Love

I've been spending this week looking into my new nephew's giant navy blue eyes and welcoming him into the world. He's only a week old, and already I love this little boy so much. Not just because he's part my sister and part her boyfriend -- or part my mom and my dad and my grandparents -- but because he's his own brand new little person, unique from everyone who has been here before or will be here afterwards.

I told him yesterday that I couldn't love him more if he had come from my own body -- which is completely true. I could have dozens of my own children, hundreds of nieces and nephews and cousins, and my friends could have thousands of babies, and I would still find it easy to love each of them limitlessly. That's because love itself is limitless.

But love is also timeless -- a hard truth that I learned because of my mom's death. On the plane, I was re-reading one of my favorite books from my childhood -- A Wrinkle in Time -- and I was struck by that very concept. For those who know the plot of the book, you know the basics. But one of the characters says "[T]he things that are seen are temporal. But the things which are not seen are eternal." I've thought about that quote, and I'm sure that it can be interpreted in a thousand ways, with religious and philosophical and god-knows-what-other-kind-of overtones -- but to me, it means that love is infinite, plain and simple.

Senior Memories

Fill this out about your SENIOR year of high school! The longer ago it was, the more fun the answers will be!!

Copy and paste the questions into your notes section, fill in the answers, and tag your friends to see their answers.

IN YOUR SENIOR YEAR DID YOU...

1. Did you date someone from your school? Yes.

2. Did you marry someone from your high school? Almost, but not quite.

3. Did you car pool to school? For a couple of weeks, until Ryan got tired of having to pick me up.

4. What kind of car did you have? None -- my dad told me to find a boy to drive me around.

5. What kind of car do you have now? 2001 VW Jetta with 35,000 miles on it. It's good to live in a place with public transportation.

6. It's Friday night...where are you now? Out at dinner. If I'm lucky there will be drinks, too.

7. It is Friday night...where were you then? Probably sleeping over one of my friend's houses so I can actually DO something.

8. What kind of job did you have in high school? None.

9. What kind of job do you do now? Lawyer.

10. Were you a party animal? No. At least not comparatively.

11. Were you considered a flirt? I don't think so.

12. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? Nope.

13. Were you a nerd? I think I was either a slightly nerdy normal kid or a really cool nerd.

14. Did you get suspended or expelled? Not during senior year. I think I got a one-day suspension for skipping math in 10th grade -- we got caught because we decided to get breakfast at Bageland. Although maybe that was just a Saturday detention.

15. Can you sing the fight song? Hell, no. I never could, either.

16. Who was/were your favorite teacher(s)? Senior year it was definitely Ms. Arena.

17. Where did you sit during lunch? Senior year I did an "independent study" which meant that I sat in the guidance office and occasionally delivered passes. So I got to take whichever lunch I felt like - which usually meant that I took part of both, wherever my friends were.

18. What was your school's full name? Coral Springs High School.

19. When did you graduate? 1993.

20. What was your school mascot? Colts.

21. If you could go back and do it again, would you? Probably not.

22. Did you have fun at Prom? Yes.

23. Do you still talk to the person you went to Prom with? Yes, although lately it's mostly text messages.

24. Are you planning on going to your next reunion? If I can manage it. The last one was fun.

25. Do you still talk to people from school? Yes, and not just via Facebook.

26. School Colors? Green and Blue.

My life, as described by U2

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, "cleverly" answer these questions. Pass it on to 10 people and include me!

Pick Your Artist: U2

Are you male or female: The Ground Beneath Her Feet

Describe yourself: So Cruel

How do you feel about yourself: Magnificent

Describe where you currently live: City of Blinding Lights

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Where the Streets Have No Name

Your best friend is: Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own

Your favorite color is: White as Snow

You know: Love is Blindness

What's the weather like: Electrical Storm

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: Even Better than the Real Thing

What is life to you: Running to Stand Still

Your love life: Mysterious Ways

What is the best advice you have to give: Walk On

If you could change your name, what would it be: Miss Sarajevo

Your favorite food is: Crumbs from Your Table

Three Things

THREE NAMES I GO BY
1. Dara
2. D
3. Pookie (but only by my sister)

THREE JOBS I HAVE HAD IN MY LIFE
1. Lawyer
2. Target employee
3. Intern

THREE PLACES I HAVE LIVED
1. Arlington, VA
2. Coral Springs, FL
3. Marlboro, NJ

THREE TV SHOWS THAT I WATCH
1. Lost
2. 30 Rock
3. How I Met Your Mother

THREE PLACES I HAVE BEEN
1. Jerusalem
2. London
3. Marrakesh

THREE PLACES I WANT TO GO
1. Canada
2. Australia
3. Japan

THREE OF MY FAVORITE FOODS
1. Gnocchi
2. Cupcakes
3. Steak

THREE THINGS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO
1. The birth of my nephew
2. Taking a vacation
3. Going to sleep

THREE PETS THAT YOU HAVE OWNED
1. Remy, the family dog
2. Assorted goldfish
3. Various betta fishes

THREE FAVORITE BANDS/ ARTISTS
1. U2
2. The Beatles
3. The Police

THREE FAVORITE TEAMS TO WATCH
1. New York Giants
2. Washington Capitals
3. Washington Nationals

THREE FAVORITE DRINKS
1. Diet Coke
2. Green Tea
3. Vodka and soda

Momentarily

I know I've been awfully quiet lately, posting mostly memes and quizzes. Not that I'm really still all that focused on trying to sort things out in my head, in private. Instead, I've taken a new approach to my life -- the "Stop thinking and do whatever feels good in the moment" approach.

I know me, and therefore, I know that this will not last. I am fully aware. Eventually I will need more -- I will need a plan, possibilities, an idea of what the future may bring. But right now, it's all I can handle. More importantly, it's giving me what I need.

Author meme

List the top 25 authors who have inspired you or made you think over the course of your life (in no particular order):

1. Edgar Allen Poe

2. William Shakespeare

3. Mark Twain

4. George Orwell

5. Margaret Atwood

6. Salman Rushdie

7. Douglas Coupland

8. Graham Swift

9. Kurt Vonnegut

10. F. Scott Fitzgerald

11. Dr. Seuss

12. Vladimir Nabokov

13. Madeleine L'Engle

14. Louisa May Alcott

15. Margaret Mitchell

16. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

17. Harper Lee

18. Dave Eggers

19. E.M. Forster

20. William Faulkner

21. Edith Wharton

22. L.M. Montgomery

23. Nick Hornby

24. Gabriel Garcia Marquez

25. Albert Camus

Thoughts on Religulous

I have always been somewhat of an agnostic, a doubter. I respect a lot of the traditions and the history associated with religion, but I have never really been able to accept that which has no proof, no physical evidence. It's gotten worse since my mom died -- I tell people that I am "off god." Still, sometimes I wish that I had faith -- that I was able to shut off my rationality and my doubt and just believe in some greater power that is more substantial than the mere feeling that putting out good, positive energy will serve me better than negative energy.

