Tuesday, November 19, 2013

These are a few of my favorite things...

Favorite color:

My favorite color is/has always been purple, though I surround myself with it surprisingly little. I have a purple laptop, but there's no purple decorating my house aside from my Fiesta dishes, which I shamelessly collect in almost every color there is. Likewise I can count my purple clothes on one hand. This is a far cry from my freshman year, when nearly every article of clothing I bought for school was purple in some way. This coincided with my Prince phase; I suspect that two are not unrelated. I'm fairly particular about my favorite shades of purple, as they are not all created equal. The deeper and richer the better, I far prefer stronger bluer hues than the reddish ones. In truth, though, I love all deep, jewel tones. As a young adult, I fell in love with cobalt and have collected it ever since.

Favorite TV show(s):

I love to laugh, so I have always historically leaned toward comedies. From Three's Company to Night Court, Roseanne to Seinfeld, I prefer the kind of laughs that teeter on just the right amount of wrong. These days my must-see TV is The Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, Doctor Who and The Walking Dead. (I blame my Fanboy husband for those last two.) My favorite show of all time would have to be Moonlighting, which I loved so much I did my own homage with a script:

Oh Teacher, Where Art Thou?

Favorite Movie(s):

This is a little trickier. The top three are Tootsie, Up and Hairspray, and each one vaults to the #1 position whenever I watch it. American Beauty, Crash and the Godfather also land in the top ten. Some of the movies I wish I had written are Pleasantville, Galaxy Quest and Monsters, Inc - and I aspire to reach that pinnacle in my lifetime, even though I tend to write darker/more angsty material than what I choose for my own personal entertainment. Though I lean almost disproportionately towards comedies, any movie that can make me laugh AND cry in the same sitting impresses me the most, which is why I am a total Pixar devotee. The love montage between Ellie and Carl in Up captures this kind of storytelling BRILLIANTLY.



I want to write like this when I grow up.

My idol was/is John Hughes, who proved with The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller that genius does not equate time spent on a project. (TBC written in a weekend, FBDO written in six days.) He mixes humor and heart in a way that inspires me, and I can't imagine my teen years with his movies guiding my path.



Favorite Band/Singer(s):

I love all kinds of music and always have. My playlist can spit out any number of genres back to back. Take a long car ride with me and you'll get soundtrack musical numbers, rap, disco, country, classic rock mixed in with Weird Al and the Blue Man Group. I can go from Metallica to Lady Gaga in the blink of an eye. I dig it all and I find inspiration for it all. I think Prince is an unparalleled genius, Pink is a goddess and I still mourn Freddie Mercury. My favorite bands when I was growing up are my favorite to this day. I think the Eagles were ah-may-zah-zing songwriters, and one of my favorite things to do in the world is to drive through the southwest parts of the U.S. with their music blaring from the car radio. My favorite band of all time, though, is Journey - thanks to the amazing epicness and general badassery of Steve Perry. If anyone should ever disparage exactly HOW badass he is, consider this: he's technically been "retired" since 1998, yet a mere chance to have coffee with him for charity is currently fetching $10-effin-thousand buckaroonies in an impressive bidding war that is sadly, very sadly, too rich for my blood.

He's one of the reasons I remain a groupie to this day.



Favorite Song(s):

This is even trickier than the movies question. I have so many for so many different reasons. Every book has its own soundtrack; every life event and childhood memory can be traced directly back to specific music. While I LOVE the Goldbergs, the new comedy on ABC, I often get yanked out of the story by the weird timing that mixes a later 80s time frame with earlier 80s music. This screws with my perception of the past, where I use music as a landmark to navigate through the memories, particularly that era. "Tuesday's Gone" by Lynryd Skynyrd tops that nostalgic list. I really like important songs that say something significant, like "The Last Resort" by the Eagles or "Animal" by my good friends, Zero 1. My son asked me the other day if there was a song that changed my life in any way, and I guess I'll have to go with "Proud" by Heather Small. It's a song that asks a question I think we should ask ourselves EVERY day: What have you done today to make you feel proud?



