There's nothing on my horizon except everything. Everything is on my horizon.

One of my most annoying habits is this sort of insatiable need I have to ask questions. And one of the reasons I love hanging out with the Collective is that they are so patient with me, answering every inquiry I can dream up for hours and hours at a time.

Abigail, bless her, tries her hardest, but she hates the question game more than anything else in the world. See, because: a) She can't make a decision without gathering every shred of information about a given subject. (Seriously, I've seen her go to, like, page SEVEN of Google results.) And b) She likes to keep her options open.

Abigail would never laminate her List of Five, is what I am saying.

I'm always like, "Just answer it! It's not the SATs! And it's not chiseled in stone! Just because you say you'd rather bonk Daniel Craig doesn't mean you can't bonk Zach Levi given the chance!"

Anyway, what I mean is that I am kind of an ass about the question game, but this week's Collective topic makes me feel like Schilbo. Topic: One thing I wish I could do...

My first thought, of course, is fly. Not just because of my superhero/messiah complex, but also for practicality, and just think about how small my carbon footprint would be! Plus, international travel becomes half-price when you don't have to factor in airfare. And, I'd be able to hang out with the CollectiveIRL whenever I want.

But then there are other things I wish I could do. Like, I'd like to build a tree house, a big one, to use as an office. And I'd like to take a Harry Potter train trip, even though I'm kind of too old for it now. I wish I could own a real, working farm. We'd farm beagles probably. Plus Kat wants some goats, so we'd have those too. I wish I could write like Haven Kimmel, or Jacob from TWoP. I wish I could do magic, travel to Middle Earth, write a really good YA fiction novel, cure my mom's craziness, play basketball with Pat Summitt, have a British accent, find all five 2002 Gotham Girls comic books in a set for framing, take my whole family on a vacation to London, backpack in the Amazon (with a guide), conquer my fear of bears.

Oh, also sword fights. I wish I could sword fight!

And draw comics, for real -- and be great at it.

And take professional photos.

And figure out how to work the six remote controls in my living room.

I think they call this empathy, how suddenly you understand how another person feels from the inside. So, um, sorry Abigail. You don't have to play the question game anymore.

Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.

Here's the thing -- and I know a bunch of you are going to want to punch me in the face for saying this -- but I don't really like candy all that much. I KNOW. I mean, if it's THERE, I'll eat it, of course. I like lots of different kinds of candies but I don't really crave it ever. If I'm craving something sweet, it's ice cream (or cookies!), but more likely I'm craving something like chips and salsa or potato chips or nachos or a soft pretzel or ANYTHING SALTY, really. Mmm, salt, is what I'm saying.

This is not to say I don't eat my fair share of candy, especially when passing it out at Halloween. What else are you supposed to do between doorbell rings? And if I go to the movies and get a 123 GoBox OF COURSE I'll eat the candy included. I always pick Peanut M&Ms. Always always.

OBVIOUSLY the Best! Candy! Ever! could only exist in fiction. I'm not talking about Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls, because EW or even Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans because I really think the threat of eating a vomit-flavored jelly bean really takes away from any enjoyment you may get from such wondrous flavors as Pina Colada and Bacon (mmm, bacon). Actually, most of the flavors on this list sound absolutely vile.

No, if I were to pick the best candy EVER, fictional or otherwise, I'd have no choice but to go with Willy Wonka's Everlasting Gobstopper. The Everlasting Gobstopper is both fictional AND otherwise, but I think we can all agree that the fictional version would be SO much better than the real-life version. It would have to be. It's everlasting. IT'S CANDY THAT NEVER ENDS, YOU GUYS. YUMMY CANDY ALL THE TIME GIVE ME SOME NOW OR I WILL CUT YOU. If there were any candy I would ever crave, the Everlasting Gobstopper is it. So get on it, Willy Wonkas of the world. You are the music makers. You are the dreamers of dreams. Now dream me up some neverending candy.

I'm missing you like candy.

And by "missing you like candy," I mean, "I'm missing you SO HARD." Like, you know, rock candy or something. And I want to tell you SO MUCH how British candy is THE BEST candy, and how every time I pop across the pond I bring home THIS MUCH British candy:



But life is busy and interesting and strange, and in between Maddie! and Maggie and working for this damn thing "for superior service to the agency"



(not to mention the countless hours I spent today at the awards ceremony, and the reception, and the meeting and greeting, and the networking, and the blah de blah)

I think I'm going to curl up in a little ball and hope you'll forgive me while I gnaw on my last Star Bar and chug some ouzo until I pass out.

kthxbai.

And anything to make you smile

I like how Heather just trounced in here yesterday with her visual aids and her weirdo TV abbreviations and tried to spread lies. I get the chocolate and peanut butter thing, I do. It's legit. 52 million other websites agree.



However, it's a bit conventional.

Let me propose something better: sweet and salty.

I know, I know, wild! and! crazy!

Take, for example, chocolate-covered pretzels. You have the sweet chocolate on the outside and then you get to crunch into the salty pretzel. Genius. Delicious.



Obviously, it would follow then that the best candy is Peanut M&Ms.



It's classic. You can find it anywhere. And it gives you everything you could ever want: sweet. salty. salty. sweet.

Yum. Yum. Yum.

Plus, it comes with a whole bunch of fun and interesting history. Remember when we voted on the new color? (We picked blue. Which seems right. Pink wouldn't have fit in.)

Now that is a One True Pairing.

Honorable Mention: Milky Way Midnight Mini
If I had to pick a candy that was only sweet, I'd pick this one. Just the right size. Vanilla nougat. Dark chocolate. Caramel. Very good.

No one's gonna love you more than I do.

There are two types of people in the world: 1)People who watch TV/read books, and then go about their merry lives. 2) The kind of people who watch TV/read books, and then become a part of the fandom.

The word fandom comes from the Latin root words "fan" and "domain," and these are people who not only watch TV/read books, but read recaps, debate plot points on message boards, watch fanvids, rewrite unhappy endings, add fan sites to their Google Readers, etc. There are varying degrees of fans within each fandom, but I am all in in all of mine. I am so in, in fact, that I have to get permission from Abigail to start in on fanvids on YouTube, lest I waste an entire day watching Agent Sarah Walker and Chuck Bartowski fall in love again and again over soundtracks ranging in awesomeness from Band of Horses to Styx.

Within each fandom there are "shippers." These are people who want certain couples to get together. The couple they yearn for is called their OTP, or One True Pairing.

There are lots of Collective readers who are in fandoms, but I won't out them because some people are scared of the judgment. To help you understand, I've put together some pictures of my OTPs.

1) Pam + Jim


2) Booth + Brennan


3) Bette + Tina


4) Ron + Hermione


5) Chuck + Sarah (Alternate pairings: Chuck + Abigail, Me + Sarah)


Just looking at those pictures you can see these people belong together. However, my truest OTP isn't romantic; it's spiritual. The best OTP in the history of time is chocolate + peanut butter.



Now, this week my friends here at the Collective are going to try to convince you otherwise, but the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup is the most important candy of our time. Whatever other candy they wave in your face, I want you to ignore it and remember how chocolate and peanut butter go together like magic, like two people in love.