That should give you a sense of the playing field with which I went in to watching Religulous. To me, it seemed like an interesting concept: Comedian Bill Maher taking a critical look at religion and calling it out on some of its irrationalities. And the movie worked for me, right up until the end, where Maher took everything he presented over the past 90 minutes and quickly proclaimed his thesis: Religion will destroy the world.

I felt like I had whiplash. Going from "doubt is healthy" to "organized religion is going to destroy the world" is too great a leap, even for me. Don't get me wrong: I can see the absurdities in a lot of religious concepts, and I can agree that there is a level of fundamentalism that is dangerous -- particularly when people follow leaders blindly, without thought. And I guess that's the best explanation of why I disagree: It's not religion per se that's the problem; it's a lack of critical thinking.

ABC Meme

Age: Old enough to know better than to answer the question.

Believe in Magic: I am sure that there are things in the universe that we cannot explain and that others would consider magic.

Cake or pie: Both. Apple or pumpkin pie or yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

Day or Night: Night.

Eyes: Green/Blue/Gray.

First thoughts waking up: Snooze.

Goals: Being happy in the moment.

Holiday: Halloween.

Instrument: I have a guitar, a casio keyboard, a harmonica, and some maracas. I could totally start a band right now.

Jewelry: Earrings, ring, necklace, watch.

Keep a journal: Always.

Love: Books.

Movies: Gone With The Wind. Before Sunrise. Office Space.

Number: I like numbers that are divisible by 3.

One wish: Love.

Piercing: 5 earrings. One cartilage piercing. Former belly button piercing.

Quail: Once. Meh.

Reality T.V: Project Runway.

Shower: Hot.

Tattoos: Butterfly, right shoulder.

Unpredictable: On occasion. I am unpredictably unpredictable.

Vacation spot(s): Anywhere with good company.

Worst feeling: Intestinal infection. Trust me on this.

X-Rays: Teeth. Arm. Fingers. Foot.

Year it is now: 2009.

Zoo animal: Monkey.

100 (More) Things

1. ONE OF YOUR SCARS, HOW DID YOU GET IT?
On my right knee, from the metro escalator going to a Nationals game. I bled for almost the entire game, but Justin kept telling me that I didn't need stitches.

2. WHAT IS ON THE WALLS IN YOUR ROOM?
Currently, a Beatles poster and a Sting poster.

3. DESCRIBE YOURSELF IN 5 WORDS
Funny, short, smart, pragmatic, logical.

4. WHAT TYPE OF MUSIC DO YOU LISTEN TO?
Pop and rock, mostly.

5. DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME YOU WERE BORN?
5:16 p.m.

6. WHAT DO YOU WANT MORE THAN ANYTHING RIGHT NOW?
Fulfillment.

7. WHAT DO YOU MISS?
My mom.

8. WHAT IS YOUR MOST PRIZED POSSESSION(S)?
A letter that my dad wrote to me when I was 12, and the jewelry that my mother gave to me.

9. HOW TALL ARE YOU?
Not quite 5'2".

10. DO YOU GET CLAUSTROPHOBIC?
A little.

11. DO YOU GET SCARED IN THE DARK?
No. I like the dark.

12. THE LAST PERSON TO MAKE YOU CRY?
My dad.

13. WHAT'S YOUR WORST FEAR?
That I might really be unlovable.

14. WHAT KIND OF HAIR/EYE COLOR DO YOU LIKE ON THE OPPOSITE SEX?
Dark hair, blue eyes.

15. WHERE CAN YOU SEE YOURSELF BEING PROPOSED TO AT?
I have no idea, but the next time it happens, I hope it's not during a football game!

16. COFFEE OR ENERGY DRINK?
Diet Coke or Tea.

17. FAVORITE PIZZA TOPPING?
Buffalo mozzarella.

18. IF YOU COULD EAT ANYTHING RIGHT NOW, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Something sugary.

19. FAVORITE COLOR OF ALL TIME?
Unequivocally, black.

20. HAVE YOU EVER EATEN A GOLDFISH?
No, eew.

21. WHAT WAS THE FIRST MEANINGFUL GIFT YOU'VE EVER RECEIVED?
Probably the toy lamb I got from my grandfather when I was a baby, since it was the only thing he ever gave to me. But in that regard, the gift itself was not particularly meaningful, it was the circumstance of the gift.

22. DO YOU HAVE A CRUSH?
To the extent that the word "crush" implies unrequited, then no, not this minute.

23. ARE YOU DOUBLE JOINTED?
No, but I am very flexible.

24. FAVORITE CLOTHING BRAND?
I don't really have a favorite brand. I have a favorite store -- Anthropologie.

25. WHO IS YOUR FAV FEMALE/MALE CELEBRITY?
Tina Fey and Robert Downey, Jr.

26. DO YOU HAVE A PET RIGHT NOW?
Nope.

27. WHAT KIND IS IT?

28. WOULD YOU FALL IN LOVE KNOWING THAT THE PERSON IS LEAVING?
Probably not. I'm generally more guarded than that.

29. WHEN DID YOU LAST SING TO YOURSELF OR TO SOMEONE ELSE?
In the car yesterday.

30. SAY A NUMBER FROM ONE TO A HUNDRED:
11.

31. BLONDES, BRUNETTES OR RED HEADS?
Brunettes.

32. FAVORITE QUOTE?
"If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men's cottages princes' palaces." Wm. Shakespeare.

33. FAVORITE PLACE?
Bed.

34. HAVE YOU BEEN OUT OF THE USA?
Yes.

35. YOUR WEAKNESSES?
Bad knees. Inability to reach things on the top shelf. Failing to live in the moment.

36. MET ANYONE FAMOUS?
Yes.

37. FIRST JOB?
Babysitting.

38. EVER DONE A PRANK CALL?
Yes.

39. DO YOU THINK EVERYONE OUT THERE HAS A SOUL MATE?
Yes. Maybe more than one.

40. WHAT WERE YOU DOING BEFORE YOU FILLED THIS OUT?
Watching The Daily Show.

41. HAVE YOU EVER HAD SURGERY?
Yes, out-patient.

42. WHAT DO YOU GET COMPLIMENTED ABOUT MOST?
My eyes.

43. HAVE YOU EVER HAD BRACES?
No.

44. WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY?
I'm sure I'll think of something by November.

45. HOW MANY KIDS DO YOU WANT AND THEIR NAMES?
I would like to have at least one so that I can name her after my mom.

46. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
two of my great-grandmothers, but only in Hebrew.

47. WHAT IS THE BIGGEST TURN OFF OF THE OPPOSITE SEX?
I have three -- lack of intelligence, lack of humor, poor grammar.

48. WHAT IS ONE THING YOU LIKED ABOUT HIGH SCHOOL?
Writing classes.

49. WHAT KIND OF SHAMPOO DO YOU USE?
Aveda Shampure.

50. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
Yes.

51. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Very rare roast beef.

53. ARE YOU A JEALOUS PERSON?
Not particularly.

54. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Totally.

