1. Tell me five of your favorite websites, and explanations as to why they are your favorite to visit.
Aside from OD and LJ, and the blogs of individuals (all of which are available on my blogroll) the websites I frequent most, or at least are most prominent in my brain at this moment, are, in random order:

1) The Pern Forum – because even though I rarely post there, I find a lot of the ranting extremely entertaining, and I sometimes am inspired with new ideas.

2) Lessons Learned – Lisa writes about her life in a 24/7 TPE relationship with such candor that even if the concept of BDSM is totally revolting, her story is compelling. For me, the stuff about her kids, and her gardening and her taste in music and books and politics is made more interesting because of the juxtaposition with the rest of her life. (NOT work_ok, and NOT kid_safe)

3) Lori's Trek Fic – I admit that I'm a Trek Geek, and further that I like fanfic. One of Lori's series, “The Captain and the Counselor” involves Picard and Troi as a couple, and she writes the tale in a such a fashion that I can buy it as a possiblity.

4) Illusions of Motion: Babblings of a Beach Baby My own blog, which doesn't have anything that isn't here or on LJ, most of the time, but I love that it's MY space and even though it's technically MORE accessible to others, I feel less inhibited there. But I wish people would comment. Comments are good.

5) Fannie Mae Online I go here every day, a zillion times a day, because I'm paid to, and because there's nothing cooler than automated underwriting, and…oh, only sites for personal reasons? Well, then, my last pick is, DayDreaming on Paper A blog topic prompting site.

2. What constitutes a great friend to you?
I have to be able to disagree on individual items without the friendship ending. If I wanted friends without opinions, I'd have more dogs. Actually, even my dogs have opinions. I have to be able to contact friends at 4 in the morning, if need be. Not that I ever have, mind you, but, the ability to do that is crucial. I like friends who poke me when I get all reclusive, but I know that many of my friends also share my habit of doing so, or share some degree of shyness, so we're all kind of enabling each other. Other attributes: a sense of humor, some degree of honesty, reasonable use of language – these are my a-list. And while a penchant for wearing hats and drinking fancy coffee is appreciated, it is not actually required.

3. Have you written, or do you write, in a paper journal? If yes, do you ever doodle in the margins? If no, what would it take to get you to write in one?
I had one of those kid-diaries when I was little. You know, the leatherette books with the gilded pages and “My Diary” inscibed on the front in loopy gold lettering that peeled off when scratched, and a cute little silver key. But I was more interested, then, in getting responses to what I wrote, and I guess that's still true, because while I do noodle on paper, sometimes, and have had many other “blank books for writing,” and while I LOVE the feeling of writing in ink on paper, I just think better composing at the keyboard, and I censor less. With my hands bothering me as much as they are, also, the physical act of writing has become less than pleasurable, and my handwriting, which was once pretty, has completely degenerated. So, getting me to write in a paper journal again wouldn't be likely, right now. If I did start again, the truth is, I like college-ruled spiral notebooks, the really thick ones with the squared corners, and the slightly off-white paper with greenish (as opposed to bluish) lines. I do doodle, kind of, but I'm not an artist, so it's pretty embarrassing. And then, there's that feedback thing. I really LOVE feedback. (No, I'm not hinting. It's just a statement.) Also, I find that I write in a completely different voice at the keyboard and in ink. When I'm using a pen, I'm slower and more thoughtful and introspective. And DARKER.

