100 Things - 95-97

95. I was obsessed with 21 Jump Street reruns in junior high school and secretly wanted to be an police officer like Judy Hoffs - a confession that makes people who know me well laugh hysterically.  Despite the fact that I have horrible aim and am prone to bouts of impressive clumsiness, I still think I'd have made a kick-ass undercover cop.  Plus, since I still get asked when my mom will be home by the meter man, I totally could have had a long career doing drug busts in high schools.

96. I had a crush on Doug Penhall, not Tom Hanson.

97. I finished my taxes last week due, in part, to coffee, popcorn, and St. Elmo's Fire, Funny Farm, and 21 Jump Street on Netflix.

100 Things - 91-94

Oh my gosh! I didn't mean to disappear from my blog like that.  Since I've made Tuesdays and Thursdays writing-only days, I've had a little trouble trying to cram the rest of the week into Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  But I am getting tons of writing done.  Which is good, since I'm, you know, a writer and all.  I am, however, a writer who does not have a single clean towel in the house at the moment.

Anyway, to get back into the swing of things, here's a few more items for my 100 things list.

91. When I'm putting away dishes, glasses have to go in the cabinet upside down and mugs go in right side up.  I don't know why.

92. I sleep with four pillows.  I know that's ridiculous.

93. When I was a kid, I used to kiss frogs.  Just in case.

94. My dream car is a 1970's era Karmann Ghia, but since I never learned manual, I wouldn't actually be able to drive it.  Plus, the dogs wouldn't fit.

100 Things - 87-90

Yeah, I'm still kind of boring over here, other than the fact that I got to have dinner with the #7 Book Club this week to chat about STAY, publishing, and the writing process.  They were eager for a sequel and full of opinions as to what Diane might be up to these days.  It was awesome.  And I got to hear a very funny story from one of the members about trying to replace her library copy of STAY after it fell in the bathtub.

The #7 ladies (who have been meeting for about 15 years!) are amazing and hysterical, and I had a lovely time.  I love the way meeting with fellow book lovers always seems to feel like a gathering of old friends even if I haven't met them before.

Other than that and lunch with a friend it's been all work and no play around here, with a little laundry thrown in for good measure.  Oh, and my Happy Birthday-Singing Friend (HBSF) missed yesterday, so today I got both a be-lated Happy Birthday call and today's Happy Birthday call.  It was kind of awesome.  I am tempted to figure out how to save all the messages to my computer and post them.  I won't, because I'm not sure HBSF would be too thrilled with it, but I am tempted.

So here's another stab at my 100 Things List.

87.  I desperately miss diner salads from downstate.  The diners up here aren't the same.  I'm not saying they're worse, or better, they just aren't the same.

88. I just re-read The Ordinary Princess by M. M. Kaye and am so happy that it was an influence on me in my formative years.

89. ghhhhhhhhf (that one was from Argo, who seems to think that I would like having a Kong dropped on my keyboard repeatedly).

90. I desperately miss my friends from downstate, even more than salads.

100 Things - 80-86

So, here's the thing. I'm kind of boring when I'm writing. I can't tell you what's going on with my characters right now, and that's really the bulk of what's going on with me at the moment. But I realized the other day that I started the 100 things meme and stopped at 79 in May of 2009. I think it's time to get back to it!

80. I compose e-mails in my head while I'm away from the computer.  Which is great, until I think I've actually sent the email when I haven't.  I wish there were a way to just download my thoughts and send them.  I've tried dictation software, but it's not effective for me.  So if you feel I owe you an e-mail, there's a big chance that it's bouncing around my brain.

81. I don't like birthdays, so I don't tend to tell people when mine is. One of my friends feels it's unfair that I know his birthday when he doesn't know mine. He's been calling every day since mid-January to sing happy birthday to my voicemail in protest. If you do know when my birthday is, don't tell. Let's see how long he keeps it up.

