1. Do you have a “bucket” list? A number of things that you want to do before you “kick the bucket”? I don’t, and I’m not sure what that says about me. Perhaps it means that I won’t be disappointed in my twilight years by the whole of my life’s accomplishments. Perhaps it means that I have a stagnant personality. I’m not sure. My list would look like this: Write at least two books. Raise happy children.
2. Did you have a favorite TV show that you loved as a child? As a young child, I was devoted to Mister Rogers and Reading Rainbow. Later on ALF, The Cosby Show and Growing Pains were staples. During high school, Friends and Frasier floated my boat.
3. What are your top 3 favorite books? We have a book critic now at Citizen Wausau, and I like the idea of bringing the literary perspective to the community dialogue. My top three books would include The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera, The Thin Woman by Dorothy Cannell and The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher. They aren’t masterpieces, but they are touchstones for my life. I go back and reread them time and time again, savoring the words and the stories for different reasons. The golden ring silences of Kundera, the flabbergasted British countryside castle comedy of Cannell and the cherishing of memories and love in Pilcher’s Porthkerris.
4. Did you and your father share a favorite activity? From an early age, my dad would challenge me with logic problems. We’d solve them together. I amused him by solving word searches faster than he thought possible, and we would spend silent hours together solving 5000-piece jigsaw puzzles.
5. What would you do if you had an entire day to yourself to spend as you wish? Let’s give you 500 dollars in your pocket as mad money. What would you do? I’d have breakfast at the Mint, spend a couple hours in a lounge chair in the library with the latest fiction release, paint pottery at the Clay Corner, and have lunch at 2510 with Death by Chocolate for dessert. After lunch, I’d snuggle down with an old movie (probably Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House) and take a nap under a sumptuous quilt. After the nap, I’d get a massage at Natural-Care Massage in Schofield followed by a mini shopping spree at JoAnn Fabrics. Dinner would probably be at Wright’s Place with a lighthearted movie afterwards: just me, a large Coke and a bucket of buttery popcorn that would inevitably give me a tummy ache.
