(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday: Circle of Life Update

March 28, 2012

August 11, 2012

Ways I Am Not A Grown-Up, The Ninth In A Potentially Infinite Series

I have a hard time keeping secrets--especially my own.

Masked Mom's Media Monday: Red

Back in the olden days, back before the internet, before MTV, things were different. Our musical horizons were limited to pop music radio stations, to American Bandstand, to the occasional "rising star" featured on Solid Gold--especially if you grew up in the sorts of backwater towns that I did. These towns lacked not only a cultural "scene" of any sort, but often lacked a radio station that played anything from the decade in which we currently lived.

Despite growing up in just such a town, Daughter-Only's experience has been entirely different. Thanks to the internet, a woman such as myself (with my wholly unsophisticated musical tastes) has somehow managed to birth and raise a daughter who is thoroughly devoted to the concept of "indie" music. Many of the artists and bands to whom Daughter-Only has sworn her devotion measure their success in "hits" on YouTube, in the sales of albums and merchandise they produce in their own garages and ship out to a narrow, but nonetheless, rabid fanbase.

So it was that by the time Dia Frampton made her "debut" on NBC's The Voice, her actual voice had long since been a staple in our home. Daughter-Only's obsessive replaying of Dia's solo work and her work with her sister (as Meg & Dia) was a refreshing break from what I considered the monotonal droning of much of the music Daughter-Only listened to. Once the world at large was introduced to Daughter-Only's well-kept secret, Dia scored a major label recording contract (and second place on the first season of The Voice under the direction of "coach" Blake Shelton) and her album Red was wrapped and tucked into the Christmas tree for Daughter-Only.

Each spring, when I worked at the flower shop with Cranky Boss Lady, there was a four- to six-week window when we could get a "filler" flower called boronia heather.* Its delicate, hot pink flowers grow in clusters on a semi-woody stem. It is gorgeous to look at, but the major selling point as far as Cranky and I were concerned was its scent. It is a scent unlike any other--sweet, but not cloyingly so, crisp, almost citrusy--it is a bright smell, if such a thing exists. It is so addictive that I remarked more than once to Cranky Boss Lady that even as I was smelling it, I was still actively craving it.

Dia's voice is kind of like that. There is a sweetness to it, but not the bubble-gummy pop sweetness of many young female singers. Instead, there is a cripsness there, a purity, a clarity that works no matter what the tempo or subject of the song. In the songs that deal with heavier topics (such as "Isabella," in which the narrator urges a young girl to leave the turmoil of her parents' home or "The Broken Ones" with the lyrics, "I can't help it, I love the broken ones/The ones who need the most patching up."), the contrast of that sweet voice with the dark lyrics is deliciously, irresistibly poignant. 

Speaking of lyrics, Dia is more than just an amazing voice--she also wrote or cowrote everything on the album. The lyrics are not merely catchy, but also witty and intelligent. Though be warned--nearly every song has serious earworm potential.

Red is that exceedingly rare album that Daughter-Only and I agree on. By virtue of that fact alone, it is a remarkable work.

Masked Mom's One-Word Review: Enjoyable. 

*Alas, there was no scratch-n-sniff link available. Google really let me down on this one.

Spiral Notebook Sunday: Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

I've kind of come to think of my journal as an elaborate form of note-taking. Over the years, the amount and quality of notes I've taken in here has varied wildly. There were periods of nearly daily (and often long) entries followed by huge gaps--months, sometimes years--mixed in with periods of once-a-month or every other month entries. I've never given up entirely--which I see alternately as a badge of honor and a monument to plain stubbornness.

Stubborn as an ass, I am--but it's not stubbornness that keeps me coming back--it's compulsion. And it's that note-taking thing, too because the gaps in here don't have corresponding gaps in my mental note-taking. When I'm not putting my "notes" in here for (relatively) safe-keeping, I try to keep them all in my brain. Pretty soon, my brain fills up and things start to fall out--who knows what might be lost forever and how much I might miss it? 