82. The birthday thing has nothing to do with age, I just like ordinary days better than "special" ones.

83. I have a high tolerance/need for alone time. I absolutely love people and can be incredibly social, but I have learned that I'm most productive when I balance that with time alone.

84. I have a fear of having a fear of heights (Acrophobiaphobia?). At Ithaca, I had to do set construction crew for a show freshman year. I was kind of a tomboy and spent a lot of time climbing trees as a kid. So when they needed someone to climb up to the catwalk, lean over the railing, and grab a backdrop hanging a few feet away, I volunteered, because I thought it would be cool to get to walk around up there.  I climbed up (I think it was 60 feet in the air, but maybe this has turned into a fish story - 40 feet?), got halfway across the catwalk and started to grab for the backdrop. I suddenly thought that if I pulled too hard when I grabbed the backdrop, I could stumble and fall off the other side of the catwalk. The next thing I knew I was on my hands and knees and COULD NOT MOVE. AT ALL. My body completely gave out on me, and it came out of nowhere.  It took the crew chief and a few other crew members about 20 minutes to talk me down.  Someone finally had to come up and crawl back down with me, step by step.  It was mortifying, and so frightening to have my body/mind fail on me that way.  Now, I get major heebie jeebies about heights, but it's not a fear of falling as much as a fear of triggering that kind of fear response.  I never want to feel that frozen again.

85. As a teenager, I worked in an office that played adult contemporary music over the intercom. As a result, I know the words to an obscenely wide array of easy listening songs, which I sing at J when random words/situations remind me of them. For example: Getting a bogie in Wii golf the other day meant J had to listen to me singing this all afternoon.

86. I completely and totally realize how lucky I am to have married a man with such a great sense of humor and incredible patience.

100 Things - 71-79

71. I rarely spell the word biscuit right on the first try.

72. I played Noah in a summer camp production of a musical about Noah's Ark when I was 13 or so. Spirit-glued beard and everything.

73. I hate the sound of birds chirping. I'm kind of embarrassed by this, but it's the truth. Like nails on a blackboard. There are tons of birds around our house b/c Mrs. Gnome feeds them, and I wish they'd just shut up already. And also, it would be nice if they'd stop pooping on our bedroom window.

74. I really, truly, and deeply love being 32.

75. I've always thought it would be fun to drive a steamroller.

76. I miss J when he's at work. Even if we're doing separate things, having him around makes me happy.

77. I can always make my left ankle crack.

78. I never get tired of watching the dogs run in their sleep.

79. My freshman year in college, I had this really cute new skirt and white flower patterned tights (shut up, it was the mid-90's), and I wore them for the first time on this beautiful spring day and people kept smiling at me - huge, beaming grins. I felt so cute in that skirt and I was convinced they were all smiling at me because I was so cute and it was so beautiful out and life was grand. It put this little spring in my step. I'll admit it, I was strutting in my high heeled sneakers (shut up, it was the mid-90's). I got back to my dorm room and realized that my skirt had been caught on my backpack, and I had just walked through campus showing everyone my butt, encased in stupid purple underwear and white tights. Now, when people I don't know smile at me, I am highly suspicious.

100 Things - 65-70

65. Spiderman is my favorite superhero. I loved the Spiderman shorts on The Electric Company as a kid (and yes, that's Morgan Freeman as the vampire). Something about his silence is appealing and comforting.

66. I don't like chunky peanut butter. J does. I vaguely remember losing a tooth while eating chunky PB as a kid, and I always associate the chunks with teeth. For awhile, I compromised by buying chunky ever other time. Finally, I realized that life is too short to suffer through the chunky stuff, so I buy us separate jars.

67. I hated the ending of the series finale of Battlestar Galactica. I think it should have ended about 25 minutes sooner. Sometimes less is more.

68. In my first apartment, the landlord shut off the gas line to do some maintenance and forgot to tell me or relight the pilot when he turned it back on. I grew up with an electric stove and didn't recognize the smell as gas. Thankfully, when I got a headache, I started craving fresh air, so I went outside. The landlord's wife saw me sitting on the step and all of a sudden it dawned on her that they didn't relight the pilot on my stove. I think she looked worse than I felt. The color just drained from her face when she saw me. That was almost 12 years ago, but I still can't go to bed or leave the house without checking the stove.

