1. What do you do for a living? I am an Administrative Assistant at an electrical engineering firm.
2. What do you like most about your job? I like being part of the team that brings reliable electricity to the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />United States.

3. What do you like least about your job? I hate it when I have nothing better to do than answer the Friday Five.

4. When you have a bad day at work it’s usually because _____… they expect me to read their minds or they expect me to be an engineer. I’m a secretary, dammit, not a miracle worker.

5. What other career(s) are you interested in? I want to be a full-time writer for a magazine. Not free-lance. I want to write articles like When Your Best Friend Ditches You For Her Boyfriend and How To Quit Soda and get paid with great benefits.

If you enjoyed the Friday Five, please visit them at http://fridayfive.org/.

They are a little busy right now, so I’m starting at the beginning and moving on from there.

1. Where were you born (city or state or just country)?

I was born in a military hospital in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Portsmouth, Virginia. My father was serving in the Navy at the time and they were stationed in Virginia.

2. What is your favorite number?

I decided that my favorite number was three when I was in grade school. We went to Lagoon and we were playing Skee Ball. I got the highest score that I had ever gotten in my life and I was playing on machine number three. From then on, I tried to get a machine with the number three or with three as a factor. That gives me a one-in-three chance of finding a “lucky” machine.

On a different note: three is such a perfect number. It evokes the Trinity. It represents stability. It reminds me of triangles, on which our higher mathematics depend. I just like it.

3. Vanilla or chocolate?

It depends. Ice cream? Chocolate. Candy? Chocolate. Yogurt? Vanilla. Pudding? Chocolate. Cheese Enchilada? Chocolate (or Mole, whatever).

4. What section of a bookstore would I find you in?

Sadly, you’d find me stuck in the discount section, partaking of the remnants. Whenever Mike and I go to Barnes and Noble, he gets sick of the store before I’m through with the discount section. I swear. I could spend the entire day at the book store.

5. What kind of mattress do you have on your bed? soft? firm? water?

Firm mattress. The kind that you don’t need to flip, you just need to turn. Which, by the way, is just as difficult to do.

September 28, 2001

1. Laying on your back and facing the ceiling, which side of the bed do you sleep on?

I sleep on the left side of the bed. Mike always sleeps on the right side of the bed. Even when we move, it’s the same. Even when we sleep in a hotel it’s the same.

2. Do you have to have covers (blankets and/or sheets) at all costs, no matter the weather?

Yes. I love to snuggle in the blankets and I’m usually cold in the bed, even in the blistering summer. It’s not until a couple of hours before I’m supposed to wake up that my body temperature will warm up enough to get me to kick off my covers.

3. Sleep nekkid or no? Why?

I do not sleep naked. I keep having dreams that someone is watching me. I can’t have Stinky Ghost seeing me naked while I’m sleeping.

4. What’s under your bed?

The games are under there, so let me see, there’s Monopoly, Clue, Candyland, Cranium, Scrabble, Master Mind and Apples to Apples. I’m sure there’s some underwear or socks under there too and maybe even a cat depending on whether the vacuum cleaner is running.

5. If you have pets, do you let them sleep with you? Why or why not?

Maggie and Linda, the cats, are allowed to sleep on the bed. Ok, they aren’t allowed to sleep on the bed so much as we’ve given up kicking them off. Sid, the dog, is not allowed on the bed. He sleeps on the floor right next to the bed. This is great when I hear a bad sound and worry that it might be something evil. If Sid sleeps through it without barking, it must not be Evil. The only negative to letting him sleep in the room with us is that he’ll have bad dreams and whimper in his sleep. I’d rather wake up to Stinky Ghost watching me than to the ethereal and haunting sound of a dog with a nightmare.

Have I said how much I like these things? One day out of the week, I don’t need to worry about what I’m going to talk about. I can just answer the questions and be done with it.

October 5, 2001

1. What’s on top of your refrigerator?

Lots of greasy dust, a blender, and two crock pots of vastly different sizes.

2. What’s your favorite meal of the day?

Since I save most of my points for dinner, it must be dinner. I like eating, though, so any meal is a good meal. I’ve never met a meal I didn’t like. Ok, that’s a lie. Once my grandma in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Montana made some fish called Poor Man’s Lobster. It was horrible. She was a “clean your plate” kind of grandma, but that time she said that we didn’t need to eat that fish. I think it was bad. I guess the lesson here is: Don’t buy fish in Montana and expect it to be good.

3. Wash dishes by hand or in the dishwasher? What detergent do you use?

We use the dishwasher to wash our dishes. We follow a strict policy: Wash them all and let God sort them out. We don’t scrape the dishes. I only depend on God for one thing and that’s to sort the dishes that need scraping from the dishes that don’t. It’s rare when I have to re-wash a dish. We use Electrasol. I don’t know why. When Carol moved into our house, we started buying that brand instead of Cascade and I’ve used it ever since.   4. How often do you eat out compared to eating in?

We eat dinner at home about twice a week and eat at fast food the rest of the time. My favorite place to go right now is called Noodles and Company. They have a wide variety of styles of food to eat all with all the delicious carbohydrates that pasta has to offer. Plus, they’ve yet to come out with nutrition facts, so I’m just guessing on the points. It’s like I’m living in denial, but I know about it, so it’s not really denial.   5. How do you plan to spend your weekend?

This weekend is Mother’s Day, so Mike and I will be spending time with his mother and my mother. That’s how it should be, right?

The Friday Five is now defunct. I’m so disappointed because I was just getting used to having something fun to write about each week without having to ponder or think too hard. “Thinking hurts my head,” says Talking Barbie.

I don’t care. I’m still going to do the Friday Five and I’m still going to call them the Friday Five. If they are going to abandon the project, I’m just going to keep it going all by myself. I have a huge list of journal prompts that I have collected over the years that I’m going to use. Some of them are lame and some of them are cool, so I’m just going to pick and choose among them.

1. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?

I would be seventeen years old, I think. I know that I know more than a seventeen-year-old girl, but I perpetually feel so much younger than my age. I still like glittery lip gloss. I still like to listen to music in my car with the volume too loud. I still like pop music. I was so responsible at seventeen that it doesn’t feel strange to be a thirty-five-year-old teenager.

2. What would your seventeen-year-old self tell your present self?

I think she might be a little disappointed in my situation right now. I’m not a published author yet and thirty-five is way old enough to be published by now. What is taking so long? Of course, she couldn’t have possibly understood the Internet. I guess I could just tell her that I am a published author every single day. Right now, I’m writing non-fiction, but if I wanted to publish my fiction on the Internet, I could do it any time I wanted. I guess that’s my next project. Get my fiction on the Internet. Self-publishing is still publishing. Maybe she wouldn’t be all that disappointed in me.

I live in Sugarhouse, which is where she always wanted to live. She would have preferred a little closer to <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Westminster College, but it’s so much more efficient to be close to the grocery store and the restaurants than the college now. I’m done with that college stuff. Yeah, I guess, she’d be ok with my life right now. Hell, I drive the coolest car in the world. My new lime-green Beetle eats her old Baja Beetle for breakfast.   3. Did you fulfill your promise, developing the talent you were born with?

Yes, I am developing the talent that I was born with, but I don’t really feel like I’ve fulfilled my promise yet. I feel like I have so much more out there for the world to see. I don’t know why I keep it hiding in drawers and on my hard drive instead of exposing it all to the light of the world. I guess if I start a story online, you guys will expect me to finish it. That’s the big deal. I have yet to really finish a story. I’ve written one book from start to finish, but all the rest are works in progress and even the finished book doesn’t feel finished to me. Does it ever? Maybe not. Maybe I just have to release it to the world at some point and decide that it’s finished. Yeah, that’s my next big project: putting The Falstaff online so that you guys can read it.

4. What call did you answer?

I was called to do so many things that it has been really hard for me to concentrate on writing. I paint oil paintings. I can do the Bob Ross thing. I can do the abstract art thing. I can do it all if I just work hard enough at it. I just don’t paint that often. I’ll paint in spurts, doing many paintings over a short amount of time and then I’ll put my paints and easel away for months. I really wouldn’t consider that answering my calling.

I am also a really good singer. I have a really strong voice and I can instinctively know how to sing. I can’t sight read music, however, but that’s not a big deal if I’m only singing for the church choir. I wouldn’t really consider what I do with my voice to be answering my calling, though.

I write every single day, though. Not a day goes by that I don’t write something somewhere. It might just be writing for myself in my journal, but every day, I am a writer. This is the only instance that I feel like I am actually answering my calling. I am actively working on being a better writer every single day.

5. What day would you like to relive, over and over?

I don’t think I’ve lived it yet. This concept was just introduced to me last month by Margaret Cho. She talked about what her one perfect day would be and her encounter with David Bowie was it. Her perfect day doesn’t cut it for me. There is no person on this planet that I so adore that just meeting him or her would be enough for my perfect day. I don’t think I’ve had my special day that I would like to relive over and over.

If I died right now and had to choose, I would be stuck in Limbo for a long time just trying to decide. Would it be the time that my mom took us to Lagoon? Would it be my first trip to Disneyland? Would it be my first date? I went to the Sadie Hawkins dance with Troy Schied. We had burgers and shakes at a malt shop that has been knocked down and replace with yet another Walgreen’s drugstore. A lady came up to us and said we were a cute couple. Our student body president came to the dance in crutches because he had been hurt in a football game. No, that day wasn’t worth living over and over.

No matter which special day I think of, I can vividly remember the unpleasantness that also happened on that day. Maybe only people with bad memories can choose their one perfect day.

It’s the second week of finding my own questions for the Friday Five. It’s still easier than writing a whole entry from scratch.

1. Do you sleep well?

On the whole, I sleep well. I usually get eight hours a night. I really feel that sleeping well is the best way to have a good day, so I try to get to bed on time during the weekdays so that I can have a productive week.

When I do have insomnia, it hits me about two hours before I’m supposed to wake up. I’ll awake in a panic with a nightmare, heart pumping and adrenaline rushing. For the first few seconds, I’m paralyzed and I can’t move. I used to think that I was still dreaming, but I’m pretty sure that I’m awake, I just can’t move anything for about thirty seconds or so. I usually can move my head and arms before my legs will work. After I regain my senses, it usually takes about two hours to get back to sleep. I can’t take a sleeping pill or I’ll sleep right through my waking up time, so I’m just stuck being up two hours early.

2. Describe your nightmares.

I have the run-of-the-mill nightmares just like everyone else, but I also have a few of them that are a little strange. Of course, I have the Stinky Ghost nightmares, which are a new occurrence. I only started having these nightmares when I moved into the Sugarhouse house in July of 2003.

I have a recurring nightmare in which I am stuck in a game that never ends, kind of like Monopoly, but the unpleasant portion of the game is this huge, throbbing noisy brown thing instead of having to pay rent on Boardwalk. I haven’t had that dream in a long time. I hope it doesn’t come back because I don’t miss that one.

I have the typical nightmares where a loved one is in danger. I always end up calling said loved one in the middle of the night to make sure they’re ok. When my grandma in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Montana had an aneurysm, I had a dream about her, but it wasn’t a nightmare. I guess I should stop waking up my loved ones when I have nightmares because my track record sucks.

I have never had a nightmare in which I go to a public place naked or in my underwear. I think it’s because I have nothing to hide. My whole life is right here for anyone to read about, so I’m naked every day.

I have the nightmare where my teeth are falling out or disintegrating. The worst teacher in the world, Mr. Hatch, taught Psychology at Kearns High when I went there. He told our class that if you dream about your teeth falling out, you’re sexually repressed. He stated it as if it were fact. He didn’t even mention that it might be quackery and that wasn’t the worst thing he ever did.

3. Do you get them often?

I get nightmares about once a week. If I am stressed, I get them more often than that. I don’t get the horrible insomnia with every nightmare. I usually am able to just calm down and go right back to sleep.

4. Are they recurring?

The Stinky Ghost nightmares and the Monopoly nightmares are the two most frequent recurring dreams that I have. Every time I have a flying dream, it’s different, so I don’t count those as recurring.

5. What is the scariest nightmare you’ve ever had?

The worst nightmare I ever had was several years ago. I lived at Stonehedge, so it was almost ten years ago. In the dream, we were in Billings, Montana. Mike, my grandpa and I were walking on the side of the road at the intersection of 13^th and Polly. Just as we got through the intersection, a car came barreling toward us and hit my grandpa, throwing him into the air. His hat flew off his head while he fell to the ground. The car didn’t stop or even slow down. At that point, I woke up.

I immediately picked up the phone and called my grandpa. He was just fine, of course, and kind of bothered that I called him, hysterical, at that time of the night. The car didn’t even slow down.

1. What are your personal superstitions?

I like to think that I’m not superstitious, except that I knock on wood and throw salt over my shoulder (should it be the right or left shoulder, I can never remember). I catch myself wanting to believe in ghosts and imaginary kingdoms. Then, there is that obsession with the number three that I have to contend with. I guess I consider myself a logical human being with an eye on superstition. Is it wrong that I accidentally pronounce it stupidstition sometimes?

2. What do you see when your eyes are closed?

I usually have one or two floaters in my eyes that I can see when I close them. When I meditate, sometimes I can see shapes in the dark. The most common is an hourglass shape followed closely by the Target logo. None of the people in my meditation class experienced anything similar, so I guess I’m just weird.

3. You’re a houseplant, what would you say about the humans in your house?

Laura never waters me or even really notices that I exist, but Mike is a God! He gives me water, protects me from little bugs and spiders, and fertilizes me regularly. He even bought a humidifier so that I’ll be happier in this <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Utah desert. I just love Mike. We all do, really.

4. In my life as a vegetable, I’d be _________ because ______

In my life as a vegetable, I’d be a Rutabaga because that’s the funniest vegetable. The name is so fun to say. If you have to be a healthy root vegetable, Rutabaga is the one to be.

5. As a fruit, I think I’d be _______________ because _______

As a fruit, I think I’d be a Marion Berry because it doesn’t even exist. It’s always to fun to live your life as an imaginary fruit.

Man, the questions sucked today. Well, I guess unsatisfactory questions are better than no entry at all. Maybe not?

Man, I totally spaced it last week and didn’t do the Friday Five. It would have totally helped me because I had Cory coming to town and I didn’t want to have to write while he was staying at our house. As it was, I ended up with enough entries. Well, it’s back to normal now.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />

1. What am I afraid of when I journal?

I’m always afraid that someone will read my journal and I won’t be there to explain my thoughts correctly, so they’ll take it wrong. That’s why my raw journal entries have little to do with what shows up here. I end up just writing whatever comes to my head in my journal and sometimes there is a kernel of thought there to cultivate for a blog entry. Most of the time, I end up getting really good ideas when I’m running or alone at a store instead of when I’m writing in my journal.

2. What do you feel when you re-read your journal?

They are horrible atrocities to the English language and should never see the light of day. I don’t know how Anais Nin was able to use her journals to become world famous. Mine are strictly crap from start to finish. I’m not just talking the journal entries from when I was fifteen years old and stupid. Yesterday’s journal entry is just as trite and asinine.

3. A word that describes my journal is …

Consistent. I write almost every day. Sometimes I take a break on the weekend, but most of the time, I am writing something every single day. Consistency is probably the one cohering factor to my journal writing.

4. What is intimate in your journal?

Everything. Nothing is off limits when I’m writing my journal. There are times when I have shredded my journal entries or deleted them because I was so honest that I didn’t want a glimmer of a chance of anyone finding them out, but being able to write exactly what I feel at all times in my journal is one of those things that keep me sane.

5. What is your list of journal writing do’s and don’ts?

I have no rules with my journal. Grammar is irrelevant. Sentence structure is trivial. Spelling is only corrected if Word happens to notice that I spelled something wrong and even then I only change it if I feel like it. There are no rules. My goal is just to get one page filled with text using Arial 10 point text and half-inch margins. If I can get my fingers to pump out that much writing, then I’m warmed up to do some real writing. Plus, all those silly worries get out of my head and on the paper. They look so much simpler there.

1. Do you believe in ghosts?

I don’t really believe ghosts exist. I want them to exist. I think it’s the basic human fear of dying. If ghosts exist, then death isn’t the end. I realize that it’s an instinctual hope within me and combat it at every level, but that still doesn’t stop me from wanting them to exist.

2. If you were a ghost, what places would you haunt?

I guess it would depend on how I died. If I died at a nice old age of natural causes, then maybe I would haunt all the best castles of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Europe. It would give them that haunted flavor and I would get to do some site seeing.

I have always liked the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. I’ve never seen the Haunted Manor at Disney World or EuroDisney, so I can’t really comment on them. I have thought that I might someday like to be the “additional guest” to make them an even 1000 ghosts. Don’t you think it would be cool to haunt that ride at Disneyland? Cory Doctorow probably has dibs on the 1000^th ghost spot anyway.

3. What people would you haunt?

If I died a violent or untimely death, then I’d probably haunt the ones responsible for my demise. I think I would do evil things to them like hide their keys and glasses. I’d make noises that sounded like someone was trying to break into their house late at night. I’d give their dog nightmares.

If I died old and peacefully, then maybe I wouldn’t haunt anyone. I might follow around my loved ones until they died, but I don’t think that I’d haunt them. I’d just stick around and ward off car crashes and find their keys for them.

4. How would you decide when it was right to “go into the light”?

I don’t really believe in all of this stuff, but if I found myself as a ghost, then I would have to revise my entire world view and suddenly going into the light might actually mean something to me. I guess all of that would depend on how I died. If I left something undone, then I would want to finish all the business before I hitched a ride to the next life or eternal salvation or whatever.

I guess that’s why I try not to leave anything undone. Sure, there are books that I haven’t written and projects that sit unwoven. When it comes to saying what needs to be said, I say it. I’d rather say exactly what I feel than die incomplete. Being an atheist can do that to you, but I’ve also heard that being a Christian can do that to you too, so whatever.

5. What would you like to be reborn as?

Wouldn’t it be nice if reincarnation existed? I could choose my next life based on my karma accrued here. I don’t believe it, but if it were true, I would like to come into one of those perfect television families. My mom and dad could be Clair and Cliff Huxtable and I would never have to worry about them fighting or getting divorced. My brother and sisters might be a little wacky sometimes, but all they did fell into the range of norm. There would never be a question of whether I would have enough money for college and all I had to do was choose between MIT and Harvard. Of course, I’d go with MIT. I think I want an easy, lucky life this time around. What do I have to do to earn the karma points for that one next time around?

I’ve been writing my own questions for my Friday entries for the last few months, but it seems that someone has revitalized The Friday Five. I’m a few weeks behind, so I am going to do the Friday Five from one of the previous weeks.

There’s a movie being made about your life! Which celebrity will play…

1. You? Why?

Janeane Garofalo because she has brown hair, is intelligent and outspoken. I always secretly wanted to be Janeane, so it’s only fitting that she play me when my life story is put on the big screen.
2. Your love interest? Why?

Tom Everett Scott should play Michael. They have similar hair. Mike’s more on the dark side of tall dark and handsome than Tom is, but he’s the closest guy I can think of besides Tom Hanks, who is too old to play Mike.

3. Your best friend? Why?

My sister, Stacey, would be played by the lovely Kirsten Dunst. Of course, I liked her better before she cut off all her hair, but she can grow it back for my movie. Her portrayal of Claudia, the child vampire, in Interview With The Vampire, was a perfect depiction of Stacey as a child. She was a little adult in a child’s body.

4. Your enemy? Why?

My enemy! Wow! I don’t really have a nemesis. I’ve lamented about this in the past. I haven’t had any volunteers for arch nemeses. As it stands, my movie will have to remain enemyless. Of course, there’s always The Man. He’s always trying to bring me down.

5. Any family member? Why?

DAN! We can’t forget Dan, my brother-in-law and Stacey’s husband. Who would I have play Dan? Jack Black‘s hair is too dark and he would look silly with it dyed blond. Jack Black’s character from Hi Fidelity would be perfect for Dan. Maybe we can take a little creative license and just let Dan’s character have brown hair.

I just realized that this Friday Five might really piss off everyone. I can see it now, “Kirsten Dunst? I’ve always considered myself a Jada Pinkett Smith!” or maybe, “Tom Everett Scott, who the hell is he? That Thing You Do?! I hate that movie!” or even, “Jack Black?! I’m much more like the Rob Gordon character. I thought you hated that movie? Does that mean you hate ME?”

Oh well, if you’re in my movie, I get to choose the actors, not you. If you don’t like my choices, tough. Ok, if you absolutely HAVE to have Jada Pinkett Smith, I’m ok with that. We’ll just have some explaining to do.

1. What is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?

When Deon Sanestevans apologized to me for the months of torture during junior high school, it was the nicest thing that anyone has done for me. I haven’t told this story yet. I guess I should someday and you’ll understand.

2. What’s the nicest thing you’ve done for someone else?

Senior year in high school, I was on the staff of the Literary Magazine. It meant that we went to class every other day, wrote teen angst poems, judged the teen angst of  our peers and worked our butts off getting our magazine published. Dawni Burton Hatch was in the class with me. Mike Pinkston was in the class with me. Candy Jeffs was in the class with me.

I’ve never talked about Candy Jeffs before. She lives in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Salt Lake again and I have seen her recently. She has been known to read this blog, but I feel like I have to be honest. When we were in high school, the last thing I wanted was to be seen with Candy Jeffs. I wanted to be cool. I was a punk rock bitch and having a Mormony girl like Candy Jeffs follow me around was an irritant.

I always felt guilty for snubbing Candy. I’ve never seen Flatliners, but I’ve been told that Keifer Sutherland was haunted by past taunts of a girl during his school years. I was haunted that way. Several years later, Candy was back from college for the summer and got a job at the same K-Mart that I worked at. I confessed how sorry I felt about treating her poorly during high school.

She told me that she didn’t think I treated her poorly. She was glad that I let her hang out with me. I was never overtly mean to her. She saw our time in high school together as a happy time and she was grateful for my association. I didn’t mean to, but the nicest thing I’ve done was just let someone be my friend. Now, I am grateful for her friendship as an adult.

3. What one thing do you wish you had done?

I wish I had been braver. I wish I had told more guys that I loved them. It was so easy to love back then. The older I get, the fewer people I love. I wish I had told more people that I liked them. It was so easy to just casually like people back then. The older I get, the fewer people I can even tolerate, much less like.

4. What is your biggest regret?

My biggest regret is that it took me so long to let myself be a writer. I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was in high school, but I thought that I had to have something to “fall back on.” I wasted a lot of time getting a degree in Mathematics when I could have been honing and refining my writing skills.

5. What is your greatest accomplishment?

I like to think that my greatest accomplishments are still yet to come. Of course, I’m sure that I would feel like that even if I won the Pulitzer Prize, so I guess I should make an assessment of myself as of this date. My greatest accomplishment to date has been finally allowing myself to write and publish my work every day. I was writing every day, but all of it was hidden away. Publishing on this weblog every single day has been my greatest accomplishment so far.

1. Would you rather earn more money or have more time off?

Can’t I have both? Can’t I earn more money and work less hours? What is the saying? Work smarter, not harder. Can’t I have some of that smarter work?

I guess if I had to choose, I would prefer to have more time off. We only go through life once and I want to enjoy it while I’m here. I can’t spend it after I’m dead.   2. Which is more important, the ends or the means?

This is a question straight out of the sixties. You might as well ask me which is more important, the medium or the message? There’s no question on this one, they’re both important, but the means outweigh the ends. If you have to go against your morals to get the desired result, then it’s not worth it. You can’t do good in the world by doing evil.
3. How are our personalities formed, by nature or through nurture?

Wow! Isn’t that the question? I have no idea. I don’t have any children, but all the parents that I know say that the children come with their own personalities. I know that each of our pets have their own distinct personalities, but each of them had completely different upbringings.

Did Linda’s compulsive overeating come from me? What about her dedication to a schedule? Did Maggie’s needy behavior come from being raised by Mike’s over-attentive sister, Kristen, or was she born that way? Her brother, Chester, also was ultra-needy, but then again, he was raised by Kristen, too. What about Sid? Was he born with the need to bark at motorcycle helmets or was he accosted by a motorcycle madman during his puppy years?

I truly don’t know. If I knew for sure, it might win me the Nobel Prize, so I’m not telling.   4. Who do you feel closer to, your mother or your father?

Finally, an easy one. I feel closer to my mom. I never really bonded with my dad. Now if you asked me to choose between my mom and Grandpa, that would be a hard question.
5. Why do you answer these silly questions, out of boredom or out of love of introspection?   Ahh, the love of introspection. I think my entire life has been lived through the myopic eyes of introspection. Unless of course, you mean the Pet Shop Boys’ album, then I would have to choose boredom. What I do here has nothing to do with that album… I Want A Dog… A Chihuahua…

1. Do you remember your first kiss?
Do I remember my first kiss? Yeah. It was summer and we lived in the house in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />South Salt Lake. My friend had a “boyfriend” and we went to his house. He had a little brother and she wanted to have a kissing contest. I didn’t want to kiss his little brother because he had a runny nose and there was snot just sitting on his upper lip. At least it wasn’t green.

The object of the contest was to see who could kiss the longest. I knew nothing about grownup kissing, so the “boyfriend’s” little brother and I just kissed each other very quickly over and over, trying to beat out my friend. I was carefully trying to avoid his snot when I glanced over at them. They were just having one big long kiss and they were making weird moaning noises over and over. I had never seen anything like it before.

We lost the contest.   2. How old were you when you had your first kiss?

I think this was before I got into first grade. I didn’t go to kindergarten, but I think I was kindergarten age.   3. Where did your first kiss occur?

South Salt Lake City, Utah. We were sitting on the swing set in the part that is like a group swing for four kids. I think it’s called the double swing.  I can’t describe it well enough, so here’s a picture of what it looked like (the swing on the right).   4. Where do you think is the most romantic place to exchange a kiss? (locations, not body parts)

In private. I don’t find kissing in public to be romantic. I know I kiss Mike in public, but I at least try to find an empty aisle at the grocery store.   5. What type of kisser are you? (peck, smooch, French, sloppy, etc.)   I have no idea what kind of kisser I am. I’ve never kissed myself. I know I’ve always been present when kissing happened, but I’m always much more involved with the experience than with my performance. That probably means that I’m a horrible kisser, but if I am, I haven’t had any complaints.

I bet a lot of it has to do with my mood. I bet I only give pecks when I’m crabby and smooches when I’m feeling silly and Frenches when I’m feeling frisky. My favorite are the Zerbet kisses. They’re the big noisy kisses that you give to someone’s belly. I like to give those the best.

1. What color ink pen do you like best?

I can’t decide. The color ink that I prefer is the one I wasn’t using last time I wrote something. I like to change colors regularly. I have written in my Moleskine in purple, aqua, pink, red, green, blue and black.
2. Do you prefer plain paper or paper with lines (notebook paper)?

My Moleskine is used when I’m out and about and have a great idea. Since sometimes I like to draw pictures (or I like to think that I will want to draw pictures), I have the unlined version. When I’m writing at home, however, I prefer paper with lines. In fact, I have an MS Excel document that I use to print up journal pages so I can write longhand when I’m in the mood. Mostly, I just type on the computer.
3. What’s better: books from the library or reading online?
It depends on where I’m reading. If I’m stuck at work and I’m not allowed to read a book, then I prefer reading online. If I’m cuddled into the couch at home, then I prefer the library book. Mike has made a great site to read books online. You should check it out if you’re stuck at work.
4. Which would you rather get, e-mail or snail mail?
It depends on what I’m receiving. If it’s a personal note from a friend, I’d much rather get email because I’ll get it quicker. If it’s junk from advertisers, I’d much rather it be snail mail because then it cost them money to bug me. I will just dump it in the recycle bin, so I don’t worry about the trees they are killing. If it’s important bills or official notices from the government, I prefer snail mail because it seems more official than just an email showing up in my box. I don’t want to get anything official in my email.
5. Do you have a paper weight on your desk?
Not unless you count the Magic Eight Ball, Akenaten, Buddha or <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />St. Jude. I don’t keep papers under any of them. Buddha and St. Jude are too small to hold anything down, but Akenaten and the Magic Eight Ball could do in a pinch. I try to clean all papers off my desk each evening. If there is anything sitting on my desk when I leave, that means we had a really busy day and I left in a hurry.

1. Who was your favorite band/musican when you were younger?

Hands down, The Cure was my favorite. I’ve talked about this at length before, so I’m reluctant to spend another day babbling about them.

One more note, I am covered in shame. KJQ, the local modern classics station, has been running a billboard campaign. I drove past the billboard that said, “Thuk-Your,” for over a month. I was clueless and I asked Mike what it meant. He explained that it was an inside joke. It’s a band name. I still didn’t get it. He said it was “The Cure.” I have shamed my former punkdom.

2. Why?

They were so angst ridden. They fit right into my internal psyche at the time.

3. Are they still your favorite/one of your favorites?

They will always be one of my favorites. They just released a new album and it’s on my Wish List. My mood changes and they change right along with me.

4. What is your favorite of their songs?

The Cure has a few different personalities, so here is my favorite for each of them:

Manic: The Upstairs Room from Japanese Whispers

Angry Young Man: Like Cockatoos from Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me

The Pit of Despair: Play for Today from Seventeen Seconds

5. Are there any specific lyrics you hold dear?

The upstairs room Is cool and bright. We could go up there in summer And dance all night!

Girliest Entry EVAR!

1. Of everything in your wardrobe what do you feel the most comfortable wearing? Why?

Right now, we are having a hot summer, so I’m most comfortable wearing as little as possible. I got some cool skorts at Target in Vegas that look like mini-skirts, but have shorts underneath, so I can wear them to work and not have to be too hot. Plus, there’s no risk of the accidental undie flash.

2. How would you describe your style?

I look like a boring soccer mom, but I’m not a mom and I don’t watch soccer. I guess I would classify myself as Preppy, which is what I used to dress like in high school when I wasn’t going for the punker look or the Mod look. I stop just short of wearing a sweater around my shoulders and tied in a knot on my breasts.

3. How many pairs of shoes do you own and do you wear them all?

Too many. I haven’t counted, but I’m sure there are at least twenty pair in the closet and in the basket next to the door. Right now, I’m in sandal mode, so I’ve been wearing my fabulous sandals every day for weeks because of the heat. I’ll go back to clogs when fall comes around and to the boots when winter hits. They rotate and if they don’t get worn, they go to the DI.

4. Where do you buy most of your clothes?

They go back to whence they came. I also shop at Wal-Mart, Target, Shopko and K-Mart. I am finally thin enough to shop at the mall, but I’m still shrinking, so I am loathe to pay mall prices for clothes I’ll only be able to wear for a couple of months.

5. What was the last piece of clothing you bought?

The aforementioned skorts. Luckily because I love to say the word skort. Skort, Skort, SKORT!

Wow! Who let Barbara Walters pick the questions?

1) What animal best represents you?

I think a koala bear is the animal that I feel the most affinity with. They are so cute and cuddly, but if you try to hug them, they’ll rip you to ribbons with their sharp claws.

2) What color best represents you?

I like green the best. Lime green, Kelly green, Olive green, Avocado green, Flourescent green: it doesn’t matter as long as there is a little bit of yellow and a little bit of blue.

3) What season best represents you?

I like all of the seasons and I really can’t choose a favorite. I think that I’m like Spring because I’m bouncy and full of life and color. I think that I’m like Summer because I’m fiery and hot headed sometimes. I think that I’m like Fall because I’m full of the bounty of the harvest and the start of school. I think I’m like Winter because I have so much greatness hidden within me. I am one with the seasons: all of them.

4) What emotion best represents you?

I only have two emotions: manic and angry. You choose.

5) What flower/tree/plant best represents you?

I think that I would love to be like a palm tree. There have been so many times when a hurricane was coming to Florida or Hawaii and I’ve seen the palm trees on television blown nearly sideways with the winds. The next day they are upright and ready for the day. Sure, they are missing a few palms, but they are still there and still alive. That’s how I want to be. I want to be a palm tree.

1. If your family was a television family, who would they be? Name family and/or television show.

Man, there isn’t anything on television that comes even close to what our family is like. If there was, I think it would have to be on HBO.

2. If you and your friends were a television show, what show would best describe i.e. personalities and/or day-to-day relations?

I like to imagine that Stacey, Dan, Mike and I are like “Friends.” I know it’s not true and there is no one-to-one correlation between us, but I like to imagine that it’s true.

3. What television show would best represent your life?

“Friends” is the closest thing to my life, except the people come from more normal families than I do. Chandler’s history is the closest to mine, I think. Of course, I would end up being a strange cross between Phoebe and Monica.

Sometimes I wonder if my life has been in imitation of “Friends.” Rather than having my own adventures, I’ve just appropriated theirs. That’s just too sad to think about.

4. What theme song would run for a television about you? May be one used by a show already or something different.

I think I would appropriate the Barney Miller theme song. It doesn’t have any words and it’s kind of jazzy. It’s old enough that it’s familiar, yet untraceable. Rather than try to find a new one, I’d use that.

On the other hand, maybe I’d choose “I’ll Be Mellow When I’m Dead” by Weird Al Yankovic. That one describes my personality a little better.

5. Who would you have play yourself? Friends and family?

Didn’t we just do this with the movies? Yeah, I think we did. Of course, I don’t think Janeane Garofalo would be willing to do TV, so maybe I should rethink the available actresses.

1. If you were an alien visiting Earth where would you come from?

It’s much easier for me to imagine myself as an alien visiting a planet that’s NOT Earth for some reason. If I were an alien, I think that I would like to come from a system in the Pleiades, maybe Electra or Maia.

2. How would you get here and how long would it take?

I would be beamed directly here through a matter transport machine. To me, it would feel instantaneous.

3. What would you do or say when you got here?

I would take the form of a human being, so I would just set up shop, get a job and observe the humans in their normal habitat.

4. What would be your best judgment about Earth and what would be your worst judgment about Earth?

Earth is a beautiful planet inhabited by industrious mammals called humans. They work really hard to move around green bits of paper. My worst judgment would be that they tend to view each other as different when really they all look the same to me.

5. What would you look like?

In my natural state, I would be a pure energy being, able to take the form of whatever I wish. While visiting, however, I would be in human form. In fact, for all you know, I am an alien right now.

1. If the election were tomorrow, who would you vote for?

I would vote for John Kerry. I tend to vote Democratic just to counteract the mindless Mormon Republicans in Utah. I mindlessly vote Democratic in protest.

2. What are the main things that lead you to vote for a certain person?

I vote for the opposite of what the LDS church tells its members to vote for. It’s not logical, but it works for me.

3. Where do you get your info on the candidates?

I don’t care about the candidates. I vote against the LDS church. It’s not about politics. It’s about religion. It’s about the lack of separation of church and state in the state of Utah.

4. Who was president when you were born?

Man, I have to look that up. Before looking, I’m going to guess Nixon. Nope, I was born April 12, 1969, so the president in office at that moment in time was Lyndon B. Johnson. Probably would have been Kennedy in another time line…

5. If you could choose anyone, dead or alive, to be president, who would it be?

I wish Lee Iacocca had run for president. Even if he had run on the Republican ticket, I would have voted for him. I used to think that Colin Powell should run, but I’m not so sure right now. Right now, my hopes are set on Steve Jobs. He’s too smart to run for president, though…

1. What is your favorite summer activity?

I love to roller skate, which is really hard to do here in the winter with all the snow. I also like to ride my bike and walk all over town, which is also something that I shy away from during the winter. I loved going camping this year. Snowbird in the summer is so fun with the animals and the beautiful mountains. I really can’t choose a favorite summer activity because there are so many to choose from. I’m going to miss summer this year.

2. What was one great thing you did this summer?

The one great thing I did this summer was going camping for the first time in my life. I’m thirty-five years old and I was raised by two women who had absolutely no interest in “roughing it.” Both Mom and Carol had worked at Gibson’s Discount Center in the Sporting Goods department. They could have picked the best tents and showed us the best long underwear back in 1983, but they had no desire to camp. Stacey and I were severely camp-deficient. Stacey went camping a lot a few years ago, but I had never tried it until this year. I love it and it wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be.

3. When you were a child, what was your favorite summer activity?

Swimming! I could have stayed in the swimming pool all day every day all summer long if my Grandma had only let me. As it was, she let us swim almost every day (not counting swimming lessons). We also had swimming lessons Monday through Friday at Rose Park in Billings, Montana. We also had baton, dance, tumbling and tennis lessons, but swimming was my favorite.

4. What has been your favorite summer vacation?

I think my favorite summer vacation was the first summer that I worked at K-Mart. It was the first summer that I wasn’t carted up to Billings for the summer. I stayed in Salt Lake and worked at K-Mart and went dancing with Dawni at The Ritz. It was my first taste of grown-up freedom and I loved it.

5. Summer goes well into September, but when do you feel like it is over?

For some reason, I’m still on School Time. I graduated from Westminster in May 1993, but I still gauge the year from September to June. I just don’t get to buy school supplies and learn new things in classes anymore. I have to do it on my own now, which is much harder. Summer is over when school starts.

Why do I do this? We are talking about desserts today. I guess this lets you get to know me on a strange “her favorite dessert is…” sort of way. Peh…

1. What is the best dessert you’ve ever had?

There is a lavender crème brulee that is served at The Oasis Cafe here in SLC. It’s probably my favorite dessert ever.

2. Is there a dessert that just plain grosses you out?

Nope. I don’t think there is any food on this planet that grosses me out. I’m very open about my eating. Of course, I prefer simple desserts to chocolatey ones. I have preferences, but no exclusions.

3. Straight out of the container or with lots of toppings…. tell us how you like your ice cream.

I don’t really like ice cream. I prefer frozen yogurt, sorbets or sherbets. When I do have ice cream, I like it in root beer floats.

4. Cookie dough, brownie mix, cake batter or the finished products?

Dough, mix, batter. Salmonella be damned.

5. You’ve just invented a great new dessert …. what’s in it and what is it called?

I can tell you that I will never in my life invent a great new dessert. There is so much on this planet that I haven’t explored that I’m not excited about inventing things. I would end up inventing some traditional dessert from New Guinea and never get the credit.

Wow! They wrote this week’s questions just for me, didn’t they?

1) If you came upon a time machine, where would you go? Would you alter anything? Why?

You’d think that I’d send that sucker right back to 0 B.C. and send a team back to observe the life of Christ, but I’m more like Ambigo. I don’t care about all that stuff. I truly think that if a time machine is invented, it will be impossible to change documented history, so I wouldn’t even try to alter anything.

I think I would go into the future. I’m more interested in where humanity is headed than where it has been.

2) If you managed to capture the Questing Beast, an odd combination of animal forms that is said to know the answers to all questions, what one question would you ask it? Would the answer change anything?

Shucks! I only get ONE question. I have so many. I guess I’d ask, “Why?” and hope I got enough information from that one question to answer all the others.

3) You’ve found yourself a rather obedient genie in a bottle. Make your three wishes. Why, out of everything you could ask for, do these three win out?

Firstly, I would wish for infinite wishes. Whenever you find yourself in this situation, always, always, always ask for more wishes. Then you don’t have to weigh the three against all the other things to wish for.

On a more philosophical level, I really believe that all of us HAVE been granted an infinite number of wishes. Whatever we want is right there for us to take. All we have to do is wish it into existence. Ok, I admit. Sometimes we need to work a little to bring it to life, but a little work never hurtcha did it?

4) Someone presents you with a working voodoo doll. Do you use it? On who, why, and to what purpose?

Oh man, that old gypsy belief that whatever you give out comes back to you three-fold makes me just want to put that little voodoo doll in a box and keep it out of the hands of evil. Of course, there are some people in the Republican Party that need a jab now and then. I guess that’s why Rush Limbaugh ended up in rehab.

5) Pick a superpower, any superpower. What and why? How would this change your life?

My tastes are simple; I choose immortality. The only superpower I want is to live forever. I hope medical science figures this out before I get to the end of things. I’d gladly give up my biological existence to preserve my intellectual existence. That’s probably why I write so much. I’m trying to preserve my intellectual existence, even if it’s solely represented in strange scratchings on the walls of the Internet.

1. What is your opinion on karma?

I think karma is one of those things that we tell ourselves to make us feel better when bad things happen. We think, “He’ll get his in the end,” and that somehow makes us feel better as we think of all the ways that the universe could punish that ex-boyfriend.

Then again, I’ve seen it happen so many times that I should believe it. I can’t use my experience as proof for the belief in karma. I’ve noticed, however, that many people end up bringing to them the things that they do to others. They reap what they sow. They bring their evil wishes upon themselves threefold. Call it karma. Call it justice. I’ve seen it happen too many times to discount it.

In the end, however, I don’t believe in karma. I’ve seen it happen to people, but that is not proof. It takes a flawless proof to convince a mathematician. It takes a double-blind controlled study to convince a scientist. My life is not a double-blind controlled study.

2. If anything, do you think attitude makes any difference? If you believe the world and life are good, will good things radiate toward you? If you believe otherwise, will it all be a self fulfilling prophecy?

I do think that attitude make a difference if only because people like to be around people with a positive attitude. I don’t know about good things gravitating toward you, much less radiating. Self-fulfilling prophecies are literary devices used to foreshadow the plotline so that when it actually happens, the reader feels proud that they figured it out themselves. I don’t believe self-fulfilling prophecies exist in “real life,” but that won’t stop me from using them in fiction.

3. How has luck/chance/facts-of-life/God/karma/nature treated you so far?

I hate to think of myself as a play thing of the universe. I prefer to think that the good things that have happened in my life were a direct result of something that I did. Of course, the corollary to that belief is that the bad things that have happened in my life are entirely my fault also. That sucks when everything goes pear shaped.

4. What is your opinion of the concept of destinies?

I don’t believe in destiny. The only time I bring it up the concept of destiny is when I want to bug someone, when I’m manipulating their emotions, or when I use it as a literary device. Humans like to believe in destiny, so it is something that pleases the audience.

5. Are both bad and good things needed in order to truly live life? Can you have the bad without the good? The good without the bad?

This is one of those religious and philosophical concepts that is used to justify all manner of stupidity and violence. How can there be an all-knowing, all-powerful and ever-present being if there is suffering in the world? How can God exist if there is evil? The popular justification of evil is the concept that you need to have the bad in life to truly enjoy the good. I don’t know how I feel about this. Sometimes it makes me angry because it lets stupid people believe in God. Other times, I’ve found it to be true. Maybe I’ll talk about this in greater detail later. Maybe not.

1. You’re the opposite sex. Besides the obvious playing with the new parts, what would you do?

Man, this is not even a fantasy for me. I guess I’d try that peeing standing up thing, but that falls under the category of playing with new parts (although, not in the sense that the question seemed to imply). I enjoy being a woman so much that I don’t really have any fantasies about being a man.

2. You’re someone famous. Who and why?

I don’t want to be someone else who is famous. I want me to be famous. I would be the world-renowned Laura Moncur, famous writer and singer and painter and even a famous Dance Dance Revolution dancer. Writer first, though.

3. You’re the King (Queen) of the World (no, you’re not James Cameron). What edict would you pass?

Play Nice!

4. You’re no longer in Kansas (or this world) anymore. Where are you?

I think I’ll opt to stay on the planet (since the atmosphere is Class M). If I wasn’t here, I think I’d be in New Orleans in a jazz club, singing “Learnin’ the Blues” to an appreciative audience.

5. You have a clone standing next to you and it’s going to work/school for you while you get to play hooky. What are you going to do today?

I’m going to play Insaniquarium all day long. When I’m sick of feeding fishies, I’ll write another chapter and then play some DDR.

1. What is something that you used to believe, but are glad you don’t believe anymore?

Armageddon

2. Is there something you wish you still believed? What?

I wish I could still believe in God or a higher power. It made life so easy. I saw Bruce Almighty last week when I was totally sick and there was a point where Bruce kneels down in the middle of the freeway and acquiesces to God’s Will. Yeah, if I met God in person, I’d do that too. Ok, I wouldn’t kneel down in the middle of the freeway during a rain storm. That’s just stupid.

3. What experience or person taught you the most about life?

I wish I could point fingers. That person. That incident. That place. Instead I find myself here with lots of tiny little lessons that have accumulated until I feel like the one to give the advice. Someone must want to know what I learned. Anyone?

4. What area of life would you like to know or understand more about?

I still haven’t mastered coveting yet. I look at the most beautiful girl and I want to trade. I look at the most successful man and I want to trade. I don’t care about their horrific childhood or current strife. I just want the good that I see in their life without consequences. I know the dangers of covetousness, yet it doesn’t stop me from wanting what they have.

5. What is your most valuable lesson about life so far?

Take a break. Relax. Quit worrying. Enjoy yourself. If I did more of this, I think my life might have gone smoother. Then again…

Malaise? You’ve hit writer’s block. All of us get it. Take a break. Back pain? It’s probably muscle soreness. Relax. Exhaustion? Sleeping all day? You’ve probably got the flu. Quit worrying. Blood in your urine? Kick back. Just enjoy yourself.

Sometimes, even good advice is bad advice.

1. What was the last dream that you had about?

Last Thursday night, I dreamt that I was sick with a kidney infection (just like in real life), except that I lived in my old West Valley home with my mom and Carol and my sister Stacey. I was feeling sick, so all I wanted to do was sleep. I had visitors coming in the middle of the night and instead of my mom telling them to shove off, she forced me to be sociable with them. She even gave me hints about what I should and shouldn’t do with the visitors by writing them on my throat and arms.

By the time I got the visitors to go away, it was eight in the morning and I should have been to work. I needed to take a shower to wash off all the marker writing on my body. I couldn’t get anyone to tell me the correct time.

When I woke up from this dream, the clock said 9:30. I couldn’t tell if it was am or pm. I was disoriented and mad at my dream mom for not letting me rest when I was sick. I had to find Mike and have him tell me the real time. It was 9:30 pm (I had gone to bed at 7 pm because I was sick).

2. Does it hold any significant meaning to you?

Whenever I dream about the house in West Valley, I know that I’ve been neglecting my inner child. I spent most of my childhood in that house (from age 7 to 21 when I got married) and it has come to represent my inner child to me. I had a good conversation with her and the next day, I showed up at work to turn in a time card and went right back home to rest. I also chose to tell them that I was going to take Monday off too so that I could fully heal from this kidney infection thing. My inner child was sick and she didn’t want to have to go to work not feeling well, especially when she didn’t get to sleep at all the night before. I haven’t been a very good mom to my inner child lately.

3. Do you dream in color or black and white?

I always dream in color. I don’t believe that people actually dream in black and white unless they spend a lot of time watching old movies. I’ve had dreams where I didn’t notice the color of things, but the only time I’ve dreamt in black in white was after a Twilight Zone binge (my mom had gotten the episodes on VHS and I had watched several episodes of it back to back).

4. What is the most frightening dream you ever had?

I used to have a recurring nightmare that was kind of like a game. I talked about it in another Friday Five. It was when The Friday Five was defunct and I was desperately scrambling for my own questions. You can read more about my dreams there.

5. Is there one dream that stays clear in your mind despite the fact it was more than a few years ago?

I already talked about this in that previous entry about sleeping and dreams. It’s not their fault that I thought of my own questions and they happened to correspond to theirs.

When you were a child…

1. What did you want to be when you grew up and why?

I wanted to be a writer. So, I saved my money and went to college and majored in Mathematics with a second major in Education. What the?! What’s the matter? It made perfect sense to me…

2. Who was your favorite person to do things with (excluding your parents)?

Yeah right… like I was going to choose my parents. Sceverenia Kubota was my favorite friend to do things with from Sixth Grade on up to High School. She always had the coolest toys and her parents let us have wild crazy parties when we were teens. When you see those teen movies where there is a huge party, Scev’s parties were just like that, sans the music and dancing. We tended to watch videos instead of listen to music.

3. Did you love school or did you hate it? Why? Did that change as you got older?

I loved school. I loved it from the moment that I started until the day I graduated. I still miss it and it’s hard for me to go cold turkey on the school supply shopping in September. I have nothing to shop for, yet I buy school supplies anyway.

4. Was your family close? What were your favorite family traditions?

Mom, Carol, Stacey and I were very close. I would get ready for school every morning in the bathroom with Mom and Stacey. My mom was so cool because she would let us listen to whatever music that we wanted. Mom and I were both morning people and we loved to torture Stacey by singing songs to her. Heh, heh… I’m laughing just thinking about it.

5. Did you think that being an adult would be cool?

No. I was totally scared of growing up because everyone always says, “These are the best years of your life…” I wish I could find every pathetic adult who said that to me and punch them right in the gut. Things just keep getting better the older I get. Sure, there are hard times, but I don’t care about those temporary setbacks. On the whole, being an adult totally rocks compared to the gut-wrenching agony of being a kid and teen.