55. DO YOU AGREE WITH FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS?
Yeah, as long as both parties understand what's going on.

56. DO LOOKS MATTER?
Initially, yes -- but the degree of relevance declines over time.

57. HOW DO YOU RELEASE ANGER?
Sarcasm and the occasional passive-aggression.

58. WOULD YOU EVER LIKE TO BE FAMOUS/A CELEBRITY? IF SO, IN WHAT WAY?
Sometimes. But only for the shoes.

59. WHAT'S YOUR MAIN GOAL IN LIFE?
Happiness, whatever that means.

60. WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE TOY AS A CHILD?
Dolls.

61. HOW MANY NUMBERS ARE IN YOUR CELL PHONE?
A lot, since the iPhone syncs with my address book.

62. WERE YOU A FAN OF BARNEY AS A LITTLE KID?
Alas, I am too old to have grown up with the silly purple dinosaur!

63. DO YOU USE SARCASM?
Yes. I'm afraid that it is my natural state.

64. MASHED POTATOES OR MACARONI AND CHEESE?
Mac and Cheese.

65. WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A GUY/GIRL?
Sense of humor. Tolerance of me. And chemistry.

66. WHAT ARE YOUR NICKNAMES?
D.

67. FAVORITE SUPER POWER?
Seeing the future.

68. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE TV SHOW?
Lost.

69. WHAT'S THE BEST WAY TO DEAL WITH YOUR ENEMIES?
Torture them.

70. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR?
Coffee Heath Bar Crunch.

71. DO YOU HAVE ALL YOUR FINGERS AND TOES?
Yes.

72. DO YOU HAVE A COMPUTER IN YOUR ROOM?
If I bring it in there.

73. PLANS FOR TONIGHT?
Sleep.

74. WHERE DO YOU WANT TO LIVE WHEN YOU ARE OLDER?
The South of France.

75. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS?
If it makes them happy.

76. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO?
Stephen Colbert interviewing David Byrne from the Talking Heads. Crazy!

77. LAST THING YOU DRANK?
Diet Coke.

78. LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
My Nana.

79. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE IN THE OPPOSITE SEX?
Eye color.

80. WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR SPARE TIME?
Sleep, read, go to movies, watch tv, hang out with my friends.

81. FAVORITE THING TO HATE?
My situation.

82. FAVORITE SEASON OF THE YEAR?
Baseball season!

83. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE TYPE OF CANDY?
Peanut M&Ms.

84. HAVE YOU EVER REALLY AND TRULY HAD A BEST FRIEND?
Best friend, worst enemy, same person: My sister.

85. WHAT IS YOUR HAIR COLOR?
Brown.

86. EYE COLOR?
green/blue/gray

87. SHOE SIZE?
6.5 or 7.

88. FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE?
Chick-fil-A

89. FAVORITE RESTAURANT?
Ray's the Steaks.

90. DO YOU LIKE SUSHI?
Yes, but I always eat too much.

91. WATCH TV TODAY?
Right now, as a matter of fact.

92. FAVORITE DAY OF THE YEAR?
Opening Day!

93. PLAY ANY MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS?
Piano. A little guitar.

94. REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT?
Democrat.

95. KISSES OR HUGS?
Both, hopefully.

96. RELATIONSHIPS OR ONE NIGHT STANDS?
Relationships.

97. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU BOUGHT?
Diet Coke.

98. WOULD YOU EVER BE A HOUSEWIFE?
Yes, but it would probably drive me crazy.

99. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING?
Just finished All the King's Men. Will start a new book tomorrow.

100. DESCRIBE YOUR LOVE LIFE!
Interesting. Complicated. Impossible to explain.

Learning to live in the moment

I know I have some tendencies that are very “Type A.” I like answers, concrete details. I like order and organization. I like rules and laws. I like maps and taking the most direct route. I like having a plan.

On the other hand, I am the least “Type A” person in the world. I am not particularly aggressive. I am non-confrontational. I am willing to go along with the flow on most things. I think I am pretty laid back.

My brother and sister would probably say that I am bossy. And when we were younger, I certainly did my share of oldest sister bossing. But in my real life, my adult life, I try to avoid telling anyone what to do -- although, admittedly, it's mostly because I detest being told what to do by others.

It might seem like these two sides of my personality would be contradictory, but I don’t think so: I go along with the flow until I can’t possibly do it anymore. Or, as I said to someone the other day, I reserve my right, as a woman, to change my mind. He thought that was “cute,” but I was dead serious when I said it.

Anyway, these tendencies are on my mind lately as I’m trying more and more to adjust to being happy in the moment, with the way things are -- without necessarily needing rules or definitions or limitations. It’s definitely an adjustment.

BBC Book List Meme

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

Instructions: Look at the list and put an 'X' after those you have read.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen ()
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (X)
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (X)
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (X)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (X)
6. The Bible (x) (Most of it, anyway.)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (X)
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (X)
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ()
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens ()
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (X)
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (X)
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (X)
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (X)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (X)
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (X)
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk ( )
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (X)
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (X)
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot ( )
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (X)
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (X)
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens ()
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy ()
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (X)
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh (X)
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (X)
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (X)
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (X)
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame ()
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy ( )
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens ( )
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis ()
34. Emma - Jane Austen ()
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen ()
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (X) (doesn't 33 cover this?)
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - (X)
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres ( )
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden ()
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (X)
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell (X)
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (X)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (X)
44. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving ( )
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ( )
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (X) (and all the sequels too.)
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy ( )
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (X) (All women should read this book!)
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding (X)
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan (X)
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel (X)
52. Dune - Frank Herbert ()
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons ()
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen ()
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ()
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon ()
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens ()
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley ()
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon ()
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (X)
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (X)
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (X)
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt ( )
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold ()
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (X)
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac (X)
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy ()
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (X)
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (X)
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (X)
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (X)
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker (X)
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (X)
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ()
75. Ulysses - James Joyce () (Started it three times, though.)
76. The Inferno - Dante (X)
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ()
78. Germinal - Emile Zola ()
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray ()
80. Possession - AS Byatt ()
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (X)
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ()
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker ()
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro ()
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert ()
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ()
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White (X) (Yet, as much as I love this book, it's not nearly as dear to me as his style manual.)
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom ()
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle () (do some count?)
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton ()
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (X)
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (X)
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ()
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams ()
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole ()
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute ()
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (X)
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare (X)
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (X)
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo ()

I count 52. I can do better.

Bucket List Meme

Place an X by all the things you've done and remove the X from the ones you have not, then send it to your friends (including me).