69. I always double knot my shoelaces.

70. In second grade, I thought it would be cool to memorize the poem Jabberwocky (you can see why I was never one of the cool kids) by Lewis Carroll. I can still recite the whole thing.

100 Things - 56-64

I realized that it's been a long time since I've added to my 100 Things list, so here goes.

56. I got tired of being blonde. Now I'm stripey. (And I think this picture is funny, because it looks like I'm slightly annoyed at having my picture taken, but I took the picture).

57. I love Reel Big Fish. I realize that listening to Reel Big Fish annoys everyone in my general vicinity, but they have a kick ass horn section and they curse a lot, and when you've had a bad day, it's very satisfying to dance around like an idiot and sing along. Sadly, I realized in 2002, the last time I saw RBF live, that since I am not a 15 year old boy, it's probably not okay for me to go to their concerts, even if they do have a kick ass horn section and Beer is the best song ever. Also, RBF reminds me of my best friend from high school, because, while he hates RBF, he looks an awful lot like the lead singer.

58. I have a potty mouth. I've gotten good about observing proper time and place rules over the years, but I do love a good obscenity. I particularly enjoy combining obscene words that don't make any sense when you put them together. I don't, however, drop f-bombs on my blog, because I know that cursing does offend some people, and I really don't want to make people uncomfortable. (Side note: When Lady makes reference to someone "dropping an f-bomb," she actually says the word and then bomb, which totally cracks me up, because it negates the whole purpose of the term f-bomb. I've never pointed this out to her, because I think it's adorable and I don't want her to stop doing it, although I think she reads my blog now . . . Hi Lady!) I, personally, subscribe to the Kevin Smith theory of cursing (which I think may be a paraphrasing of a George Carlin sentiment), which is that there are "no bad words, only bad intentions," the exception being, of course, that carabiner is an awful word.

59. I fell asleep at 9:30 last night and woke up at 1AM, wide awake. This explains the rambling.

60. I ramble when I'm tired.

61. Our microwave blew up on Friday, so we ordered a new one and it came yesterday, and it has convection cooking capabilities, and I was really excited about it until I saw how big the manual is.

62. I love SciFi. This completely shocks me, because I never liked Stars Trek or Wars. But last year when I had the sniffles, I binge read all of Kevin Smith's blog (there was more on the blog before he turned it into a book), and he kept writing about Battlestar Galactica and how his wife really liked it because there were strong female characters. Then, Noelle wrote about B-star on her blog, and I believe NPW made mention of it as well. So I decided to give it a try, and I love it ever so much. Then I moved on to Dr. Who, which is absurdly awesome. I also enjoy Futurama, Torchwood, Fringe, and Heroes, and we just Netflixed Firefly. I kind of feel like I was missing out all these years. Although, I do think my enjoyment of SciFi now (and my original distaste for it) has to do with the evolution of character in the genre over the years. Starbuck has a much deeper, complex range of emotions than Han Solo does. And the relationship between The Doctor and Rose/Martha/Donna will break your heart.

63. I've been binge reading books lately. Dog treadmill time encourages this.

64. I got excited yesterday, while reading Bookends by Jane Green, because (in addition to being a great book) there's a Dr. Who reference in it. She refers to someone's home as a Tardis (meaning it looks small from the outside, but is actually roomy inside).

65. I am quite comfortable with my nerdiness.

100 Things - 46-55

Here's a pic from the hike Argo and I took the other day. I'm obsessed with the yellow/blue dusk combo that was going on in the sky and in the reflection on the creek. It only sort of showed up in the picture.

Figured I'd get back to my 100 Things list

46. I hate the sound of our doorbell, so I unplugged it.

47. I'm not good with tradition. I have a hard time doing something simply because that's how it's been done in the past if it doesn't make sense to me.