4. Did you ever own any pets other than the current two? If yes, I want details: when, what, and how they came into your life.
Yes. In order: A poodle/terrier mix named Taffy who was a gift from my grandparents' neighbor when I was three. My best friend Alisa was given Taffy's littermate, but her grandmother took over care of that dog. Jody. (See my pool entry). When we moved to Colorado, Taffy came with us, howling the entire way on the plane. Poor dog. But she stayed behind when we left, and it took me a long time to forgive my mother for that. Once in California, I inherited a parakeet, Uh-oh, from a friend, and went through a string of Chinchilla del Rex bunnies for 4-H, and was given another puppy (Tawnie, a long-haired dachshund mix) but when Ira and my mother got married he forbid me to keep the dog, because “animals don't belong in the house”….I have Zorro because he agreed, once he bonded with Abigail, that it was a horrible thing for him to have done, and he OWED me a dog. Fuzzy and I never lived anywhere dog_ok in South Dakota, so we tried cats, a tiger kitten named Kotula and a calico named Sparkle, but again, we couldn't bring them to California, but they both ended up with good homes with trusted friends. And then Zorro came into my life as a rescued-from-the-streets stray, and we hand-picked Cleo two years later (she turned three this spring, and no longer pees on people's feet). There've been fish over the years, and box turtles and lizards as a kid in New Jersey, but you don't really bond with non-mammals.

5. Tell me something I don't know.
I own seven pairs of sneakers and they're all different models of the same brand, RYKA, which I found on the net. I love them. They're designed by women for women, so they fit differently, wider toe boxes, more arch support, and they give money to “Take Back the Night” type causes, which I also like. Empowerment's a good thing, I think.

Oh, and, I've become addicted to crepes.

If you want me to interview you–post a comment that simply says, 'Interview me.' I'll respond with questions for you to take back to your own journal and answer as a post. Of course, they'll be different for each person since this is an interview and not a general survey. At the bottom of your post, after answering the Interviewer's questions, you ask if anyone wants to be interviewed. So it becomes your turn– in the comments, you ask them any questions you have for them to take back to their journals and answer. And so it becomes the circle.

Questions from the very talented

1 – What was it like growing up with your mother?It was never boring. At first, it was just us, and she used to make my clothes out of scraps of her own. When I was five, she married a man I now both hate and pity. He was abusive, the classic result of /being/ an abused child, and, in retrospect, I can see his horrible childhood in every action he ever took. Still, my mother made sure I was safe, and loved, and mostly happy. One Christmas she stayed up til dawn for weeks, sewing clothing for an entire wedding party of Barbie dolls (and, I'm told, cursing at the tiny darts), so that they'd be all in position under the tree. Another year, when 'stuff with your name on it' was really popular, I had sweatshirts, rulers, a wall-hanger for storing office supplies, all personalized with my name, and, something you might have seen in my house, a carved block of wood forming my name. She worked, of course, so I was a latchkey kid before the media coined the phrase “latchkey kid,” and one of our daily rituals was the Afternoon Phone Call, during which I'd check in so she knew I'd made it back from school, and she'd give me her ETA. When she was working retail, and there wasn't enough money for food, she'd skip meals so I wouldn't have to, something I never knew til a conversation with my aunt, just last year, and something my mother does NOT know I know (kudos if you figured out that sentence).

She managed to make every birthday, holiday, start of school, amazingly successful. She never missed a school performance, and, despite working full time, never failed to bake cupcakes or create a costume in ten minutes. When the open auditions for the orphans for the 1982 movie of Annie hit Denver, she spent hours helping me learn to sing “Tomorrow,” and took off three days of work because parents had to be there. When, on the third day of callbacks, I was cut because I'd never had formal voice lessons before, and had sung myself hoarse (because ten-year-olds with no training really should NOT belt) she took me out for ice cream, and we talked about boys.

As I got older, our relationship changed, of course. We started sharing tastes in reading material, and often she'd come home looking forward to the new issue of only to find her eleven-year-old already reading it. Our trips to the library would be intense, with each of us coming home with tote-bags overflowing. And on weekends, we went ice-skating together.

When we moved to California, and I moved toward being a teenager, we started to fight more, but I suppose that's really typical, but still, it was never boring. When she married Ira and I suddenly, after 12 years of being an only child had a stepbrother, who was just a year ahead of me in school, she made sure I still got my solo summers in New Jersey – I needed the space. And arguements at are house were never about name-calling but more like, “Mom! He made a sexist comment!”

