It's Always About Me

Last week Miss Nemesis, a brilliant blogger, posted something that fills a listmaker with joy. I am now stealing it (I also accidentally stole her box lunch last week--so sorry!) and shortening it a tiny bit because I'm going to have to go serve the hordes very, very soon.

3 things I was doing 10 years ago

1. Living in a dive where my roommates and I regularly broke things (not on purpose)--Amy kicked a hole in the wall, I broke the kitchen table in half, Amy and I broke our roommate's bed.

2. I had just accepted a job in BYU's Germanic and Slavic Department. It was a lovely job that I kept until I graduated. The professors were so kind to me, and one of the German TAs called me the Patron Saint of Teaching Assistants. A great job.

3. I was preparing to spend the coming summer in Russia on study abroad. A few days ago I found a survey that Amy and I made for the members of our study abroad prep class. It includes the following questions:

When mugged by Russian gypsies, you will
a) scream
b) give them money
c) ask them out
d) proselytize them

You are most like
a) a wild banshee
b) a hairy Ishmaelite
c) docile, demure, and domestic
d) heir(ess) to a throne
e) other, write a brief essy of explanation

How do you feel about flings? (We were pro-fling.)

3 things on my to-do list

1. Go to London over New Year's

2. Visit Rebekah the Abandoner in her new digs in D.C. (and my other friends in the D.C. area, but I haven't told them about that yet)

3. Get around to giving the Ceramic Genius her wedding gift. It's been sitting in my house for months.

3 things I'd do if I were a millionaire

1. T R A V E L

2. Buy my sister a new house with a mother-in-law apartment to use as a home base for my new life as a dilettante, criss-crossing the globe.

3. Be a giver.

3 favorite possessions

1. My winter coat. So pretty. So soft.

2. My cookie gun. Mostly just because I like to say, "Come on over. We'll have some kitchen fun with a cookie gun" (the slogan on the box).

3. Photographs.

5 things I've read recently

1. Iceberg - I read this for an adventure genre study at work. I chose a Clive Cussler because I can usually convince the boys in DT to read them, and the boys tell me afterwards that Dirk Pitt and the Clive Cussler books are "tight." I thought it was okay.

2. Talking with My Mouth Full by Bonny Wolf - VERY reminiscent of Laurie Colwin's food essays. That's a huge compliment. I ADORE Laurie Colwin.

3. Mollie Katzen's The Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live Without

4. Big Fat Little Lit - for a graphic novel genre study

5. Listening is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Lives from the StoryCorps Project - I love this book. It makes me want to cry for the sheer goodness of other people.