Any time that combines stress and tiredness feels like a low. I try to remind myself that, from a comparative global level, my knocks have been absurdly minor...

12. What was the best decision you ever made?
Accepting that offer to go for a beer.

13. If you have any body modifications, which was most painful, or which do you regret the most? If you haven't got any, do you have any planned, or would you ever consider getting any?
I don't have any, don't ever plan on getting any and have absolutely no understanding as to why anyone would opt for such nonsense whatsoever. None of it does anything for me in the slightest.

14. What is the most idiotic thing you have ever done while intoxicated?
To be totally frank the answer is always the same: “to keep drinking”. I haven’t been ‘intoxicated’ since 2004 though, so I think that I have learned my lesson.

15. What is your favourite joke?
A paedophile and a little boy are walking into a forest late one night and the little boy – crying and upset – says to the paedophile, “ Jeez Mister, this forest is scary!"
So the paedophile replies, “I dunno what you’re snivelling about, I'm the one going to have to walk out of here all alone!"

16. What is the coolest/ most impressive thing you own?
There is nothing too wiz bang about either, but I am always impressed with what my computer and camera can do.

17. When did you last cry, and why?
I was reading Saša Stanišić‘s How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone. Why? It reminded me of how many innocent people – children and adults – are drawn into wars that have very little to do with them, but irrevocably alter (and often take) their lives. Sometimes the little things in tragedy that are the most moving.

18. What's the best piece of advice you've ever had?
“Don’t shit where you eat.”

19. Similarly, what is the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?
Love me.

20. Have you any vices?
I don’t think so. I sometimes surprise myself with how conventionally ‘moral’ I am.

21. Do you regret anything?
I regret lots of things!

22. What is the best invention ever?
Lego.

23. How would you describe your relationship with your family?
A benevolent dictatorship.

24. Who is your biggest inspiration?
I don’t have a single inspiration, more a ragtag assortment of people and events.

25. What are you going to do when you've finished Sunday Stealing?
Sleep.