Perseids and Poision Ivy

Tonight the annual Perseid meteor shower is supposed to be at its peak but cloud cover and an early day at work tomorrow will keep me from oohing and aahing over shooting stars this year. The weather and work provide convenient excuses but the truth is I've been a bit of a Perseid party pooper for decades now. The last year I really made any effort to watch was six years ago. We were camping out at my dad's, well away from any in-town light pollution that would dilute the power of the show. I was determined to stay awake but ended up falling asleep flat on my back on a blanket on the ground with a three-month old beagle-German shepherd puppy on my chest and  my legs (for some reason) threaded through the underside of Hubby's lawn chair.

It's a shame really that I haven't managed to get out under the night sky for so long because my first Perseid shower is one of the clearest memories from my childhood. It was the summer of 1980 and my friend Tracy invited me over to watch the shower from her house way outside of town.

We planned to stay outside all night--the shower was supposed to peak at one or two in the morning--some absurd time that, at the age of twelve, I was unsure even existed as I'd never seen it myself. We pulled two lounge-style lawn chairs into the backyard and set ourselves up with pillows and blankets and we talked and waited and were eventually richly rewarded with a stunning show of meteor activity. I've never seen as many shooting stars at a time since.

I remember the depth of our conversation almost as much as the shooting stars. Tracy and I had a tumultuous relationship--pretty common in girls our age. BFF's hadn't been invented yet, but cattiness and gossip and petty jealousy and competition among friends certainly had. She was one of two people I was closest to throughout sixth grade, but we would grow apart in seventh grade. I didn't know that yet and that night on lawn chairs on the dew-dampened lawn beneath stars twinkling and shooting above our heads, we bared our souls to one another.

One of the things Tracy told me that night was that she sometimes gave herself poison ivy to get her mother's attention. In the morning, she showed me a patch of tiger lilies and milkweed growing around the edges of a swampy area in the lower center of their front yard. She pointed out the leaves of poison ivy tangled among the other weeds and asked me if I wanted to try it.

I don't remember agreeing or protesting, but I do remember holding out my left hand and rubbing leaves hard against the back of it. The rash began before I'd made it all the way home that afternoon. It spread to my face, probably from the oils left on the fingers I'd used to grind the leaves into the back of my hand. My eyes swelled nearly shut and my mother took me to a doctor in town. I was given medication and a special face rinse and told that my allergy to poison ivy was so dramatic that I could conceivably contract it from oil or pollen in the air if I was downwind from the plants at the wrong time. My face was so swollen and distorted from the rash with its oozing blisters that the nurse, who had never seen me undeformed, made my mother promise to bring me back in when the swelling went down so she would know the "before" version.

I've had poison ivy a few times since, twice almost as badly as that summer. (One of those was shortly after my wedding to Hubby. Poor guy, to be introduced to the Ivy Monster version of me so soon after committing to me for life.) It's hard not to think of Tracy as I'm itching and trying desperately not to scratch.

And, of course, I think of her every year when the Perseids make their return. I hope she no longer has quite such a need for calamine lotion or attention and sympathy. I hope she is doing well and that she has a good seat for tonight's show.

Ways In Which I Am Not A Grown-Up, The Eighth In A Potentially Infinite Series

I believe with all my heart that there are few things in life more satisfying than being barefoot in a fresh puddle.

Erggggggg...

...yep, that's pretty much all I got tonight.

I'm Sensing A Theme Here...

When I chose "Wisdom can sneak up on you when you least expect it..." as a tagline for my blog, little did I know that it would become not merely a semi-clever grouping of words, but a running theme throughout my life. Wisdom really does pop up where you least expect it--all the time...the trick¹ is being ready to see it in the oddest of places.