48. I used to have a sweet tooth that would put Willy Wonka to shame, but I've pretty much conquered it at this point.

49. I think there should be a way to legally declare your friends as family (ie. I'd like to be able to declare Lady as my sister for all intents and purposes, so if I were ever in intensive care, etc. she'd be able to visit me and vice versa). Maybe that's what living wills are for.

50. I'm upset about Prop 8 passing to the point where it keeps me up at night, even though I'm not gay, and I don't live in California. I don't understand why everyone isn't outraged. It's a civil rights issue. We decided a long time ago in this country that it wasn't okay to pick and choose who gets what rights. Prop 8 and other laws banning gay marriage go against what America is supposed to be about. Also, making marriage about something other than consensual love and commitment between two consenting adults offends my marriage, and the institution of marriage in general. And don't get me started on separation of church and state issues . . .

51. I have two friends I e-mail back and forth all day long on weekdays. I don't know what I'd do without them.

52. I never liked New Kids, Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, or any boy bands of that ilk.

53. I did listen to (and love) Bobby Brown when I was in junior high school.

54. I go through phases where I view most foods as simply a vehicle for Frank's Hot Sauce. I've never just decided to drink it, but I've come close. Then the whole obsession passes and I'll forget we have a bottle in the fridge for months.

55. My feet and hands are usually cold.

100 Things - 36-45

36. I need the shirts in my closet to be lined up in color order. I would rather leave my clothes crumpled in the laundry basket than put them away wrong. J's side of the closet makes me cringe.

37. I'm messy. I can clean the house from top to bottom and have it looking showroom perfect, but an hour later, messes start exploding around me again.

38. I have a very low tolerance for jobs that will be quickly undone, like making the bed, doing the dishes, laundry, vacuuming, etc.

39. I have a houseplant named Slartibartfast. He's a potted palm, and I've managed to keep him alive for over a year now, which is a record for me. I got a second one last weekend and named him Martibartfast.

40. I tend to name things that really don't need names. I always thought I'd outgrow the need to name things, but I haven't.

41. I frequently forget the names of things I've named and can only remember that they did have a name at one point.

42. I once bowled an eleven.

43. I was a very good inline skater until I slipped on wet leaves on a steep hill and broke my tailbone. It was the first time I ever fell while inline skating. When I recovered and tried to skate again, I got the yips and fell in front of a car stopping at a stop sign. The way the timing of it worked out, the elderly woman in the passenger seat thought her husband had hit me (even though I was a few feet away from the bumper) and she started screaming and swatting at him with her purse like a character out of a movie. I scraped my shoulder badly, but got up immediately to show them I was fine so she'd stop hitting him. I don't skate anymore. I miss it. It was my sport. I haven't found any other form of exercise I enjoy as much, but I really can't afford to break my tailbone again.

44. I'm a good cook when I want to be.

45. I was on the campus soap opera in college. Yes, there's a tape. No, you can't see it.

100 Things - 31-35

I have a ton of stuff I want to tell you all about, but right now I'm tired and crabby and I can't quite get my brain around the things I want to say, so I'll just tell you more random things about myself.

31. When I was younger, I wanted to be a mermaid when I grew up. I still can't say I'd turn down the opportunity now if it were to present itself.

32. I hate it when people make anyway plural. It is not anyways. It just isn't. Stop it.

33. I hate tissues. It's not even just about the fact that they aren't eco-friendly. Tissue lint makes me sneeze, and I hate the way tissues feel on my nose when it's already irritated. I use ridiculous floral print handkerchiefs most of the time. They are ugly as sin, and I think they're funny.

