The Liebster Award

So imagine my delight when a friend-from-another-life, the awesome Liz, who will soon be my neighbor in Boston (eeeeek!), and is also a writer blogging about her novel-writing process (and being funny about it, to boot), nominated me for a Liebster Award, which as far as I can tell, is a self-perpetuating cycle of bloggy love that 1) Allows bloggers to talk about themselves (perfect) and 2) Gently reprimands those bloggers for being too self-centered by making them nominate other bloggers!  I dig this!  So let’s get to it!

Apologies for the epic run on sentence above…that’s what happens in airports (where I wrote it)…time seems to stretch out and say “who needs a period? Just keep going!”

So, to accept the Liebster Award, I’m supposed to:

1. Write 11 random things about myself
2. Answer the questions I was asked
3. Nominate and notify 11 bloggers of their notifications
4. Ask 11 questions of my nominees
5. Link back to the person who nominated me.

Number 5 is done already, so let’s get to the fun stuff!

11 Random things about me

1. I have never seen E.T., the movie.
2. My first major acting role was the title role in The Christmas Bunny, in 4th grade.
3. I am a terrible cook. I forget ingredients, have no sense of proper temperature, and my knife skills suck.
4. I traveled alone to Salzburg, Austria in the 90’s, where I gleefully took the Sound of Music tour and loved. every. second.
5. I would eat peanut sauce and bagels everyday if I could.  Not together.
6. I love live sports AND live theater – I can’t get enough of either.
7. I was once an intern for the US State Department, back when I thought I was going to be a diplomat.
8.  I would give a great deal to know, just for one day, how skinny women feel when they try on clothes.
9. When I take my dog to the dog park, I walk to the farthest corner just so I can watch her sniff around, notice I’m not nearby, locate me, and then come running as fast as she can toward me. She gets going so fast that she blows right by me, and I laugh out loud every time.
10. Now that I am leaving Arkansas, I feel a strange desire to buy a Razorback t-shirt.
11. I am not religious, but I believe, wholeheartedly, that my Gammy is watching me from above, trying to figure out how to send me a guy to fall in love with.

And now to the questions I was asked to answer:

What’s the meaning of life? What’s the point?

Well, others have said it: 42, obviously. Or, if you must have a real answer: to try to make things a little better than they were before I got here.

What are you best at?

Self-doubt. Sleeping. And staying open to the idea that things are never what they seem on the surface.

If you were captured by aliens and put into an arena and they used their power of divination to determine your greatest fear or the one creature/animal/monster fake or real—what would appear out of the shadows to face you?

I can’t think of a monster that scared me – instead I’ll go with the horse dying in The Neverending Story – they would make me watch it and I would be the boy screaming “NO! NO!”

Favorite gig of all time?

Little Red Riding Hood in Into the Woods in college. The role was just hard enough to challenge me, just easy enough for me to know I could do it, and I had a crush on most of my cast members, so it was a giant rush of awesome.

How do you boil an egg?

Step 1: Consider calling my mom for advice
Step 2: Find my Betty Crocker cookbook
Step 3: Follow the directions

If you could magic your mind into the body of any living human being on planet Earth, who would it be? (Keep in mind there’s no going back.)

Geez. This is hard.  As much as I diss on my current body, I’m not sure I’d want to be in anyone else’s, because, well, that’s weird.

If a clown jumped out of a van in the street while you were minding your own business and handed you a big pot of pink paint and a big brush, and said, “You must paint that house over there pink, if you do then you’ll get this,” he shows you the biggest diamond you’ve ever seen in your life, what would you do?

In real life, I’d run because that’s really creepy. In my “I’m spontaneous and whimsical and cool” life, I’d grab the stuff, ring the doorbell, make a deal with the homeowner to split the proceeds (and repaint their house) and get to it.  After chaining the clown and his diamond somewhere nearby so he couldn’t get away.

Favorite food?

See above about peanut sauce and bagels.

If you were suddenly transformed or transmogrified into a great bowl along with your equivalent selves from every country in the world, and you were asked by God to compete against each other in a variety of sports and test, what self from what country would win and why?

My Polish one, obviously, because she’s kick ass.

The best thing you’ve done for another human being?

Geez, again. It would probably be that time I saved a dozen children from a fiery factory…um…yeah…I don’t know. I think it might be each time I am able to genuinely make someone’s day a little better.

What are your long term life goals?

To make a positive impact, and to not have too many regrets when I die, even if I don’t have all the “things” I’m supposed to have. And to someday get to a live New England Patriots game.  And to skydive.

And here are the questions for my nominees: 

1. What book(s) should we (your readers) read next?

2. What movie are you sort of embarrassed to admit you love?

3. Dogs or cats?  And why?

4. Does the idea of life on other planets excite you or freak you out?

5. If you could cook any one dish without having to learn how to do it, what would it be?

6. What one item of furniture in your house would you never, ever part with?

7. Boxers or briefs?

8. If suddenly politicians were unable to advertise their campaigns, and pundits stopped talking about politics, and you had to get your information by seeking it out from the candidates directly, would you be more likely to vote?

9.  Christmas decor in stores before Halloween – yea or nay?

10. Is there someone in your family who inspires you?  Who is he/she and why?

11. If you could trade your smartphone/cell phone for 3 extra hours in the day, would you?

And here are MY nominees for the Liebster award – check them out!  I think they are supposed to be blogs with less than 3000 followers, and I might have to have 11 of them…the rules are fuzzy but who cares!  I like these folks and their writing.

One Thousand Words Project
See Laurie Write
Destination Lethbridge
Onely: Single and Happy
The Little Magpie