Just for one example, how 'bout an April 2008 episode of the now-cancelled soap opera The Guiding Light? While looking for a random-ish quote for last night's post, I stumbled across this exchange which I'd recorded in one of my quote notebooks. It might help to know that both characters were Southernish, with his accent being significantly heavier than hers².

REVA SHAYNE³: If they made a movie about you--would you change anything? Would you, maybe--I don't know--gloss over the rough edges?

BILLY LEWIS³: Darlin', my whole life has been rough edges. I don't think you can change anything--if you don't own who you were then, you really can't own who you are now.

1. Another neat trick would be learning to apply all this wisdom I'm allegedly finding lying around in odd places.

2. It also might not.

3. Portrayed by Kim Zimmer and Jordan Clarke, respectively.

Random Quote Tuesday

What we know, what we know privately but refuse to admit to others, what we know but can't bear to contemplate, what we know in our hearts but not in our brains: all of these things exist at once within us...

~~Kathryn Harrison, While They Slept: An Inquiry Into the Murder of a Family

Masked Mom's Media Monday: In One Person

I don't remember exactly how old I was when I picked up my first John Irving novel--no more than fifteen, I'd guess. I know that the first was The World According to Garp--its title irresistible to me as I wandered the aisles of The Book Nook looking for ways to spend my meager Burger King paycheck.

Garp was one of my first adult titles--not counting the formulaic (but absurdly addictive) Wagons West series and Herman Wouk's The Winds of War.* I adored Garp and set out to read everything else Irving had written up to that point. I found myself passionately in love with some of the titles, lukewarm about others--a pattern that would continue with Irving's fiction over the years. Of that first batch, Garp and Hotel New Hampshire were lasting loves. The Water Method Man and The 158-Pound Marriage--eh. And it took me three tries to make it past page 166 in Setting Free The Bears.

Later came Cider House Rules, a true masterpiece and, though I don't entirely believe in "favorites," were I forced to list a Top 3, that book would most certainly be on it. Other than Wuthering Heights, it is the book I've re-read most often. A Prayer for Owen Meany is another passionate--though less frequently revisited--love. I started but never finished Son of the Circus and Until I Find You. The Fourth Hand and A Widow For One Year were both enjoyable reads, but failed to move me the way Irving's best work does. Last Night In Twisted River is another example of Irving's best work--I found the characters and their lives so engrossing that when I got to the final page, I seriously considered flipping back to the first page and starting over just to spend a little more time in that world.

All this is to say that John Irving and I have a long but occasionally rocky history together and I begin each new title with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation that borders on anxiety. A mediocre Irving title is all the more disappointing because of how great I know an Irving title can be.

Happily, Irving's latest, In One Person, is one of the great ones. From a young age the narrator, Billy Abbott, finds himself with crushes on the "wrong people." Raised in 1950s and '60s Vermont, Abbott is nevertheless surrounded by mostly supportive people who are accepting of what he eventually realizes is his bisexuality. The novel is full of quirky characters and family secrets. It is most powerful when it touches on the early days of the AIDs epidemic, from which Abbott is spared, but many of his friends and former lovers are not. The themes of tolerance and self-discovery, of sexual and personal identity and the costs of hiding our true selves run throughout the book, but it did not strike me as in any way heavy-handed or overtly political, rather it is a deeply personal tale well-told.

In addition to plot and theme, there is, always, that Irving "voice," with its italics and rhythmic sentence structure, its well-placed exclamation points and soothing repetition. It occurred to me partway through this book that part of what has always drawn me to Irving is that his narrative "voice" is one that closely resembles the voice I often hear in my own head. Did reading his novels at a comparatively young age influence the voice in my head? Or was I attracted to the novels because my head already sounded like that? Regardless, reading a "good" Irving title always feels like something of a homecoming for me.

Masked Mom's One-Word Review: Satisfying.