34. I used to be a headhunter for a very specific and odd area of business.

35. I stopped eating wheat about 2 years ago, when it became clear that wheat and I could no longer be friends. Now that my body isn't constantly fighting with food it can't process as well, my allergies aren't as bad, I don't get sick as often, and I feel better all around. When I first gave up wheat, I got really depressed about all the things I couldn't eat, but now I'm used to it and it doesn't seem that hard. But sometimes, like right now, I crave cake to the point where I can almost taste it. Yellow cake from a box with chocolate frosting that's starting to soak into the cake and make it soggy. It should also have some sort of sprinkles on top. Maybe the flat kind that are like teeny tiny Neco wafers. Sure there are great wheat-free cake mixes out there, but that's not what I want. I want crappy, soggy, be-sprinkled box cake.

This, however, is something to put up with

# 24 - I wear the ugliest sweater known to man when I write.

When I saw Wonder Boys for the first time and got to the part where Michael Douglas wears that raggedy pink chenille robe while he's writing, I almost died, because I do something very similar.

I bought the ugliest sweater known to man used from a thrift shop that sold clothes by the pound when I was in college. It was my "smoking sweater." I bought it the sweater because I didn't want to get my winter coat all stinky when Lady and I smoked Swisher Sweets on the dorm balcony. We took turns spitting over the railing, and thought being cigar smoking, lugie hocking girls made us so bad-assed.

I haven't smoked a crappy cigar, or any cigar for that matter, in years and years and years and years. But the sweater gets lots of use. As soon as it gets cold around here, I throw my writing sweater on when I work.

It's ESPRIT, probably circa 1988, made from acrylic yarn, about 5 sizes too big, and scratchy as all hell, but it's really really warm. I guess it's my security blanket or something. I've actually never really thought much about why I'm so attracted to my writing sweater. Maybe it reminds me of good times with Lady. Maybe it feels like my lifeline back to me when I'm spending time hanging out in someone else's head. Maybe it's a statement to myself that it doesn't matter what I look like while I'm writing. Or maybe, I like it just because I like it.

On Tuesday, when my husband came home from work, I was wearing the sweater, which falls halfway to my knees, a pair of black and white running shorts, and big fluffy pink socks with black flip-flops. "Oh sweetie," J said laughing, "Nice outfit."

But damn, if I didn't get some awesome work done on my April book on Tuesday. There's magic in that sweater, I tell you.

#25 - I clean up real nice, I swear.

100 Things - 15 through 23

15. I've had The Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros stuck in my head almost continually since I first heard it a few months ago, but I still think it's freaking hysterical, and I'm not tired of it at all.

16. October is my favorite month.

17. The sound of leaves crunching underfoot is my favorite sound, and I don't think I could handle moving to an area that doesn't have real seasons, because I'd miss that sound too much.

18. Every fall I eat apples until my stomach hurts. I never learn my lesson.

19. I studied classical voice for about 10 years. I'm not saying I was ever fantastic, but I didn't drive animals and small children to cover their ears and hide or anything. Every once in awhile, when J's not home home, I'll pull out one of my old accompaniment tapes and wail a little Schubert or Faure, but I hate hate hate singing in public, and I just won't do it anymore.

20. I gave up coffee for a year and switched to green tea, but life just wasn't as sweet, so I'm back on the sauce (sauce being coffee).

21. I don't drink much, and my tolerance sucks (it's kind of a chicken or the egg thing). When I have to fill out forms a the doctor's office and I get to the line where they ask how many drinks I have in a month, I write in that for the most part, I only have a glass of wine every other month or so at the most.

22. I am more verbose than most forms allow me room for.

23. I hate holidays and much prefer every day life, and wish we could just celebrate the people we love when we feel like it. I am thisclose to swearing off holidays completely.

#14 - I believe Northern Exposure to be the best written TV show ever

And if you don't, I'm going to seriously start doubting your sensibilities.

Okay, not really. But come on? How can you not love Northern Exposure? The dialogue, the themes they so effortlessly work around, the understated genius of it all.

I don't just watch Northern Exposure, I study it. I mean, I don't spend days in a dark room watching and taking notes, but when I watch it, I do pay attention to detail more than I would with another show. And every time I watch an episode, I notice something new. The episodes (at least until the final season) were so carefully constructed. You can draw parallels between the character's experiences in the different plot lines of every episode, but it never ever feels like a Lifetime Original Movie, (even though Janine Turner pretty much moved to Lifetimeland after leaving Cicely). It's one of the few shows I loved as teenager that still holds up today (21 Jumpstreet, not so much).