THINGS YOU HAVE DONE DURING YOUR LIFETIME:
(X) Gone on a blind date
(X) Skipped school
(X) Watched someone die
( ) Been to Canada
( ) Been to Mexico
(X) Been to Florida
( ) Been to Hawaii
(X) Been on a plane
( ) Been on a helicopter
(X) Gotten lost
(X) Visited Washington, DC
(X) Swam in the ocean
(X) Cried yourself to sleep-
(X) Played cops and robbers
(X) Recently colored with crayons
(X) Sang Karaoke
(X) Paid for a meal with coins only
( ) Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't.
(X) Made prank phone calls
(X) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
(X) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
(X) Danced in the rain
(X) Written a letter to Santa
(X) Kissed under the mistletoe
(X) Watched the sunrise with someone
(X) Blown bubbles
(X) Gone ice-skating
(X) Gone to the movies
( ) Been deep sea fishing
( ) Driven across the United States
( ) Been in a hot air balloon
( ) Been sky diving
( ) Gone snowmobiling
(X) Lived in more than one country
(X) Lived in more than one State/Province
(X) Admired the stars while listening to the crickets
(X) Wished upon a falling star
( ) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser
( ) Visited the Statue of Liberty
( ) Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
(X) Been on a cruise
(X) Traveled by train
( ) Traveled by motorcycle
(X) Been horse back riding
( ) Hiked through a slot canyon
(X) Ridden on a San Francisco CABLE CAR
(X) Been to Disneyland or Disney World
( ) Truly believe in the power of prayer
( ) Hiked through a rain forest
( ) Gone whale-watching
( ) Been to Niagara Falls
( ) Ridden on an elephant
( ) Swam with dolphins
( ) Gone to the Olympics
( ) Walked on the Great Wall of China
( ) Witnessed a glacier calf
(X) Gone White Water Rafting
( ) Been spinnaker flying
( ) Been water-skiing(or tried to)
( ) Been snow-skiing/snowboarding
(X) Been to Westminster Abbey
(X) Been to the Louvre / Prado
( ) Swam in the Mediterranean
(X) Been to a Major League Baseball game
(X) Been to a National Football League game
(X) Been to National Hockey League game

Google Madness!

Rules of the Google Game: Go to Google and type in quotation marks your name and then "likes to" (ex. "Steve likes to"). Type in the first ten things that come up and re-post in your own note (or if you are smart, copy and past them!). You must tag the person that sent this to you.

1. Dara likes to go places and see things.
2. Dara likes to know about how Marty's Dad kills there food.
3. Dara likes to go shopping during off hours and is trying to talk to media in order to get ahead professionally.
4. Dara likes to crochet, knit, carve wood, raise Orchids as well as African Violets, and excels at breeding a better rabbit.
5. When she's not writing code, Dara likes to decode the messages of her teenage stepdaughter, and her two cats, Izabella Marie and a bad kitty who must remain anonymous.
6. Dara likes to practice yoga.
7. Dara likes to throw his clothes on his bedroom floor.
8. I mean dara likes to party u know.
9. Dara and I also have a website where Dara likes to put photos up, plus I have a Flickr page, and I publish news stories I find interesting via Google Reader.
10. I have mentioned before how Dara likes to thieve the cat biscuits out of the pantry.

Observation #3

If you go to a moderately-sized, reasonably-priced restaurant in a relatively busy part of the city on a Friday night at 6:00, and you are practically the only people in the restaurant, there is a high probability that the food is going to stink.

40 Questions

Here are the rules: post this list replacing my answers with yours. Tag a few folks to do the same thing. Or don't.

If I tagged YOU, it's because I want to know more about YOU!

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
Only in Hebrew. And I am one of those rare individuals whose Hebrew name has absolutely nothing to do with her English name.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
In the middle of the orange line delay this morning. Then I started swearing.

Seriously, I know with certainty that I cried on February 7, when I posted about the notebook I wrote when my mom died.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
Yes.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Super-rare roast beef.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
No, but I'll have a nephew in about 7 weeks.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Yes, because I am awesome -- super awesome. And cute too! And modest, very very modest.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM?
I'm stealing from Brenda here: "If 'use' is another way to say 'way of life,' then yes."

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
Yes.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
No, but I'll go whitewater rafting anytime anyone wants.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Either Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch or Special K, depending on whether I'm being Good Dara or Bad Dara.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
I am rarely wearing shoes with laces -- generally only to the gym or when I put on the Converse on a weekend. But I don't recall that I do, or that I tie them when I put them back on either. I think I only tie them when they happen to come untied.

12. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
Coffee Heath Bar Crunch, Jamoca Almond Fudge, or Green Tea.

13. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Whether they can keep up. ('Cause the things in my head move at the speed of light, people.)

And if they're a woman, I'll notice if they are wearing cute shoes.

14. RED OR PINK?
Neither -- Black. But I do have a red sweater from Banana Republic that I love.

15. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
The last bit of weight that I would like to lose. Well, that and the fact that I still care what people think about me WAY too much.

16. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
My mother. Every. Single. Day.

17. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO COMPLETE THIS LIST?
Sure. I like learning my friends' deep dark secrets.

18. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Black pants (Gap). Black patent leather shoes (Cole Haan).

19. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
The sound of the space heater cranked up to 75.

20. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Green-blue or Blue-green, I forget which one I like best. No, I take it back: Black.

21. FAVORITE SMELLS?
The ocean. Fresh bread. Jasmine.

22. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
Voicemail -- all I do lately is email and text. Need to call my dad back, though.

Oh wait, I did talk to someone yesterday. ;)

23. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
Yup.

24. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Football. Baseball. Hockey. College Basketball.

25. HAIR COLOR?
Brown.

26. EYE COLOR?
Green-blue or blue-green.

27. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
Some days, just not today.

28. FAVORITE FOOD?
Anything sweet.

29. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Happy endings.

30. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
In the theater? Milk. On DVD? The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

31. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Summer.

32. HUGS OR KISSES?
Depends on the day. Today? Hugs.

33. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
I have no idea. I don't know if I'm even going to tag anyone.

34. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
See above.

35. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren. Yay bookclub!

36. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
Dust. Oh, and a mouse.

37. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?
Lost, although it was technically this morning.

38. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
Beatles, in a close race. Photo finish.

39. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
Israel.

40. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
Manhattan.

My darling clementines

For a girl who spent a good chunk of her life in Florida, I am surprisingly anti-citrus. (And don't get me started on orange juice -- unless it's fresh squeezed, I can barely tolerate it.) There are pretty much only two kinds of citrus fruit that I bother with -- honeybell (or minneola) tangelos, and clementines. I'm not entirely sure why these are it for me, but it might have something to do with sentiment: My grandfather used to ship the former to me as a Hanukkah present, and the latter were the kind that my mother preferred when filling up Christmas stockings.

Anyway, when I went to Morocco two years ago, the food was generally average, except for one thing: the little tiny oranges that they put out at the hotel breakfast buffets. These oranges were consistently exceptional -- so consistently that I would grab two or three of them and snack on them throughout the day.

So today, while doing a bit of grocery shopping in Whole Foods, I noticed this:



To you, it might look like an ordinary run of the mill box of clementines. But to me, it's a yummy little reminder of North Africa.

Postscript

A year later, I almost feel like the girl who wrote that notebook was a stranger. I mean, I know that it was me, and I understand how I was feeling at the time -- distraught -- but it somehow seems so long ago and far away and foreign.