*The summer I was thirteen, I read the books of the Wagons West series in the same rapid succession a chain smoker smokes cigarettes--begrudgingly relinquishing one seconds before picking up the next. As for The Winds of War, I picked it up my freshman year of high school after being thoroughly enthralled with the miniseries based on the book. In retrospect, my fascination relied heavily on the presence of the (at that time) absolutely adorable Jan-Michael Vincent in the role of Byron Henry, but I nevertheless made my way through the entire 1047 tiny-printed pages of the mass market paperback edition of the book and went on to read the sequel War and Remembrance. Also in retrospect, my steely determination to conquer the book was due in no small part to the offhand remark of my Western Hemisphere Geography teacher when he saw the book on my desk. He said, "Good book. But I don't think you're quite old enough for it." I don't know if that was intended as a "mature" subject matter warning or more reading-level related or some combination of both, but in any case, I showed him!

Spiral Notebook Sunday: Wednesday, December 8 , 2004

For all sorts of reasons, tonight's Spiral Notebook selection might best be filed under the heading "Getting more than you bargained for."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wednesday, December 8, 2004

I've found that if you divulge enough shocking and "embarrassing" things about yourself, people will think of you as forthright, open, even courageous and entertaining. If you choose those details carefully, you can reveal tons of intimate moments of your life without exposing a single sincere facet of your actual self.

That's how it started, anyway, for me, as a defense mechanism. A way to appear transparent without actually revealing anything below skin level. But it's kind of become a habit now and I've learned to care less and less about what I reveal. My discernment gland has withered with disuse, causing a shortage of discretion in my system--so now not only do I not always make wise choices about what to reveal, I often seem to be unable to choose at all. I often find myself two-thirds of the way through some cringe-worthy story before it hits me that I have no idea why I am babbling on in that particular direction. I am lucky (or delusional) in that most of the people to whom I find myself divulging unexpected secrets seem to find it eccentric and charming rather than rude and burdensome.

Under The Wire

Proof that I need to broaden my horizons: I'm irrationally relieved to have made it home in time to post before the arbitrary and self-imposed deadline of midnight, even though this post will hardly qualify as such.

See ya tomorrow.

Un-Random Quote Friday

This one goes out to Graciewilde over at In Search of a Title, who posted an amazing review of Joan Didion's essay collection, Slouching Towards Bethlehem on July 4. The review included a few quotes that struck a chord with Gracie, one of which happens to be a favorite of mine as well. Somehow, on the way to leaving a comment to that effect, I got sidetracked for, oh, a month or so, but here I am now and here is that quote that we both love along with another favorite of mine from the same collection.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think we are all well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.

~~Joan Didion, "On Keeping a Notebook" in Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The tricks that work on others count for nothing in that very well-lit back alley were one keeps assignations with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions. One shuffles flashily but in vain through one's marked cards--the kindess done for the wrong reason, the apparent triumph which involved no real effort, the seemingly heroic act into which one had been shamed. The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others--who are, after all, deceived easily enough...

~~Joan Didion, "On Self-Respect" in Slouching Towards Bethlehem





What I Did On My Blog Vacation: A Photoessay(ish)

Some things I've been doing while I've been away:

Baking cakes...

Coooooookies!!!!

Looks like dinner, tastes like dessert.

Seventh Niece (whose name starts with "Z") turned THREE!

Eight-year-old Sixth Niece asked, "Can you do me in a cheerleading pose?" Heh. Fortunately, she's easy to please.

Meeting Naked Ladies...

These Ladies were fully-clothed gentlemen.

Helping the next generation get settled in a new home...

Son-One & Girlfriend purchased their first home--much painting, carpet-pulling, minor electrical work and furniture-moving ensued. (Along with many two-hours-one-way trips to Buffalo & back.)

Stalking previous generations...

The resting place of my mother's father's father's father's mother's parents, Susannah (Chapman) & Marshal Robbins.

Missing all of you guys...