We went to “ban the bomb” rallies and pro-choice marches all during my teen years, and she still never missed a school performance. When I was cast in I Remember Mama in another town, she drove me back and forth to rehearsals every night, after working a full day. When we moved to Mariposa, she'd break me out of school for shopping trips because we both hated the atmosphere there so much. When we moved to Fresno, and I started high school, I had less time, and so did she, but when, the same year, she went back to college to finish her degree, I helped edit her papers, and made her snacks on class nights. One of the proudest moments in my life was watching my mother get her degree, because no one has ever worked harder for such a thing.

It is true, that we had screaming fights, but they never lasted, and Ira was more affected by them than either of us. Neither of us holds grudges, we yell, we let it out, and it's over. It's true, that I hurt her deeply when I finally eloped, but we worked through it, and now, we're both finally old enough and past all the teen shit, and we can be friends, although, sometimes, I still feel seven when she's around.

2 – If you could get the answer to any one question in the world, what would that question be? What will rates be like tomorrow?

3 – Describe your perfect relxation spot. I do my best thinking and best writing from bed, so mental relaxation takes place there. I love being surrounded by soft, cool, cotton sheets, and propped by a gazillion fluffy pillows, with a mug of spearmint tea on the bedside table, and my dogs flanking me, while I noodle on my laptop or get lost in a good book. Even as a child, I did most of my homework sitting on my bed, not at my desk, and in college, my best paper ever was written while sitting cross-legged on the oriental rug in a friends room, while watching Dirty Dancing for the gazillionth time. Physical relaxation, though, requires water. Last week I bought a water hammock. It's a metal frame encased in an inflatable tube, with a web stretched across it, and an inflatable pillow section, and when you lie on it, you're suspended just enough so that you're half way in the water, but not completely covered, and it's like lying in a cradle, or on a ship, with the gentle motion of the water rocking you into bliss. When it's too cold for that, I relax in the bathtub, with lots of hot water and bubbles, and sometimes a book or a glass of wine. Or I go to the beach and just commune with the waves. But, either way, I'm totally a water baby.

4 – Who can take the sunlight, sprinkle it with dew, cover it with chocolate and a miracle or two?The candy man. The candy man can. The candy man can, 'cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good. … I'm going to have that song running circles in my head for the rest of the day now. Curse you! :)

5 – What's your favorite joke?I'm not really joke-oriented. I prefer irony, whimsy, sarcasm, to out and out jokes, but I used to collect lightbulb jokes, and one of my favorites is:
-How many Californians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
-Dude! You don't screw in a lightbulb. You screw in a hot tub!

If you want me to interview you–post a comment that simply says, 'Interview me.' I'll respond with questions for you to take back to your own journal and answer as a post. Of course, they'll be different for each person since this is an interview and not a general survey. At the bottom of your post, after answering the Interviewer's questions, you ask if anyone wants to be interviewed. So it becomes your turn– in the comments, you ask them any questions you have for them to take back to their journals and answer. And so it becomes the circle.

I'm late getting involved with this interview thing, as most of my writing time was sucked up by computer issues at work. Anyway, the fabulous asked me some questions:

1. What is your earliest childhood memory?
I have a dim memory from the age of one or two, looking out the back door of my grandparents house at their dog, Misty, who died pretty soon after that. I remember bits and pieces of other things from when I was three or four – my grandfather making me organize a 'lumber yard' with Tinker Toys before actually building anything with them, the smell of Aunt Gladys's perfume when she hugged me, the way Aunt Molly's Chanel No. 5 perfume is tied up with the smell of rice pudding, my grandmother waving a wooden spoon and calling whichever mischievous child was around a 'miserable wretch' before resorting to much more colorful phrases in Italian, and making snow-angels on the beach at Sandy Hook. (To this day, I still LOVE the beach in winter.)

