(imagine jazz hands here… and maybe a snappy drum intro)

What fictional person, place or thing would you make real, were it in your power?

Jordan College, Oxford in The Golden Compass.

It’s the fictional school in which the main character inhabits, full of Gyptians and children who play on rooftops:

What was above ground was only a small fraction of the whole. Like some enormous fungus whose root-system extended over acres, Jordan (finding itself jostling for space above ground with St Michael’s College on one side, Gabriel College on the other, and Bodley’s Library behind) had begun, sometime in the Middle Age, to spread below the surface. Tunnels, shafts, vaults, cellars, staircases had so hollowed out the earth below Jordan and for some yards around it that there was almost as much air below ground as above; Jordan College stood on a sort of froth of stone.
(Pullman, Northern Lights)

What woman has had the strongest impact on your life?

My mother. I can only hope that I can grow up to be as kind, loving, and bold as she is.

What do you find comforting?

The sound of trains, especially the sounds of trains at night. I never want to live in a house where you can’t hear trains at night.

What makes you almost hold your breath in excitement?

Halloween, Krush Girls, My birthday, Christmas brunch

What offends you?

Rudeness for no reason.

What always makes you smile?

Miyazaki movies. Also, Wall-E

How are you in a crisis?

Very focused (if a bit scattered) on what needs to be done. I deal with stress by planning.

What is your most unusual or rare quality?

You know how when you swing on a swing set you can kick your shoes off? I used to be really good at kicking mine further than the other kids. I also do a really good southern belle accent when I’m drunk.

Use one word to describe your childhood.

Adventure

What fictional character did you love most or identify most closely with as a child?

Ariel, probably. The Little Mermaid was the first movie I ever saw in theaters. I was 4 and I can still remember that first scene with the ship coming out of the fog on the big screen.

What’s the strangest job you ever had?

When I was in high school, I worked as a waitress at a Mexican Restaurant owned by an Indian guy. All of my coworkers were on meth, and I think a number of them slept with one another. The only reason the place existed is because the owner’s son made a lot of money building websites for foreign investors, so while we never broke even, the place stayed afloat.

What’s the hardest job you ever had?

Skill and knowledge-wise, it’s the job I currently have. The hardest as far as just getting through the day was a job I had before I moved to Jersey.

I worked at a doctor’s office as an “Insurance Verification Specialist.” I had two days of training, then the lady who trained me went on a week’s vacation. The doctor’s wife/the head bitch of the place would come in for about three hours a day every other day, so for my first week, if I had a question, I had no one to ask. If I screwed up in any way, I’d get yelled at by one of my coworkers, frequently without being told what I’d done wrong. (This included one day in which this random lady I’d only interacted with once told me I looked sloppy and people had been complaining about it. I was, at the time, wearing brown dress pants, heels, and a button-down shirt while she was wearing scrubs and crocks.) Ironically enough, on the day I decided to quit, the head bitch called me into her office with two of my coworkers and explained to me how much of a weight I’d been on the rest of the office, and how she should fire me, but she’s kind enough to give me another chance. At that point I did quit, and never got paid for those two and a half wasted, miserable weeks of my life.

If you could relive any moment in your life, which would it be?

I don’t have a specific moment, but I’d love to do high school again knowing that none of it matters.

Who was your first crush on?

Tyson Reece–the son of my two of my parents’ tennis teammates, lover of dinosaurs, The X-Files and all other things good. We would play down by the creek for hours on end.
Note: He was still hot in high school

At what time in your life were you most in love?

High School, Junior year, David Gladden. I had liked him for two years before we got together, but never had the nerve to talk to him. A mutual friend told him I liked him and he wrote me a love note. For two days after he gave it to me we talked on the phone for hours but were too shy to look each other in the eye. The relationship lasted a year and messed up my life for years after it ended.

What song gives you chills?

The Gaslight Anthem-Here’s Lookin at you, kid.


What song makes your heart sing?

Gym Class Heroes-Clothes off


What book do you never tire of?

The Perks of being a Wallflower.

If you could live in a book, which book would it be?

Perhaps The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm, just for a change of pace.

What film have you watched the most times?

Fight Club or Monty Python and the Holy Grail

What film do you quote most often?
(Actually quote, not wish you were clever enough to quote regularly and INTEND to quote. What do you ACTUALLY quote?)

Fight Club


What film’s dialog do you love most?

Velvet Goldmine

Mandy: Today, there'd be fighting in the streets. But in 1972, it was more like dancing.