Earlier today, I read something in Midnight's Children that made me catch my breath: "A death makes the living see themselves too clearly; after they have been in its presence, they become exaggerated."

I think I know what Sir Rushdie meant.

No one should lose a parent at 32 -- or 22, or 12, or 2 for that matter, but the point remains the same. Parents should live long lives, be around for their childrens' weddings, the birth of their grandchildren, and those grandchildren's graduations and weddings. From an observer's perspective, any deviation from this norm seems punitive to those who are left behind. But from the inside it's a baptism by fire: You go through something so intense, so difficult, that you have no choice but to walk out the other side a different person.

Two months ago, I was reflecting on that very phenomenon, and at the time, it seemed like not all of my changes since my mother's death were for the better. But that wasn't the whole story. The biggest change -- the one that I didn't write about -- is that I want things to be different -- better. I want to have grown from my experience, to have learned something along the way, to become a better person -- a better Dara.

I think I have been successful in this first year -- I've become healthier, I traveled, I bought a house, I applied for a promotion at work. I started thinking about the things that were important to me, and removing the extraneous things from my life. I've tried to be more positive, more optimistic. I even managed to be vulnerable -- allowing myself to really fall for someone for the first time in a while -- and got hurt along the way. And yet, even after the abysmal failures, I somehow managed to pick myself up, dust myself off, and keep moving forward towards that goal.

Still, the most valuable lesson that I learned is that love is limitless but time is precious. How that translates into my life or your lives I have yet to figure out. But here's what I think: People who say that love is not the most important thing are dead wrong. In the end, love is the only thing that really matters.

And I say I'm not a romantic.

The History of Dara, Part 8 (Crazy Notebook Edition)

I know I said I'm done blogging, but there are some things that still need to be written. Especially today, the one year anniversary of my mother's death.

I've been sitting here reading the notebook I scrawled in on the airplane down to Florida-- when I was trying to keep from pacing up and down the aisle looking like a terrorist -- and I am astounded by some of the things that I wrote.

This time I brought a notebook on the plane, mostly out of fear of being alone with my thoughts for too many hours. I don't have any idea what I'm doing. I'm like a zombie. A robot. A zombie-robot.

She would have thought that was funny. She always found my strangeness funny. And I always obliged because I didn't care if she was laughing with me or at me. As long as she was laughing.

***

Crying on a plane is so not me. I hope no one sees. And if they do, I hope they just think I'm sick.

***

Right now I think God has a sick sense of humor.

***

I was born on a Thursday. Today is Thursday. 32 times 52 is 1664. So, since it's been about 10 weeks since my birthday, I've had my mother for 1675 or so Thursdays. Not enough.*

***

I think I've been checking my watch every three minutes. God, I can't wait for this flight to be over. Everyone here is either older than my mom or has a baby. One's been screaming since fifteen minutes before we took off.

Need to be off the plane ASAP. Have about an hour to go. Keep trying not to think, not to cry, but it's not like there's a switch I can turn on and off.

I brought a book, but can't bring myself to read, it would just be a waste. I wish I could sleep or even just relax. But my mind's going about a thousand miles a minute. Wish the plane could keep up.

***

My mom is my designated beneficiary on all my insurance and pension and stuff. I remember telling her once that if anything happened to me, she'd be a very rich lady and wouldn't need to share it with Dad. She told me that I was being horrible and that she would share with him.

I guess I need to change all those forms. Which sucks. On so many levels.

***

I think, in retrospect, buying an airplane-proof pen was a fantastic idea. Should have bought a notebook with lines, though. Writing on a plane is hard enough, with all the jolts and jostles of varying degrees. My handwriting is all over the place. But at least it's legible. It looks like hers.

***

I feel bad for my future theoretical children.

***

Not ten minutes ago, I wrote about how much I want this flight to be over. Then I realized that as soon as I get off the plane and see my dad, my sister, or my Nana -- or any combination thereof -- I'm going to burst into tears, and I don't think I'll be able to stop.

My eyes are already brimming over just thinking about it. So now, maybe I don't want this flight to end. Instead, I want to go back in time, to Monday evening, and I want my mother to get herself to the ER the second she started feeling sick, before the infection got so bad.

***

I hope this is not what crazy feels like.

***

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

***

I hope no one reads this, ever.

***

I bought this notebook with my mom, the last time I saw her, over Thanksgiving.

I can't remember if it was the day after or the Saturday. Whatever. I can't believe we wasted all that friggin' time on line at the crappy-ass Bealls Outlet so that my dad could buy $3 pants and I could get a notebook with a fancy cover for a quarter.

***

Who's going to take care of my dad and my Nana?

***

She wasn't even eligible for Social Security.

***

I can't believe the last conversation I had with her was about the superbowl and the Catherine Malandrino dress.

This is all so fucked up.

***

I am too young for this. My parents had their mothers around well into their sixties. I am only 32. I've been cheated of at least 30 years.

***

Guess she managed to keep me from voting for Obama in the primary after all.

***

In the car on the way back from the airport, I kept saying "Fucking fuck fuck fuck!" It's like stress-induced Tourette's syndrome.

I broke down for a minute in the bank vault with my Nana. We were getting info about the cemetery so my mom can be buried near her father -- my Pop. Nana told me how my dad'll be buried there too, now -- and I lost it. Two grandparents and one parent in 7 months is enough. More than enough, really.

***

I talked to my best friend from high school tonight. She was a religion major in college but couldn't really say anything to help me. I told her how my Nana broke down in the car and started to curse God. (At least she believes enough to curse something!)

The conversation was weird, but necessary. How does someone you've known for more than half your life help you get over this?

She just about lost it too when I pointed out that my brother's bar mitzvah was exactly 15 years from next weekend. How did we get so old and our lives get so screwed up?

***

Just praying that I can manage to get some sleep. This house is fucking weird without her in it.

My dad is a zombie-robot too. It's clearly genetic.

How the fuck is this my life?

FUCK!

I am still hoping that this is some kind of fucked-up fever-induced nightmare -- and that I'll wake up in the morning with everything back to normal.

***

Mom, I'm sorry about the ear piercing. And the belly button. And the tattoo.

I'm sorry about what a crappy pre-teen I was.

I'm sorry about lying about drinking and sex.

I'm sorry I moved so far away.

I'm sorry I wasn't here.

I love you. You've always been my best friend and biggest supporter and I am so sorry that I didn't tell you that often enough.

I don't know how to be without you.

I don't know how I'm going to make it through the rest of my days without being able to call you just to hear your voice, or to relate something silly.

When I make good decisions, it's always been because of your influence and support. I don't know how I'll function without that.

I am so lost already.

***

I only freaked out two more times today. Once was when my dad handed me my mom's rings. I just lost it. And honestly, I didn't mean to do it in front of him.

The second was in my car with Nana, when she said something and it brought up the fact that my mother will never see my kids, her grandkids.