When that becomes your focus, you'll be amazed with what you can do!

Favorite Author(s)/Books:

I was a voracious reader as a kid and inhaled everything I could get my grubby little paws on. My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Borger, encouraged this reading habit by giving me books to read. One of the books she gave me that year was "Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls. He, too, managed that delicious line of heart and humor that I love so much, and was really the first author I noticed because of it. In fifth grade, we were reading "Where the Red Fern Grows" as a class assignment. My English teacher had let her PA do most of the reading, but when we got toward the end she had to take over because the PA was so overcome with emotion she had to leave the room entirely. Meanwhile I had my head in my arms on my desk, hoping that my classmates couldn't hear me sob like a baby. I love that emotional connection. If a book makes me cry, I'll scour libraries and book stores far and near for more from that author. Danielle Steel was a staple when I was a teen. I loved how she blended history into her stories, and because of her influence, I found I got more out of the stories that detailed a woman's journey/life instead of one central relationship. Two of my favorites of these are "Full Circle" and "Family Album." My favorite book of all time is "The Blessing Stone" by Barbara Wood, which is an EPIC saga that blends history with a subtle social commentary on how women have evolved since the dark ages. I was a huge Stephen King fan as a teen because I always felt like he was telling these stories directly to me. This was his magic. He'd often weave little tidbits into his stories for his fans, referring to his other books as if all the stories were connected in some way, and I got such a kick out of that I literally squeal when I can do that within my own book universe. His "On Writing" is the Bible for any aspiring creator. I also collect Bloom County cartoons from the 1980s. I always wanted to be Berkley Breathed's best friend. He was way too cool for school.

Favorite Foods:

I guess it comes as no surprise that I am a "foodie," of sorts. I love most all foods and I love trying new things and new cuisines. There's really only two foods I won't eat at all, (beets and liver) both of which nearly made me vomit when I ate them the first (and last) time. I never thought I would eat/enjoy sushi, but I passionately fell in love with it. I keep toying with the idea of learning to make it myself. I'm not much on precision in my cooking, so I'm a little intimidated by the process.

Favorite Cities:

I was born with wanderlust in my soul. I love to travel and I need to make at least one significant trip per year. If I can travel by car, all the better. I've been to 29 states, including 13 capital cities (as well as Washington D.C.) Most of these were back in my days as a comedy groupie, when I followed Hal Sparks around the nation. I even inspired part of an "ode."



My favorite of these destinations included New York City, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, and Austin, in that order. Within the next few years, I want to add Boston, Chicago, Hawaii and the UK to my list, preferably at my own book signings this time around. ;)

Not-so-guilty Pleasures:

American Idol, disco, Barry Manilow, playing the Dazed and Confused drinking game, early Britney Spears music, later Madonna music, glitter nail polish, glitter everything (except maybe vampires,) watching re-runs of cheesy shows from my childhood like the Monkees, Sid and Marty Krofft and the Love Boat. I have seen "Finding Nemo" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" so many times I can quote them almost verbatim, and I will always, ALWAYS stop and watch classic Looney Tunes cartoons when they air on TV. Twice a year, I have an epic "North and South" marathon, watching the first two books ONLY of the 1980s miniseries. I am a standup comedy junkie who can quote actual routines, like these from Bill Cosby, George Carlin, Eddie Murphy, Ellen Degeneres, Hal Sparks, Bill Engvall and Eddie Izzard. In fact, in ninth grade speech class, I did the entire "Noah" routine for an assignment. If I meet people who know what I'm talking about when I spout off a movie/TV/comedy line, I feel like I've met a kindred spirit. If they take the next line and run with it, I fall in love with them - male or female. This cemented my attraction to my hubby, Steven. Weird Al and standup comedy albums played a huge part of our initial courtship.

Turn-ons:

Humor, intelligence, kindness, creativity and a strong sense of GRR. Know what you want, go after your dreams, and I'll think you rule the world... because essentially you do.

Turn-offs:

Negativity, ignorance, superiority and cruelty.

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