Drove past this on the way to Buffalo last week. Immediately thought, "I need to go back and get a picture of that for my blog--Larissa needs to see this"...and it made me remember how much I miss blogging and blog-hopping and so, here I am again...

Ol' What's-her-name

"I'm so sane, it's driving me crazy..."

~Falling For The First Time, written by Steven Page & Ed Robertson, performed by Barenaked Ladies

A month or so ago, I was lying awake with a bout* of insomnia, and somehow my mind wandered to the girl who sat behind me in Ms. Ryan's seventh grade English class. I could remember quite a few things about her. Her name was Wendy. She had gorgeous, curly red hair and an outsized personality with a sharp edge to it. She seemed more worldly than most of the rest of the kids in that small Pennsylvania town. I remembered that her parents were divorced and that one of them lived in Pennsylvania and the other in Alaska. She spent a year with one and then a year with the other. I remembered that she had told me these details of her life, but couldn't quite remember the circumstances under which she had shared them since we weren't really friends. I don't remember ever having a conversation with Wendy outside that classroom, for example. Don't remember who her friends were or where in town she lived.

Not remembering those things really didn't bother me. What bothered me to an absurd, and perhaps even unhealthy degree, was not remembering her last name. I knew it started with a "K," which was maybe worse than not knowing anything at all.

I started listing "K" names in my head: Kennedy, Kilgore, Klinger, Klein, King...no, no, no, no, no.

I tried to distract myself by thinking about other things, but the "K" names kept worming their way into my thoughts: Kenneth, Karloff, Kenickie. ("A hickey from Kenickie is like a Hallmark card: 'when you care enough to send the very best.'" my mind helpfully offered.)

I tried to gently talk my mind into going to sleep. Offering it a soothing song, a backwards count from a hundred, a couple of other things that occasionally work. No luck. Things had gone from absurd to much more so: Kinesthesia, Kinkiness, Kibbutz.

At this point, it became clear that my brain was not going to let this go so I moved on to trying to think of how I would be able to figure out what Wendy's last name was--not just ever, but right now, tonight (or, really, early this morning). 

Facebook, of course. But how would I be able to find her without knowing her name? Maybe she was FB friends with one of the two people from that school that I am friends with. Maybe she still had her maiden name listed. Maybe I was completely insane for contemplating getting out of bed at 3:17 in the morning to try to figure out the last name of a girl I barely knew thirty years ago who I had no intention of contacting under any circumstances.

Maybe. But I wasn't going to get any sleep without trying. And so I did. And she was not friends with either of my friends, but she was friends with one of my friends' friends.

And her name was Wendy Kinton. And, at last, I slept.


*I do not actually suffer bouts of insomnia. A bout would seem to imply that it is an exception rather than the rule. What is actually going on is insomnia interspersed with bouts of sleep.

Masked Mom's Media Monday: The Newsroom

I never really watched Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing and the reason I didn't is sort of embarrassing to admit, but where better to embarrass myself than here on my blog? I never really watched The West Wing because Cranky Boss Lady loved it from the very first episode. My choice to not watch was not based on the disparities between her taste and mine--there was no logical calculation of "if she likes it, I'm unlikely to enjoy it." No, it was a pouty, petulant thing--practically my entire reason for not watching it was that my watching would give Cranky Boss Lady some small measure of joy.*

I've had reason to doubt the wisdom of my decision to abstain from The West Wing over the years--six gazillion positive reviews in addition to the popularity of the show, just for instance--but never more than I've doubted it while watching the first two episodes of Sorkin's The Newsroom on HBO.

The show takes place, aptly enough, inside the offices of a primetime news show. News Night is the fictional show within this show and it is attempting to be unlike any other news show currently on television by setting out to inform viewers rather than merely entertain them--to put public service ahead of ratings and ad sales. This concept is intriguing to me since I find it terrifying that the information available to us is to a great extent influenced by markets and demographics and corporate interests rather than by what may actually be important to know as voters and citizens. There are any number of things I feel should not be "market-driven," but information, the "news" is at the top of that list--not least because figuring out how to fill out the rest of the list requires information unlikely to be willingly provided by the interests driving those markets.