So while we were in Seattle for the wedding of Lady and Mr. Lady, and I discovered that Roslyn, where they filmed Northern Exposure, was less than two hours away from the city, I set my mind on going. Roslyn served as the fictional Cicely, Alaska, a town "on the cusp of the new Alaskan Riviera."

I'm not usually this dorky. I will totally admit to being dorky on a regular basis, but I'm not usually this dorky. On the last day of our trip, we went kayaking on Lake Union, and passed by the houseboat from Sleepless in Seattle. Lady told us that people still flock to see it. I snorted heartily, until J gave me a look that said, "people in glass houses . . ."

Of course we did later agree that Northern Exposure is sheer brilliance, while Sleepless in Seattle was, well, just a movie.

I was in HEAVEN in Roslyn. As a writer who loves my characters and stories so very much, found it moving. I know it's weird, but it meant something to me. These writers had this vision -- a story, characters, scene and setting and look and feel -- and it all came together in this small town in the middle of nowhere, Washington as a sort of living manifestation of their ideas. Aside from all of that, it was just plain cool to be in the setting of a TV show I've been watching over and over again since 1990.



We ate lunch at The Brick. The exterior served as Holling's bar on the show, but the interior was shot elsewhere. Aside from being a TVland icon, The Brick is also the oldest tavern in Washington State. There's a trough of running water that runs under the bar stools and serves as a spittoon. I couldn't help but wonder how many drunk people had accidentally stepped in it. The food was so so, and actually, better than I'd expected.

We walked around town a little.



KBHR, the radio station from the show, is still set up with Chris in the Morning's equipment in the window and Minnifield Communications Network still on the front door.


Joel's office is the Cicely Gift Shop, and his name is still in the front window.



We didn't go in, but it the shop is apparently still packed full of NE gear.



The original Village Pizza burned down, but has been rebuilt exactly as it was.

I suppose there's something sad about the fact that it's still reasonable for the town of Roslyn to sacrifice main street real estate as a shrine to a television show, but it was fun to see. And who knows how much longer it will be around. There's an enormous luxury development (over 3,000 residences, according to Wikipedia) under construction in the neighboring area, and I'm guessing real estate prices in Roslyn will go up fast.

It was also fun to see another woman, about my age, running around town with her camera, taking pictures of the same things I was busy snapping. In an age of the crappiest of crappy reality television taking over the networks, it's nice to know that there are other people out there who still appreciate Northern Exposure as much as I do.

I'm back + #13

I've been away for the past couple of weeks, on the left side of things.

I'll catch you up my trip and all that fun stuff once I figure out how to get the 400+ pictures off of my iPhone, and shake this awful jet lag.

In the meantime, I feel like I need to give you some back story on some of my friends so when we go forward, you'll know what I'm talking about.

#13 - I Adore My Ladies

In college, I met an amazing group of women. We all lived in the same dorm (it was the quiet study dorm, because we were all cool like that), and went to dinner together, skinny dipped in the quarry (until it actually occurred to me what a quarry was -- the idea of tunnels under the water is too freaky for me), wreaked havoc, laughed until we cried, cried until we laughed, and wore a lot of bizarre clothes to weird parties.

Even though we haven't all been together in the same place at the same time since about 2002, and our communication is sometimes spotty, these ladies are my family, and no matter what happens, a huge chunk of my heart will always belong to them.

I call most of my close female friends, and even my husband at times, Lady, as a term of endearment, but only 5 ladies are actually My Ladies. And while I have decided to blog about my life, they have made no such decision, so I'll give them nicknames:

• Lady (I know this gets confusing, but I refer to her as Lady like it's her name). She just married Mr. Lady two weekends ago.
• The Other 1/4 - A story we will get to.
  
