I wasn't tagged...

Lynn did this but said she wasn't going to tag anyone, but I still kinda like these things so I am going to do it anyway.



1. What do you value more in a story: dialog or plot?

Dialog, really. As Lynn said: if the dialog is bad the best plot can't make up for it. I even like books others dismiss as "talky." I think it's because I have been an "outsider" so long that I tend to wind up listening to other people's conversations and things. (Also, back when I was writing regularly - like for high school English classes and stuff - numerous times I had teachers praise me for being able to write "good" dialog, in the sense of it having verisimilitude. I think that may come from being more of a listener than a talker most of my life.

2. Describe the home planet of Lin-Manuel Miranda. (Come on, that dude ain’t human.)

Do you want my snarky answer or my kindly one? Or a little of both?

Kindly answer: from everything I've read he seems like a very good and kind man, so it would be a good and kind planet.

Snarky answer: he comes from a planet that revolves around the East Coast and people who think that's all that matters. I know little of "Hamilton," simply by virtue of (a) living in "flyover country" and (b) being busy enough and frugal enough that I'm not going to jet off to NYC in the hopes of winning in the ticket lottery. (Also, I will admit - though I fear this may lose me at least one reader - the musical is probably not my cup of tea, at all. Based on what I've heard of it. I'm just not into hip hop. That's fine if you like it, it's just not for me. And yes, I get everything artistic he's trying to do with it, and I get that it's basically the 21st century version of the Gilbert and Sullivan patter songs I love so much, but it's still not my cup of tea)

3. If you enjoy watching any sports at all, which ones would you at least like to try just once?

The only sport I ever watch - though more often listen to it on the radio - is baseball, and I don't even follow that very much. I HAVE actually played pick-up softball very occasionally in my life. I am probably too old and too slow now - and too likely to rupture a knee trying to slide into a base.

Badminton. That's more my speed as a sport. You can even play it wearing a dress, at least, I have.

(I had a friend in grad school who praised bocce ball as a game because, "It's the only sport I know that you can do with a beer in your hand.")

4. Describe the most recent book to which you gave (or would have given) five stars.

It's been a while that I've read one that good, but I think Louise Penny's "A Rule Against Murder" would rate that. J. Jefferson Farjeon's "Thirteen Guests" is good but not quite five-star good.

I liked Penny's book so much because in addition to having an interesting setting and a sympathetic main character, it kind of had the underlying theme of redemption and how people who have been injured emotionally either work past it or don't. It was much deeper than the typical mystery novel.

5. Do you finish bad books? Why or why not?

Depends on the bad. If it's merely kind of boring, I'll push through - or put it aside for a while and come back to it. If there's something actively offensive to me in it (like, really explicit rape scenes or something), no. If the dialog is really bald, no. If the main character makes me so peeved, no. (I will admit to having thrown "Eat, Pray, Love" across the room when I tried to read it. Because I was in a situation where someone didn't EXACTLY leave to "go find themselves" but had decided that having fun outweighed doing their duties, and I was already irritated about that, I didn't need to read about the author doing something similar.)

6. How vexed are you when movies don’t match the books?

To be honest, I enjoy playing "spot the differences." In some cases the movie is even better.

Even the movies that are kind of goofily wrong (like the 1940s-era version of "Pride and Prejudice") are fun in their own right to me.

7. Describe your perfect hot beverage. In detail. I’m talking roast of bean or variety of leaves, additives like spices or squirts of citrus, vessel from which the drink is sipped, where you are sitting as you sip it, who is next to you, what music is playing.

Almost always this will be tea. My current preferred one is "Lifeboat Tea" - this is a very strong (mostly Kenyan) tea that brews up almost as dark as coffee. It's a British product so I have to mail order it, but I like it because it's strong and sort of plain and I like that it boasts a small portion of the proceeds goes to the RNLI (the Royal National Lifeboat Institute, a group that does rescues in the UK kind of like our Coast Guard).

I have a few other tea blends I like. I like Harney and Son's All India, which is similarly strong but has a more malt flavor. And I like their Comoro Vanilla decaf for when I need a decaf tea.

8. Do you watch cooking shows? If so, describe your favorite.

I generally prefer the shows that have people actually making food. I kind of like Barefoot Contessa and The Pioneer Woman but rarely watch them because they tend to be on when I'm at work, or when something else I'd rather watch (e.g., Ponies) is on.

9. Name a place you’ve visited that you thought you’d hate but you didn’t.

Not "expected to hate" but expected to be disappointed - I can't remember all the circumstances but on a family trip we wound up going to Bent's Old Fort in La Junta, Colorado, instead of the place I had lobbied for going to, and I was expecting to be disappointed ("How fun can an old fort be?") but it was absolutely FASCINATING and I recommend it to people traveling out that way.

10. You know that hobby you had as a younger person that you miss dearly but you know you’ll never do it again? Describe it!

Climbing trees. Because now I'm too heavy for it to be safe for the tree and I also have too low of upper-body strength relative to my body mass for it to be safe for me. When I was a skinny and fairly-strong-for-my-size ten or twelve year old, it was a lot of fun though and I loved being able to see the world from a different perspective.

11. On January 20, 2017, the newly inaugurated President of the United States signs a law requiring all Americans to display a coffee-table book prominently in their home. Which one do you put out?

Probably something like "Knitting in America" or another one of those big pretty knitting books. Dark horse choice: an odd book about sock monkeys I got cheaply from Daedalus or somewhere, where a couple guys went around and photographed every sock monkey they could find, and asked well-known people (e.g., Teller of Penn and Teller) to write essays about them (or write what the monkey in the picture would "say," which is what Teller did).

Alternate answer: I'd put out a book about encroachments on our freedom of choice, which really is what being told you MUST display a coffee table book is. As much as I love books, I'd hate to be told how I had to display them or which ones I must buy.