The Scoop

My bloggy friend, lorem ipsum, was kind enough to include me in her interview post. She asked some interesting questions and I'll try to think of suitably exciting answers, although it might be hard!

1) Where the heck have you been?
Living life, I guess. I plan a gala each May, which makes me anxious for several months and this year was particularly difficult. My husband was interviewing for a new job with a potential relocation. That fell through, so we started the process again and he's starting at a different company next Tuesday. No relocation necessary! All that, plus various medical tests, and I was basically working and watching bad television for the past several months.

I guess I could have written about it here, but I figured it was just normal life stuff. Extremely interesting to me, but I'm not as talented a writer as you and I don't think I could make it compelling to others.


2) What is the first book you ever remember reading?
Go, Dog, Go!

I remember that my mother, who worked evenings, was getting ready and I was in my bedroom pretending to read. We had read the book many times together and I was spelling out the letters and making sounds. Suddenly, the sounds became a word, then the next word, then the next. It was a revelation. I felt like I had opened a door to another part of my brain. I was 15.

Just kidding. I was 30.

3) You are a 'pop junkie,' but your tastes don't seem banal at all. What music/book/magazine/tv show is your guilty pleasure?
Oh, I definitely enjoy swimming in the shallow end. Almost prefer it, actually, after putting up with the pretensions of my professors and fellow students in an ivy league graduate program. Sure, I can talk the talk when appropriate, but I will always be tickled by the absurd and the tasteless. It's a character flaw.

So, music - I love Neil Diamond and The Monkees. Davy Jones was my first crush at 5 years old, and I still remember the words to Pleasant Valley Sunday.

Books - I read trashy romance novels. Not just the greats like Catherine Coulter, Linda Howard, and Amanda Quick, but also the Harlequins by Violet Winspear. I look for bulk bags of romance novels at used book stores, buying 50 for $5, then I will spend the day on the couch with them.

TV - Actually, all I watch is bad television. Disaster shows on Discovery. The Soup. Reality shows on MTV and VH1. I reveled in Flavor of Love when it was on. Right now, I'm following Ghost Hunters on Sci Fi and Top Chef on Bravo. The SciFi channel is continuing a fine tradition of B Movies and I've been enjoying the ones based on Greek mythology for the horrible special effects and stilted acting.

4) What famous author, living or dead, would you most like to have over for dinner, and what would you serve?
Goodness, there's so many. I'd like to meet Kurt Vonnegut, although I imagine he'd be a lot like Kilgore Trout in real life. Maybe Madeleine L'Engle, because she has a purity and honesty in her writing that makes me think that she's a warm and wise person. Nick Hornby because he's got a dry, cynical sense of humor and eclectic taste in music.

I'm not sure what food I'd serve, but I'd definitely try to lubricate them with alcohol.


5) You have $10 and $90 to last you for the month, to split between food and books. Does the $10 go for food, meaning you eat ramen noodles for a month but get a nice stack of books, or do you skimp on the reading material in favor of some more substantial nutrition?


I don't skip meals. It goes against my nature. I ate enough ramen to last a lifetime in art school. Thank goodness for library cards!

So that is your peek into the world of Jane. Scary, isn't it? If you're interested in being interviewed, give me a holler and I'll try to conjure some imaginative questions!

Thanks Lorem!

posted by Zippy Buggleshorts @ Tuesday, May 23, 2006