2. What was your favorite outfit you owned when you were in junior high school?You seriously want me to recall the fashions of the early eighties…in public? :) When I started jr. high school the unofficial uniform of my peers was Izod shirts and Guess jeans and topsiders. My mother had been to fashion design school, and had made all my clothes until I was about nine, and was opposed to buying things with trendy labels, so when she actually bought me the above, those were my favorite for a while, but I've never really been a follower of trends. At about the same time, she was prepping for eye surgery and having serious allergy issues, so she was driving to Berkeley from Modesto once a week, and, of course, there would be shopping. On one such trip she brought me back a denim jumpsuit with zippers and pink and black piping (this was before my Pink Trauma), and I loved that, and wore it till it fell apart, and then the last favorite item was a pair of turquoise overalls. I've always loved overalls.

3. Have you ever dumped a man to date someone else?Not exactly. Very shortly before my friendship with Fuzzy turned romantic I'd been heavily flirting with a guy, but I ended everything when I found out he was married. (Yes, we slept together first, yes, I was pretty stupid.)

4. What's the best present anyone ever gave you? My sense of style? :) I don't know. Most of the really cool tangible things that I own are either leftovers from my grandmother's house, or from when my parents moved to Mexico and we 'inherited' some of their furniture. So if you mean tangible, well, my wedding band belonged to my great grandmother. It's very thin rose-gold (which means it's not quite so shiny and has a pinkish hue) with a platinum inset that holds three microscopic diamond chips, and there are sheaves of wheat (for fertility) etched on the sides. My grandmother told the story: After their house in Hoboken burned down, my great-grandparents moved their family to the summer house in Atlantic Highlands, NJ, which didn't have heat. The first Christmas they lived there, my great-grandmother, Virgelia (“Delia”) called each of her children to her, and gave them a gift of money, and pointed out, “You've all suffered in this house that wasn't meant to be lived in year-round, and you've worked hard in the restaurant (my great-grandfather owned the food concessions for Fort Hancock) so this is yours, but if you put it all together, it would be enough to install a real furnace in the house.” Totally cheesey Hallmark Hall of Fame story, you know? The next year, the kids all got together and helped their father buy a new wedding band, to replace the plain gold band. When Delia died, my grandmother, who was her favorite, inherited both bands, because her older daughter was already married. The ring was passed down from her to my mother, when my mother married the first time, and from my mother to me, in truth, although, it was presented to us in October 1995, when we came home to have a committment ceremony in California after eloping in South Dakota in March. My grandmother, in one of her last lucid moments before she went into a care home, presented us with the ring (her engagement ring had been a Christmas present the year before and that's another story), and it was all very touching and sweet.

5. What is your favorite holiday and why?Halloween. There's no angst, and no stress, just happy haunted fun. As a child, I had homemade costumes courtesy of Mom every year – Pocahontas, when I was five, Laura Ingalls when I was six (our school required that Halloween costumes worn to school be characters from books), Batgirl when I was seven, with satin bat ears, etc, etc. I have no idea what happened to all of those costumes, but I suspect they were handed down to younger cousins who never fully appreciated them. Once we no longer lived in apartments, and once my mother was no longer working retail, Halloween became more fun, with ghosts on fishwire that would come up behind kids at the door, and recorded music and TONS of carved pumpkins. The one thing, in fact, that truly made this house feel like home, is that my mother came to be here for my first Halloween.

If you want me to interview you–post a comment that simply says, 'Interview me.' I'll respond with questions for you to take back to your own journal and answer as a post. Of course, they'll be different for each person since this is an interview and not a general survey. At the bottom of your post, after answering the Interviewer's questions, you ask if anyone wants to be interviewed. So it becomes your turn– in the comments, you ask them any questions you have for them to take back to their journals and answer. And so it becomes the circle.