So Sorkin begins with a concept close to my heart and adds solid actors like Jeff Daniels and Sam Waterston and a whole group of others whose names and faces are vaguely familiar if at all, but who flawlessly deliver the challenging dialogue Sorkin has written for them. The apparently signature Sorkin dialogue is fast-paced (breakneck, even), intelligent and witty, which has its drawbacks--there was an exchange in the second episode that was hilarious, but so rapid-fire that I was afraid to laugh for fear of missing a line. In an interview on The Colbert Report last week, Sorkin responded to criticism that no one really talks that way in real life by pointing out that the high schools most of us attended in no way resembled the one on Glee. A good point, to which I would add, wouldn't it be great if sometimes, just sometimes, people really did talk like that?

Only sometimes, of course, because I could see how it might get annoying after a while if everyone talked like that all the time. The internet is full of professional and amateur critics (the line is blurry) who are apparently deeply tired of Sorkin's feats of (unrealistic) dialogue. Perhaps that is the silver lining of my pointless and long-regretted boycott of The West Wing--Sorkin's dialogue is a revelation to me, a true pleasure. It's like watching a hyperintelligent high school debate team--one whose members are under the influence of copious quantities of caffeine and refined sugar--and ending up with a vicarious buzz yourself.

Masked Mom's One-Word Review: Entertaining.


*For more on Cranky Boss Lady, who is no longer my Boss, but is still in my life on a fairly regular basis, check out this post, the conclusion of which is perhaps worth mentioning: "Which brings me to the real crux of the problem here--I guess it's not really Cranky Boss Lady who's the problem, it's the horrifying things she brings out in my personality that frustrate and, frankly, terrify me."

Ways I Am Not A Grown-up, The Seventh In A Potentially Infinite Series

I am 98% certain that the love of my life is this man:

You can keep your blackberry-sage foam bath and your pearberry-melon bath salts. You can totally have all the Calgon and let it take you away. Just let me have a few minutes alone with my man, and all is well in the world.

Deep Thoughts With Daughter-Only

A couple of weeks ago, Daughter-Only and I stumbled into an unexpectedly deep conversation when she began telling me about how disappointed she sometimes is with herself--with how she is sometimes too easily distracted from the goals she sets for herself, and the trouble she has prioritizing the demands on her time and her desires for how to spend it.

This is a sentiment I identify with all too readily and after she had shared her own concerns, I offered what little motherly advice and insight I could muster.

I said, "You know, I'm 43, and these are things I still struggle with as well. So the good news is you're probably not going to die from it. The bad news is--"

Daughter-Only cut in: "...you're probably not going to die from it."

Exactly.

Masked Mom's Media Monday: Wild: From Lost To Found On The Pacific Crest Trail

Last week, I dropped my van off at the shop for repairs. The shop is located a mostly flat half mile or so from my house so I decided to walk home rather than having someone pick me up. Me walking is an event so notable and unusual that several people stopped along the street and asked me if I needed a ride. Surely my van had broken down or I was suffering some sort of mental or emotional breakdown. Please understand, this is exactly what I would've thought if I'd seen me walking along the street.

I am significantly overweight. This is an inescapable fact of my daily existence--one which I forget rarely and always at my peril. For whatever reason, I do not equate my size with my fitness (or lack thereof); I routinely underestimate exactly how unfit I am. My walk that morning was a great reminder--creaking joints, easily fatigued muscles, flushed face despite the almost chilly temperature.

I bring all of this up not in an attempt to flaunt my humiliation, but so that you can fully appreciate how absurd it is that as I was reading Wild, Cheryl Strayed's tale of her journey on the Pacific Crest Trail, I could clearly imagine myself hiking right alongside her for all eleven hundred mountainous, sometimes treacherous, miles. This utterly absurd image of some version of myself hiking the Pacific Crest Trail is a testament not only to my own deluded imagination, but to the skill Strayed brings to the page.