• The Professor - This woman is the epitome of class, grace, and kindness. She's going for her PhD right now.
  
• The Flautist - You haven't heard flute music until you've heard this lady play. She also plays almost every instrument I can think of.
  
• The Accountant - I've never met anyone who loves her job as much as this lady. She carries her handbag on hikes and is never without her cell phone.

100 Things - 11 & 12

I've decided to do the 100 things list one or two at a time. Since I made it through 10 things about me a few weeks ago, I'll start at 11.

Some will be long. Some will be short. And some will be just right.

11. I wear mostly solid colors, and a lot of brown, which I got teased for a bit when I posted the above picture on Allie's Answers for a post on clotheslines.

What's the deal with brown? I'm not entirely sure. I used to wear a lot of black, but I've mellowed, maybe? I was told when I was younger that I couldn't wear brown (because of my coloring), but I think I look good in it. It could be an act of defiance.

12. I'm a bad sleeper. I need to watch TV until I fall asleep (Scrubs, Northern Exposure, or Futurama are my preference) to get my mind out of thinking mode. I have perfected the switch the TV off right before I pass out move. The TV sometimes drives my husband crazy, but usually he's done when his head hits the pillow anyway. He can fall asleep mid-sentence, rarely wakes up during the night, and when he's done for the day, he's just done and there's nothing anyone can do about it. For me, sleep is this elusive, magical thing.

I'm writing this right now because he's fast asleep, and I'm wide awake, but I feel bad turning the TV on, even though he probably wouldn't notice.

Where do I start?

So, I've finally created a personal blog where I can talk about my writing and my life beyond being a greenie (although, being green is a part of every aspect of my life).

I've been a personal blogger without a personal blog for way too long - finding ways to sneak little snippets of my life into that other blog over there, wondering if the poor soul who stumbled across my website while looking for a recipe to use up the beets in her CSA bag really wants to read a story about 3rd grade me pretending to drive a spaceship on the school bus.

But beyond telling you all of that, I really don't know where to start, so I'll just tell you ten non-green things about myself and we'll call it a day. Then the next time I blog I won't have such a hard time, because I won't be just starting out.

1. I'm slightly afraid of Jello even after a concentrated effort to overcome my fear by eating massive amounts of red and purple Jello for a week. I don't think anything should move like that and still be edible.
   
2. My dog, Argo, and I are probably closer than is really healthy or normal. We've worked out a signal where he comes over and licks his top front teeth at me. This means he's either thirsty or he has to poop. Very useful, since his other "I have to poop" signal is dryheaving until someone lets him outside. My fiction never includes characters that are based on anyone I know (myself included), with the exception of a dog that is based almost entirely on Argo. He is my muse.
   
3. I'm now embarrassed that my very first blog post mentions poop, but not so embarrassed that I'll change it.
4. I've been married for 4 1/2 years, and getting married to J is the best thing I've ever done.
   
5. I'm starting to realize that ten things is a lot and I'm considering going back and changing it to five, but I won't. I'll just cheat and make this one of the ten. Number 3 was probably cheating too.
   
6. I wrote a short story that was published in The Summerset Review and will be reprinted (in a different form) in Slice Magazine in September. It's also being course adopted in a local junior high school English class.
7. I did horribly in junior high school and high school English, and am totally relishing the idea that my work is being taught in an English class. I'm also completely humbled by it, and if I think about it too much, I get a little choked up.
8. I barely cried at all until I hit 23. In my mid-twenties, one of my best friends from high school saw me tearing up and yelled "What the hell are you doing?" because he'd never seen me cry before. I have no idea what turned me into a crier after years of being a robot. Now, I cry whenever I have to buy someone a birthday card, because for some reason the stupid little sayings get me going. It's mortifying.
   
9. I make my own cards.
10. I insist to my husband that I believe in Bigfoot, simply because my husband is a super logical type and it drives him up the wall when I talk about it. Also, if Bigfoot were real, I think he'd totally get me and we'd be really good friends.