But this had me both laughing and cringing. Winnie the Pooh vibrators….to say nothing of Hello Kitty.

Aieeee.

…but I'm thoroughly enjoying The Book of Night with Moon by Diane Duane, which someone mentioned in their LJ. (, was it you?).

The only problem is that, being a fan of the old series Beauty and the Beast, I keep wondering if Vincent is the product of some wizardry gone awry, or even not awry.

Anyway.

Read this book.

…whether or not it's true that dogs instinctively swim. It completely is. Today both Zorro and Cleo swam the width of the pool, twice. And Cleo can almost manage the ladder.

We'll be working on a way to allow them to get OUT if they ever get in w/o supervision, but I don't think they'll go in without Mom to swim to.

— How does where you are today differ from where you thought you'd be when you were a teenager?

I hated my teenage years, and spent a lot of time imagining what life would like when they were over. In truth, if I hadn't attended a performing arts school I'd never have survived high school. So, most importantly, even though I have my dark moments, I'm a much happier, more balanced person than I was then.

My dreams, then, were centered around theatre and cello, but by the time I graduated I was so burnt out from the classic over-achiever treadmill (why, yes, I can be first chair, and part of leadership, and take physics, calculus, AP biology and advanced musical theory all at once, and still have time for music lessons and model UN and Shakespeare camp and serving as Historian for the local ballet company, and, and, and, and…) that I ultimately went to a university that didn't even have a formal music department, because they gave me a lot of money, and the dorms were only a few blocks from the Haight.

I did get to play in theatre some, because my freshman seminar was Theatre as Social Commentary, and it was taught by a guy who was a dead ringer for Fidel Castro and kept wanting us to do something about Solidarity, which none of us were interested in. Oh, and there was the annual Comm Arts presentation party.

I had dabbled in /so/ many things for /so/ long, and never been able to choose, that even in college I had no clue what I wanted, and ultimately realized I was there for the wrong reasons, and quit. Someday, when I'm ready, and I know I'm doing it because I /want/ to and not because I feel it's expected of me, I'll finish my degree. Probably at Mills College in Oakland, because I really like the faculty and the philosophy of the school.

So, anyway, at nineteen, I was managing an espresso bar / bookstore, and writing radio filler for spare cash, and then I took some time for an extensive visit with my grandfather, during what turned out to be the last year of his life. And then I came back to California, though I'm not /from/ here (is anyone?) and got really active in the pro-choice movement, getting up at dawn on weekends to do clinic defense, and stuff, and went to work for my mother's company, and realized I really liked the industry.

Nothing of that is /anything/ I ever thought about, but for the most part I'm happy with how things have turned out. There are little regrets, here and there, but nothing earth shattering. I have a house I love, and a husband who understands me, mostly, and the two cutest dogs on earth, and I still don't have to be at work before ten or wear corporate drag. So, it's all good.

— When you shut your eyes, just now, what do you imagine?

My immediate answer is a waterbed, because my shoulders and wrists are killing me, and I've read that waterbeds are really good for people who just cannot get comfortable, then, it expands, and I'm floating in my pool (which Jose the pool guy swears will be ready tomorrow), and there's sunshine, and someone brings me an iced coffee.

And anyone else is still welcome to Question Me.

Note to self:
When you realize that you are having issues receiving mail from more than one account, from recognized email addresses, check and see if your other computers are online and in the mail program.

*sheepish expression*

— Which is better…NJ Shore or CA Shore? Why?
For sheer dramatic beauty, and wildlife, nothing beats the California coastline. For sunning and swimming, NJ, all the way. Northern CA water is cold even in summer, and the undertow is severe. I was spoiled by the Gulf Stream running through the Atlantic.

— If you could live anywhere, where would it be?
Portland, Orgeon, or Pezenas, Languedoc, France.

: Monkeys: cool or not cool? As objects of humor, cool, as pets, not cool. They're my favorite animal cracker, though.