Reporter: Tell us, Brian, are the rumors true when they say you and Curt Wild have some sort of plans up your sleeve?
Brian Slade: Oh yes. Quite soon we actually plan to take over the world!
Brian Slade: Ha! Nothing makes one so vain as being told one is a sinner!
Curt Wild: Excuse me, fellas, while I raise my glass to the loveliest man in Europe.  
Brian Slade: And they tell you it's not natural.
Curt Wild: The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.

What scene from a film, play or musical is your favorite?

I don’t have one, specific one, but I really love the random musical numbers, like No Life Without Wife in Bride and Prejudice and That’s how you Know from Enchanted.

What poem or line of poetry resonates with you most strongly?

Safe Subjects by Yusef Komunyakaa

How can love heal
 the mouth shut this way?
 Say something worth breath.
 Let it surface, recapitulate
 how fat leeches press down
 gently on a sex goddess’s eyelids.
 Let truth have its way with us
 like a fishhook holds
 to life, holds dearly to nothing
 worth saying – pull it out
 bringing with it hard facts,
 knowledge that the fine underbone
 of hope is also attached
 to inner self, underneath it all.
 Undress.  No, don’t be afraid
 even to get Satan mixed up in this
 acknowledgment of thorns:
 meaning there’s madness
 in the sperm, in the egg,
 fear breathing in its blood sac,
 true accounts not so easily
 written off the sad book.
Say something about pomegranates.
 Say something about real love.
 Yes, true love – more than
 parted lips, than parted legs
 in sorrow’s darkroom of potash
 & blues.  Let the brain stumble
 from its hiding place, from its cell block,
 to the edge of oblivion
 to come to itself, sharp-tongued
 as a boar’s grin in summer moss
 where a vision rides the back
 of God, at this masquerade.
 Redemptive as a straight razor
 against a jugular vein -
 unacknowledged & unforgiven.
 It’s truth we’re after here,
 hurting for, out in the streets
 where my brothers kill each other,
 each others daughters & guardian angels
 in the opera of dead on arrival.
Say something that resuscitates
 us, behind the masks,
 as we stumble off into neon nights
 to loveless beds & a second skin
 of loneliness.  Something political as dust
 & earthworms at work in the temple
 of greed & mildew, where bowed lamps
 cast down shadows like blueprints of graves.
 Say something for us who can’t believe
 in the creed of nightshade.
 Yes, say something to us dreamers
 who decode the message of dirt
 between ancient floorboards
 as black widow spiders
 lay translucent eggs
 in the skull of a dead mole
 under a dogwood in full bloom.

What famous quote do you repeat or refer to most frequently?

“Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?”

If you could (or had to) freeze your physical self at one age, what would it be?

Either 17 or 21. The future always look so bright at the end of schooling.

What view would you choose if you could have any view from your bedroom window?

Either the view in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope:

Or the view that Carrie had when she moved to Paris right before Sex and the City (show) ended:


What one thing would you give to everyone you know if you could?

A theatre in which everyone could work together and no one maliciously screwed one another.

If you could be a tremendous success at any one thing, what would it be?

Writing

What, if anything, do you hesitate to do for fear of looking silly or being laughed at?

Anything that I’m not positive I’m great at.

Who would you choose if you could talk to anyone who is no longer alive for an hour?

My grandmother.

If you wrote your will, who would you leave your most prized possession to?

My parents. They wouldn’t appreciate it. It’d end up in the basement.

What sentence did you never say to someone, but wish you had?

There are many, some good and some bad. I’m currently trying to say fewer of the bad ones, but there’s a lot of, “Look, I can do my job,” that I wish I could say.

Who do you trust most?

My dog, my boyfriend, my immediate family (not including my mother’s dog–my father’s dog is cool, though) in that order

What do you most like getting the opportunity to say?

What’s on my mind, especially if it’s a smart idea

When have you laughed the longest or the most?

My best friends and I used to have sleep overs in middle school. We’d pretty much stay up all night in my friend’s basement and watch TV (mostly anime). I remember on night in specific, we turned on Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II in Spanish and did our own dubbing of the film.


What value or quality in a person is most important to you?

I need to be able to trust those around me. If someone stabs me in the back, it’s pretty destructive to our friendship. The funny thing is, I’m actually pretty forgiving, given time. Most of the friends who don’t speak to me anymore, I’d gladly take back into my life were they interested.

Whose face is your favorite face?

My dog’s

Where do you feel safest?

I felt safest when living on campus. Since then, everywhere’s been about the same.

When do you feel most yourself?

I rarely feel not myself. It’s a very off-putting feeling for me.

What makes you nostalgic?

Lots of things, mainly smells.

What is the best lesson you have learned in life?

You can’t do and have everything in life all the time. Choose and you’ll have a better success rate.