She will not be at my wedding. It is all so very backwards.

My dad lost it a little too. He says he has no focus anymore. I am so worried about him having to be here, alone, when we all have to leave.

I can't believe that my mom will never ever make Thanksgiving dinner again.

Everything is so upside-down and backwards. It's not right.

My dad keeps saying that over and over again. That and the fact that it all happened so quickly.

I don't know what to do. It's like I'm living someone else's nightmare right now.

***

I told my brother and dad about this notebook, how I spent the entire flight writing, and how half of it was the word "fuck."

My brother said that the people next to me probably thought I was schizophrenic. I guess that's better than reporting my behavior to the air marshal.

I keep telling everyone that I'm currently held together with Scotch tape and rubber bands. We'll see how that holds up when we meet with the Rabbi tomorrow.

***

My mother told me what to do all the time. The small things, anyway -- clean your room, make your bed, don't leave dishes in the sink, that sort of stuff. She never really told me what to do, though. She would always listen and help me decide what to do and encouraged me to follow my instincts. And then, when I made whatever decision, she would tell me how proud she was of me. Like when I decided to take less money to do what I wanted to do. She was proud of the level of thought that I had given it -- but mostly she was proud of it as an expression of my priorities -- how it was better to be happy than to make more money. She took special pride in that one, even if it meant that I wasn't going to buy her any more designer handbags. Secretly, though, she was happy because she knew I'd be able to take more vacation. In theory, anyway.

***

My mother had the most beautiful hands.

My mother had the most beautiful laugh.

My mother's eyes were somewhere between sky blue and a cloudy sky. On the way back to the house from the airport, the northeast corner of the sky was the exact same color as her eyes.

These are things I hope I never forget.

*It was actually exactly 1680 Thursdays, but who needs to get bogged down in the details?

Twenty-five things

(cross-posted from Facebook.)

Rules: Once you have been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged, you have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, that means I want to know more about you.

To do this, go to the "notes" tab on your homepage. Paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, and then tag 25 people(in the right hand corner of this app). Then click "publish".

1. Coming up with twenty-five things that I did not already use in prior lists (100 Things About Me, Eight Things, Six Weird Things About Me, and the A-to-Z Quiz) was more challenging than I expected.
2. In addition to having a photographic memory, I have a fantastic memory for trivial details. For example, if you tell me the name of a movie, I can pretty much tell you who I saw it with and in what theater. If someone tells me their favorite flower or favorite food, I will remember it. I even remember the birthdays of people that I haven't spoken to since high school.
3. Even though I have all my music on my hard drive -- and backed up -- I still prefer CDs. I like reading the liner notes.
4. My mother died on 2/7. My birthday is on the 27th. My father's birthday is on the 27th. And yet, I know that this is all mere coincidence.
5. I love my dad, but I don't think I will ever, ever forgive him for making me call my brother to tell him that our mom had died.
6. I think the person who understands me the most is my brother, but he would probably deny it.
7. My sister and I sound alike. And we call each other "Pookie" (or the shortened version -- "Pook") in a way that is meant to be ironic, but is mostly just silly.
8. I do not cry in front of other people. If I feel my eyes filling with tears, I will try to stop them or I will leave the room.
9. I have a great respect for rules and order and laws. I prefer not to jaywalk. I don't cheat, ever. But I do drive over the speed limit, all the time -- I prefer to think of it as a suggestion.
10. I have a love-hate relationship with the telephone. Still, I am a late adopter of the text message. I prefer email. Or even the instant message.
11. I feel guilty that my hatred of the telephone causes me to not be as involved in my friends' lives as I could otherwise be. Of course, I also think that if people really wanted to hang out with me, they could call or send me an email too.
12. Despite my phone-hate, I think I may be addicted to my iPhone.
13. I have been knitting the same ugly scarf for well over a year.
14. My aunt bought me "Gone With the Wind" for my twelfth birthday, and I stayed up all night reading it.
15. I would refer to my guest room as "the library" if it didn't sound so pretentious.
16. I have an incurable wanderlust. There is not a single day that I don't think about going somewhere on vacation. Even on the best of days, I spend at least a couple minutes thinking about places and things that I would like to go see.
17. It takes a lot for me to trust people deeply. Still, I get my heart broken more than I should.
18. I am not a romantic. I think that people are generally loveable and that it's easy to find someone you want to spend time with. I think that the hardest part is in the decision to stay and try to make it work.
19. I think that the most profound thing I ever wrote was "A positive side effect of having experienced actual tragedy is that it makes you better able to distinguish between the real thing and what is, for lack of a better term, just a bummer."
20. Even though I have a lot of issues with my family and my childhood, and a lot of questions about my relationships with various members thereof, I wouldn't trade my family or those experiences for anything. They made me who I am today.
21. The last time I baked cookies, I did not eat a single one -- but I kept asking everyone (1) if they were good and (2) which ones they liked best.
22. I have lost approximately 15% of my body weight since roughly this time last year, but I still wear a lot of the same baggy clothing. And 15% isn't quite as much as one would think it might be.
23. I started writing a novel about two years ago. I have about 1500 words. I'm starting to think that, when all is said and done, it's going to be a novella.
24. I love babies and small children. I think they are so much funnier and more honest and more imaginative than poor, pathetic adults.
25. I hate being tagged in memes. And I hate tagging other people. It took three people tagging me for me to respond to this thing. But to keep from inflicting this pain on others, I am only tagging people that I know have already done this one.

Going Dark

This whole blog thing started with me wanting to leave comments on other people's blogs, post some silly links, and tell a story about a mouse. Almost three years later, it's evolved into something else entirely -- a diary of sorts. And I'm often thinking that keeping that diary and making it public is something that might not be the best thing for me, personally and professionally.

Besides, isn't blogging just narcissism meeting the 21st century?

But I need a creative outlet. I need to write, to express myself through the written word. It is who I am, who I always have been. To me, it seems that I am not nearly as eloquent in person -- my witticisms are less witty, my earnesty less earnest, my hopefulness less hopeful, my sadness less sad. I feel the most when I am writing. I find myself crying rivers when I am writing, but am dry-eyed and logical when I am not.

I like the me that feels much better than the me that thinks.

Still, I need to figure some stuff out, and am too vulnerable here right now. Maybe eventually I'll write here again, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll work on that book I keep talking about instead or I'll start keeping a paper journal. Who knows? But, at least for the time being, this space will be dark.

Not Meant To Be

This is about the sum of it today:

Not Meant to Be - Theory of A Deadman

Stir-crazy

I am trying so hard to be positive, to think positive thoughts.

The hardest part, though, is that I am no good at sitting on my hands waiting for things to happen. I like to make things happen, to get concrete answers. I need to know what is going on. And, as I've said countless times to countless people, patience may be a virtue but it isn't one of mine.

I am driving myself crazy. I am making myself sick. I need to get out of my head.