In the mid-Nineties, when she was 26, Cheryl Strayed took to the Pacific Crest Trail after several years of devastating personal setbacks--the unexpected death of her mother; the dissolution of her marriage to a man she loved dearly, but could not stay with; a series of increasingly dangerous misjudgments on her part. She hoped that the solitude of the trail would give her time to figure some things out--about herself, about the world, about the direction she wanted to move in for her future.

In Wild, we cover both external and internal territory beside Strayed. From memories of her mother's last days to the sweeping vistas spread before her on the trail's peaks to the wrenchingly honest assessments of her own sexual promiscuity and the causes behind it to a snow and ice covered mountain trail on which a slip in the wrong direction could spell certain death, we travel alongside a woman on a suspenseful, life-changing journey. We do so in the hands of a writer with a tremendous talent for straightforward but deeply evocative prose.

I have rhapsodized about Strayed's work before--at least the portion of her work she's done under the pseudonym "Dear Sugar" on The Rumpus. Shortly after my ode to "Dear Sugar" ran, Strayed revealed her identity, in anticipation of the release of this book. If you read my "Dear Sugar" review, it comes as no surprise that Wild was on my To-Read List long before Oprah announced it as the first pick in her re-booted Book Club. I have mixed feelings about Oprah herself, as well as her Book Club--a discussion for another time, perhaps--but I am thrilled that Strayed's book will garner much-deserved attention.


Masked Mom's One-Word Review: Inspirational.

Eleventy Reasons To Love Blogging

One of the benefits of being part of our little blogging community is that when I'm feeling oh-so-uninspired (and I still am, a little, but I'm trying to drag myself out of the whiny pit), someone will come along with something to get the words flowing a bit again. This time, it was Sleepy Joe, who tagged me in a little question and answer game that's making its rounds. Many thanks, Sleepy Joe, for tagging me and thereby giving me some motivation to get up off the couch and back to the computer.

The rules: tell 11 things about yourself and then answer 11 questions posed by the blogger who tagged you. After that--and here's where we hit the snag: you're supposed to tag 11 others with your own list of questions. I run into the same problem I often do, which is that many, if not all, of the people I would tag have already been tagged by someone else (or even someone elses). So what I'm going to do instead is invite anyone who is reading this who hasn't already been tagged to play along. I'd love it if you answered my 11 questions (which will appear at the end of this post) and left a link to those answers in the comments here. While it may look like pure laziness on my part, I prefer to frame it as a great chance for some of the lurkers to come out of the woodwork and introduce themselves to the rest of our bloggy community.

So, now, 11 things about me--and not just any 11, but 11 I have not previously shared on some other numbered list of random facts about me. (Other lists can be found here, here and here.)

1. When I was younger, I was absolutely certain I would grow up to have triplet daughters and name them April Mae, Mae June, and June April.

2. I am practically giddy about the fact that so many of my favorite authors have new titles out or coming soon.

3. I frequently plan out exactly what I would do with a major lottery jackpot; I very rarely buy a ticket.

4. The two non-negotiable facets of my "dream home" that I will buy/build with the lottery winnings from the tickets I never actually buy are a library and a pool.

5. Sleep deprivation and the resulting fatigue impact every single aspect of my life. It has gotten worse, not better, as my kids have grown up.

6. If self-doubt ever becomes an Olympic sport, I'm a shoo-in for the gold. Probably.

7. I hate my current cell phone, but I'm too lazy to do anything but whine about it.

8. I should probably not do lists about myself when I'm exhausted and cranky.

9. I love cabbage.

10. When I was in my late teens or early twenties, I woke up with this phrase in my head: "It's like a wilderness of mirrors, everywhere you look, there you are." I'm still kind of convinced it means something more than it seems to.

11. I love toads and frogs. Especially itty-bitty ones.

Now for my answers to Sleepy Joe's questions:

1. Who is your literary hero? I don't know that I would call her a "hero" exactly, but the literary character I most identify with is Nelly Dean, the housekeeper in Wuthering Heights, from whom the traveling Mr. Lockwood hears most of the story of Catherine and Heathcliff's disastrous relationship.

2. Why? The first few times I read Wuthering Heights, I saw her as just the delivery system for someone else's story, but later came to see that there are points at which she plays a role in trying to save certain characters from themselves and one another. I identify with her non-flashy way of trying to come to the rescue as well as her failure to do so--and, of course, I identify with (and envy) her observational skills. Nelly Dean, who would likely have been barely literate in her time and place in the world, nevertheless took outstanding notes.

3. What is your favourite children's story? Hands down, the Little House Books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Especially These Happy Golden Years, when fifteen-year-old Laura ventures out into the world to teach school.

4. Are you a closet reader, are there some books that you won't admit to reading?  Since I never leave the house without whatever I'm reading, I'm pretty much an open book when it comes to books. That said, I would say celebrity memoirs are my biggest guilty pleasure. I like to think of them as the literary equivalent of a palate cleanser between the more nutritious and satisfying main dishes.

5. Do you have any regrets in life? I have this theory about regret: it's pointless. You can't change the past and even if you could, to change the tiniest detail would be to put everything else up for grabs. The thing about theories, though, is that they are so theoretical. In reality, regret is probably unavoidable. For example, sometimes I regret adopting that theory about regret.

6. Name one ambition, not including getting your writing published. I've always kind of wanted to be the person my mother-in-law seems to think I am. I don't see her often (which is probably key here), but she is always so sweet and complimentary that I feel I should be a better person just to be worthy of her praise.

7. Heels or flats on a night out? It's a little embarrassing to admit (one for the "Ways I'm Not A Grown-Up" file, for sure), but I would have to purchase heels or flats for a night out (not to mention the entire rest of the outfit). I currently own two pairs of shoes: sneakers and a pair of men's flip-flops I bought on clearance at Kmart four years ago. This is not an exaggeration.

8. What is your comfort food? I am in a passionate and highly dysfunctional relationship with food in general so it's very difficult to narrow it down, but I guess I would say potatoes. With the exception of fast food fries, which I detest, I love them no matter how they're served up.

9. Normal clothes or comfy PJ's? My "normal" clothes are pretty comfy so the distinction between the two is a fine one; I don't really feel qualified to answer this question.

10. What is your favourite film? Hmmm, another one for the "Ways I'm Not A Grown-Up" file. I've never really thought in terms of favorites, but the movie I've rewatched the most number of times and would absolutely watch again right now if it happened to be on TV is that high school angst-fest The Breakfast Club.

11. Coke or Pepsi? If my beloved Diet Dr. Pepper is unavailable, my fall-back is Diet Coke. Pepsi is icky.

And, now, at long last, patient readers, my eleven questions for anyone willing to play along.

1. If time travel were possible, where would you go first? The past? The future? A specific time?

2. If you could claim any existing literary work as your own, what would it be?

3. You come upon a group of extraterrestrials disembarking from their ship in a deserted field. What is your first thought? First action?

4. I once read that smell is the sense most closely linked to memory. Which scent most strongly brings back childhood for you?

5. If you could rewrite the ending of a favorite book or movie, which one would it be and why?

6. Speaking of childhood, what food or foods make you wrinkle up your nose even now that you're a grown-up?

7. Who is the friend who's been in your life the longest? How did he or she come into your life?

8. Who has been your greatest teacher (inside the classroom or out)?

9. Do you have or have you ever had a nickname? Love it? Hate it?

10. What would the teaser on the back of your autobiography be?

11. Though you've no doubt been warned, do you nevertheless judge books by their covers?