Bloggers, Run for Your Lives!

I got a tweet last week from D. D. Syrdal telling me I'd been tagged. I had no idea what that meant, but her blog post explained that it's a fun way for bloggers to get to know each other. What’s great about blog tag is that asthmatics can play without their inhalers.

So, verbatim from D.D.'s post on Filling Spaces, here are the rules:

1. Post the rules. 

2. Tag up to eleven bloggers by posting links to their blogs, and let them know.

3. Create eleven questions for the people you’ve tagged. 

4. Answer the questions your tagger posed for you. 

5. Have fun!

Choosing blogs to tag was HARD. Finding great blogs is easy, but guessing which bloggers might be willing to play along is more challenging. So, fabulous bloggers, please note that there is no pressure to participate. 

Does this image make the game seem creepy?

Tag! You’re it:

J. Lea Lopez 

Sarah Belliston

Nicholas Olivo

Wendy S. Russo

October Weeks

Beth Dolgner

Ana Ramsey

Marguerite Butler

Adam Slade

Rebecca Hamilton

Melanie Crouse (Howdy, fellow Proser!)

Your questions:

1. What should you really be doing right now instead of blogging?
2. What was the last book you read that you couldn’t put down?
3. What’s your guilty pleasure? (That's bloggable without a content warning, of course.)
4. Based on what’s in your house right now, how prepared are you for the zombie apocalypse?
5. If you could be the main character in any fiction genre, which genre would you choose?
6. You tumble through the looking glass or the magic closet or whatever, and find yourself the kickass heroine in an urban fantasy novel. Describe your tramp stamp. 
7. What is your kickass weapon of choice? (Kickboxing, magic, nunchuks…)
8. You go into your local dive bar to look for information about the seedy magical underbelly of your urban fantasy world. You order the usual. What is it?
9. A vampire, a werewolf, and a zombie walk in to the bar.* After you kill the zombie, which one do you flirt with to further your romantic subplot?
10. Another looking glass sends you into a historical romance. What is the time period and setting of your story?
11. How long is your love interest’s hair?

* Bonus: Prizes awarded for turning that line into a joke.

If you decide to play along, please come back and post a link!

My answers to D.D. Syrdal's questions:

1. If they were making a movie about your life, who would you choose to play you?

In addition to my circus-side-show height, I also have close-set eyes. I've always known I could never be a movie star because model-looks include good eye spacing. I asked my eye doctor, who confirmed I'm practically a cyclops.

Since there aren't any actresses who look like me, I'll say Anne Hathaway. I'd like very much to look like her. 

2. If you could be given another talent or ability, what would you want it to be?  Have you ever – really – tried to perfect this ability in yourself?

Growing up, I always wished I'd taken ballet, height and coordination issues be damned. Once upon a time I took private ballroom dance lessons. It was wonderful, because I danced with a pro who knew how to make me feel like Ginger Rogers. When I convinced my husband to join me, the magic was replaced by four left feet.  

3. If you could take one trip back in time, when and where would you go?

It’d be cool to see Jesus if I spoke Aramaic. Visiting one of the early American colonies populated by my much shorter ancestors would also be interesting. And who doesn’t want to see a Scottish castle in its heyday? 

Still, I really like indoor plumbing, and asthma medicine, and deciding when to have children. Those things have been awesome. I think I’d rather just visit in ghost form, like Scrooge. That way I wouldn’t catch the plague or get stoned to death.

4. Do you have a favorite movie that you can watch over and over?

I don't have a lot of patience with movies I've already seen. One exception that comes to mind is Lady Jane, which I watched over and over as a teenager. (Side note: I don't want to time-travel to the court of the Nine Days' Queen. It would ruin the movie.)

5. If you could choose to stay a certain age forever, what age would it be?

From my real life: 28. The year after my first child was born was one of my happiest times.

If I could do things differently: 18. I'd wear skinny jeans and a tight, low-cut top every day that it was too cold for a bikini. And I'd get a better haircut.

6. What is one of your favorite quotes?

Oh, that's too hard! One of my favorite poems is The Peace of Wild Things, by Wendell Berry. It feels wrong to quote just one line. You have to read the whole (short) thing.

7. If you could be any fictional character, who would you be?

Anne of Green Gables, but after she got together with Gilbert. I don't need all the teenage angst.

8. What sound do you love? 

The ocean. Barking sea lions and fog horns optional.

9. What superpower would you like to have? 

Matisse: Dishes and Fruit (1901)

Flying sounds fantastic, but it would be hard to use without causing a scene. Getting the house to clean itself with a wiggle of my nose would give much more bang for my super-powered buck. Yes, I think I'll stick with the practical one. I have a family, after all.

10. Do you have a favorite artist? Who?

I don't know much about art, but I've never met a Matisse I didn't like.

11. Have you ever wanted to invent something to make your life easier? What?

I’d like to take the wide elastic band on maternity jeans and turn them into a mainstream fashion trend. Why should only pregnant women get to have their designer jean cake and eat a whole lot, too?

Woo-hoo! Initial results are in...
Sarah Belliston wins the prize for promptness with her post. Thanks, Sarah!