Words

I love to write, but it's a challenge. When I am content, I often can't find things to write about. When I am upset, I often can't find the words to express my feelings. And I am always so concerned about what other people are going to think about what I write that it causes me to over-edit and over-generalize and over-simplify in an attempt to over-sanitize.

It is no different in my life. When I am happy, I focus on that -- but when I'm not, it's hard for me to express it -- to find the words, to articulate what I feel, what I think. And I am so conscious of other people's feelings that I keep finding myself burying my own. I am paralyzed by fear.

I have to work on that, because, for someone who makes a living as a communicator, I am not always effective at it in my personal life. I need to say things, to get them out into the open -- to make myself heard.

Baby steps

I worked on my novel again today, for the first time in months. It was just a chapter, but it felt like something major.

I applied for a promotion at work last week. It seemed like exactly what I needed to do to get back on the right track.

I spent time with my friends, some that I haven't seen in months, over the past several days. I went to happy hours and parties, had some drinks, ate holiday foods, laughed, and told stories. And the schedule of events on the horizon looks promising.

And yeah, I flirted. I had almost forgotten how good it can feel.

Observation #2

A positive side effect of having experienced actual tragedy is that it makes you better able to distinguish between the real thing and what is, for lack of a better term, just a bummer.

Seeing comedy in tragedy

I very rarely write about former relationships because I was taught that it's not nice to speak ill of the dead. (Just kidding! Or am I . . . .) No really, what I was taught is that if you can't say anything nice, you shouldn't say it at all. And while that rule doesn't apply to when I am sitting around with friends and family trading what seem to be witty barbs, it certainly applies to a written medium, and even more so to one that's as permanent as the internet.

But I keep thinking that there's something inherently comedic in this last breakup. Mostly because (1) I really didn't see it coming at all and (2) the location. And as someone who self-identifies as a writer, I can't get it out of my head without getting it down on paper. It plays out like a screenplay:

Enter scene. Urban IHOP, rainy evening. Girl walks into restaurant, in long coat, umbrella and shopping bags in hand. Sees boyfriend sitting at table, and goes over to him, grabs his hand.

You all can figure out how it goes from there.

The end is the beginning is the end . . . .

One minute, everything is going along swimmingly, and the next it's over. That pretty much sums up the year for me.

I walk into the room, thinking everything is normal, and then the floor disappears and once again, I am in free-fall mode.

I should know better than to invest in anything by now, but for some pathological reason, I keep on doing it. I need to stop setting myself up for disappointment. I need to stop expecting that things will work out. Clearly, they don't and the only thing I'm ever left with is a gigantic pile of defeat and heartbreak.

Getting close

I haven't bought a Juliana Hatfield CD since sometime around 1994, but for some reason, I've been reading her blog lately. A couple of days ago, I came across something she wrote back in June that really spoke to me:

The idea in this song was the push/pull of ambivalence — my simultaneous attraction and repulsion toward potential love objects. Feeling a longing for a connection to someone but pulling away before getting too close. Or not being able to get close. Being more than just afraid.

***

I’ve only ever been truly at ease when I am all by myself. For the longest time I thought this meant there was something really seriously fundamentally wrong with me, but now I have begun to accept this truth about myself: I am most comfortable (most myself) when I am alone. And I am fine being alone. Happy, even. When I tell people this, they usually think I’m fronting or being defensive, and they say, “Oh, you just haven’t found the right guy yet.”

Maybe that’s true. Maybe. But if I am willing to concede that, okay, maybe I have never met anyone with whom I am compatible, then you who say I haven’t met the right guy yet must be willing to entertain the thought that maybe what I claim to be true is true, and that maybe I really want to be alone. And maybe I like being alone more than I’ve ever liked being with anybody.

On some level, I understand this. But I'm starting to feel otherwise.

Introspection

The other night, someone said to me that they wondered what I was like before my mother died.

I didn't know how to answer the question.

Have I changed in the past 10 months? Certainly. Would I have changed over the last 10 months, regardless of the loss? I think so. Maybe not the same way, but people have a way of evolving, like it or not.

Maybe it's a question best posed to my friends -- at least those who have known me for some time -- seeing as it's hard for me to really see the difference from the inside. But sometimes I feel the difference -- it's as if I stopped being one version of myself in the early morning hours of February 7. Sometimes I feel older and more serious -- but not all the time. Sometimes I feel more inclined to stand up for myself, since my mom's not around to (1) do it for me or (2) push me to do things. And on a more noticeable level, I'm sure I'm a little more quiet, a little more closed-off, a little more cautious, a little more introspective -- and a whole lot more sad.

Still, the two changes that I am most certain of are that I've become less inclined to believe that things always work out in the end -- they don't -- and that, no matter what, I am capable of picking up the pieces and moving forward. Still, those are lessons that I'd rather not have learned, given the cost.

Christmas Spirit

I am, at heart, a non-confrontational person. Yeah, I'm guilty of offhand sarcastic remarks and quips when things annoy me, but most of it is meant in jest. For me to really get aggravated -- and speak out about it -- things really really have to bother me.

Today, I was bothered.

On my way to pilates, I stopped at the UPS store to drop off a package. I was returning one of many, many catalog purchases of late. Apparently, one of the ways I dealt with not getting a birthday present from my mother was to buy new clothing and shoes. But I digress.

The package was prepaid. So, I just wanted to run in and run out of the store so I could get to my class, but there was no parking, so I wound up driving around for a couple of minutes looking for a spot. When I finally parked and ran up to the store, large box in front of most of my body (The box was 2 feet long -- no joke), I noticed that there was a very long line of parents and kids, most of whom were holding red and green balloons.

I quickly gathered that none of the people in line were actually there to conduct business in the store. You see, as luck would have it, the UPS store is in a neighborhood that was having its annual Christmas Tree lighting ceremony, and the store itself hosted Santa. So after exchanging brief words with some of the parents, I decided to bypass the line and go straight to the door.

Of course some blond woman yelled at me, "How rude! Don't you see that this woman with a stroller and a baby is trying to get out? You should have let her out first."

In my defense, I didn't see the woman with the stroller and the baby. The box was obstructing my view, especially while trying to hold it while keeping the door open. And in all honesty, all of the people and all of their kids seemed like they were moving into the store, not out of it. But on some level, I was not being very observant. I mean, I was surrounded by all of the kids and the noise, and all I wanted to do was drop off the stupid giant box.

I said, "Oh. I'm just trying to drop off this box and I didn't see her." I continued walking into the store, handed the clerk my box, and proceeded to exit. The transaction itself took 5 seconds.

On my way out the door, the woman started with me again. She said "You are so rude."

I was halfway out of the store, but I got annoyed. I spun back around and said, "Excuse me?"

She didn't say anything, so I started walking again.

Of course, then she said, "I guess some people don't understand Christmas."

I stopped again. "You really want to do this in front of your children?"

She glared at me and said, "I can't believe you are so rude."

I got a little defensive. "First of all, I didn't see the woman with the stroller because I was carrying a very big, very heavy box. And second, if anyone has the right to be mad at me, it's her -- not you. Mind your own business."

She said something else, but I don't even remember what it was. All I know is that by this point, I was fuming. So as I turned and walked back to my car, I said, "Well, I guess your kids are learning that the true spirit of Christmas is to be judgmental and rude."

The woman with the baby and the stroller? She was long gone by that point. But if she had said something to me, I probably would have apologized.

Thankful

Tomorrow is my birthday; tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I've spent a lot of this past year grieving and trying to figure out how to move forward, which undoubtedly, is of more interest to me than to anyone out there in cyberland. But there are a lot of things that I am grateful for, even though I probably don't say it often enough or loud enough to compete with all the other noise.

Here are some of the major things that come to mind:

• My friends and family, old and new, near and far. It's been a tough year, and I cherish the love and support. I don't know how I could possibly have made it through the past year -- or at least the past 10 months -- without you. You are, collectively and individually, the best.


• My job. I really like what I do and where I do it.


• Nana. The past year-and-a-half has been really tough for you -- probably more so than anyone else -- but you teach by example that, no matter what, it's important to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep moving forward.


• My sister. Even though we disagree about things -- a lot of things -- I am so grateful for having spent the last 30-some-odd years trying to make each other giggle. I can't wait to be an aunt and tell your kid (or kids) about how wonderful it was to grow up having a best friend/partner-in-crime who lived in the same house.


• My brother. Thanks for making me laugh harder than anyone has a right to, for crying with me when we both needed it, and, in general, for being a good, good man. I am so proud of you.


• My dad. You are a rock. A crazy, weird rock, but a rock nonetheless.

Clearly, there's a lot more -- good food and wine, vodka, baseball, Entourage, cashmere, high threadcount sheets, homeownership, my Kitchen-aid stand mixer, naps, hugs, Robert Downey Jr. -- but the list keeps getting longer, and I keep thinking of more and more things. So I'll stop for now, count my blessings, and hope that this next year is better than the last.

Holiday musings

I miss my mother. I don't say it aloud very often, but it's there, all the time -- a constant subtext lingering just below the surface of everything I say and everything I do. Even when I am completely happy, it's not without a sense of profound loss.

Don't get me wrong -- I am happy. Things are good. In those minutes, the sense of loss strikes when I wish I could pick up the phone and tell my mother.

But I think that next few weeks will be a challenge of another sort. It'll start with my birthday and Thanksgiving, the first of both without my mother, and on the same day, no less. And then the rest of the holidays, which seem like they're off in the distance now, but will soon be rolling in like the tide. And even though I'm trying not to be sad or to dwell -- to keep things light and in perspective -- there's a part of me that wants to crawl into bed -- preferably with pie -- and not come out until after New Year's.

Interrogation, Dad style

My father called this afternoon. He's not a great conversationalist, to say the least, which is one of the main reasons we're down to talking about once a week. Generally, his conversations are pretty much, "Hi, how are you? Just wanted to check in. Have anything important to report? Heard anything interesting from anyone else? Okay, love you. Bye."

Today, though, he was trying to get information out of me. I was talking to him while wandering around the grocery store, and he said something that made me stop walking and ask, sequentially, "Why?" What have you heard?" and the kicker, "Are you trying to pry?"

He quickly backed off, saying, "I don't pry. Your mother would pry, if she was here. But I don't do that -- I just ask questions."

I laughed, because ordinarily, he doesn't even do that. And clearly, if he's going to get information out of me, he's going to need to refine his interrogation technique.

Dog Days

So this dog fostering thing? Let's just say that it hasn't gone swimmingly. Or, to be more precise, it has.

On Tuesday (gotta love federal holidays!) I took the dog to the dog park. Actually two dog parks. At the first one, there were three giant dogs that wanted to chase him, and he did not really like that. After seeing if the little guy could hold his own for a couple minutes -- he did surprisingly well -- my friend and I packed him back up into the car and drove to a different park. And PJ was really really good with the other dogs for a few minutes, until one little brown puppy (about half his size) drove PJ to run away -- into the creek.

So yeah, I spent my Veterans' Day fishing the dog out of the creek. And then giving him a bath. (He liked the bath a lot, but did not like being dried off. He growled and snapped at me like you wouldn't believe!)



Of course there's the other thing. The thing where he tries to jump up into my bed over and over again and keeps missing. Eventually he succeeds, but it is really really annoying when I'm trying to sleep. Combine that with the having to get up before the crack of dawn to walk him and let's just say that I am the most tired I've been in months.

Still, I wanted to tough it out with him -- but my neighbors are not in agreement. The dog apparently barks at every single noise that he hears, which, in a mid-rise building in a quasi-downtown area, is a lot. When I'm there and I tell him to calm down, he gets quieter, but when I'm not . . . . And the neighbors have been complaining. So, as a result, as of tonight, the dog is going to another foster home.

Ultimately this dog experiment has been an abysmal failure -- but at least I've learned that maybe it's not the right time or place for me to have a dog and maybe that'll help abate the puppy envy for a while. In the meantime, I'm pretty sure that the agency will find PJ a suitable permanent home, and, as an extra added bonus, I will always have the memory of a tiny little dog humping a giant orange cat-shaped pillow.

Puppy pictures!

So, here's PJ. He's a Maltese.





Right now, he's alternating between standing at the door barking at my neighbors, and lying in front of the door gearing up for more barking.



As if he's big enough to protect either of us.

Police

So after telling off the girl who cut in front of me in line Friday night, I spent the rest of my Halloween at the Coldplay concert -- which was very good -- and then eventually went home and went to sleep, gearing up for a big excursion to Ikea the next morning.

At about 3 am, I woke up when someone started pounding on my door.

Disoriented at first, I initially thought it was part of a particularly peculiar dream. But then they pounded again.

So I got up and went to the door -- without my glasses. I tried to look out the peephole, but I didn't see anyone, so I said, "Who is it?"

"Police."

I didn't want to open the door, especially since I couldn't see anything. So I said "What do you want?"

They asked for some girl named Emily Carroll. I told them that they must have the wrong apartment. They then said the right apartment number, and I told him that no one by that name lived there. So they left. I never even had to open the door.

I went back to sleep, annoyed and confused. Why would the police be knocking on my door at 3 am unless it was an emergency, and if so, why would they go away that easily? The whole thing makes no sense.

Out of Character

I'm not sure whether it's because of my profession or in spite of it, but for some reason, I have evolved into a particularly non-confrontational person. Unless it's of dire importance, I generally let things go -- or, at worst, passive-aggressively complain after the fact.

So, if, for example, someone cuts in front of me in a line, my general reaction is to let them do it. Sometimes I'll turn to the person behind me and say something loud enough for others to hear like "I don't understand why people think they're too important to wait in line," but more often than not, I'll just let it happen and quietly stew.

On Friday, however, I stood up for myself. I was on line to put my name on the list for a table at a busy (and somewhat overrated) restaurant about 90 minutes before the Coldplay concert. Some girl pushed in front of me to get to the hostess stand. