Ask me no questions I'll tell you no something something something.

1) What is your favorite thing you've ever written?

This question is no fair because it's like asking me to choose my favorite child, a Sophie's choice if ever I heard one. No, actually, this question is nothing like Sophie's choice because I'm not sacrificing any of the fruits of my loins to the Nazis, because I have no fruits of my loins. Fruits of the loom, yes. Loins, no.

But I am told by someone or another that parents are incapable of picking which of their many progeny is the very favorite, except of course unless you ask my parents, in which case they'd say it was me but really mean my sister. Stupid parents.

So, since we are each merely the product of our stupid parents, I will say the favorite thing I've ever written is this, when really it's this:

I ate all the pepperoni from the top of the pizza while he was in the shower, a decadent glass of last night's champagne whetting my appetite more than sating it. And so it has been this far too short long week, when each time we've attended to our hungers we've merely aroused them further, when each night finds us falling into a deeper and deeper sleep.

2) Why do you girls all read literary books, most of which were assigned reading at one point in time or another?

Why not trashy chick lit or sTori Tellings? Why no US Weekly or Heather Mills McCartney’s memoirs? Why does it always have to be either Harry's Potter or smarty smart books that provoke meaningful intelligent conversation. Why am I the only trashy reader on this board!!

The answer to this question is two-fold. The first fold is that I was never assigned the assigned reading that everyone else was apparently assigned, particularly since I only took one English class in college and that English class was on Hemingway and Fitzgerald and, surprise surprise, I didn't read anything in it I hadn't already read.

The other fold is that I am inordinately dumb, and so when smart people say that something is a Must! Read! I tend to believe them. And I don't know if you know this, but the list of books that smart people say are Must! Read!s is really freaking long. I ain't got no time for trashy reading.

Also, I am not a girl. I am a woman. Roar.

3) If you could be 20 again and money and family obligations were not a concern, what are five things you would want to do? If you were 60 and money and family, blah, blah, blah, what are 5 things you would want to do? What accounts for the difference between the two?

Uh... considering all the things I did when I was 20 I'm pretty sure there is nothing left for me to do. And I do not intend to ever be 60 and so if by some unfortunate happenstance I happen to make it to 60 I'll probably drown myself in the Atlantic.

4) Another thought. In Marie Claire magazine there is a section called "what I love about me" where women share their most favorite attribute (physical and otherwise). What's yours?

I really like that I am completely contrary to everyone and also how I hate everything.

5) And my question for the oracle of the Collective is: What is the meaning of life?

42.

6) Kat: The cooking question's a good one. Let's go with that. How and why did you learn?

A girl's gotta eat, right? By which I mean, my mother worked nights waitressing and my father was always too strung out on the latest VA-prescribed painkillers to remember that he had children, let alone that he needed to actually feed said children, so if I didn't cook we didn't eat. And a girl's gotta eat, right?

7) In addition to you all being great entertaining writers, don't you all take pictures? Please show us at least one photo you've taken that would qualify as a favorite, and tell us when you took it and why you love it.



I took this picture in Vancouver and I really like it because Jennie! likes it.

Bonus:



I took this picture because I really like magnolias and I really like it because I really like magnolias.

8) Not to bring up politics again or anything but what would you do with your first 100 days in office?

Did you know that I can see National Cathedral from my apartment? That makes me super-duper qualified to be a clergywoman. And since the Founding Fathers thought it wise to separate church from state rather than establish an oppressive theocracy whereby everyone is all up in my uterus even though it is MY UTERUS GET YOUR OWN I will defer to their judgment and keep my nose from where it does not belong. Namely, your uterus.

9) What song best sums up the history of your love life?



10) Who is the best-developed character in the history of literature?

Good lord, what with all the not taking English or writing classes ever I am so unqualified to answer this. If only I shared a border with a literary character I'd be able to judge, but since I don't I can't.

11) What is one thing you love about each of your fellow Collective-ers?

Heather! Anne! is not just the person I would want to be if I didn't hate everything, she's the person everyone should try to be if only even a fraction as good. The world would be a far better place believe you me.

Abigail! is the strongest woman I know, and not just because she takes charge and makes decisions but because she can and will do anything. She has the confidence in herself and the fearlessness to go for what she wants, even if there's a chance she might fail.

Jennie! I can count on for everything. She's funny and smart and pretty and has the best taste in music and clothes and movies and books and television shows and everything else that matters. Plus she hates all the right things which makes her cool as shit.

12) What is one thing a person can do to make you judge him/her severely?

Honest to God if someone wears pants with too short inseams or jeans that look goofy I will never get over it. I'm super serious! There was this guy I once loved intensely, but every time he wore this one pair of jeans I died a little inside. That relationship ended badly indeed.

13) What was your horoscope yesterday? Was it accurate?

A friend or coworker has quite a few troubles on their mind, and they will feel the need to tell you all about them, today. It's kind of you to sit and listen to them go on and on about their dramas, but you don't have to -- especially when you find their troubles to be trivial. Tolerating their emotional intensity and upheaval could send them the message that you're always going to be willing to enable their drama-seeking -- which is not helping them. You need to give them some tough love.

Nope. Not at all.

14) Answer with the first thing that pops into your mind. You can have one wish, what is it?

Whirled peas.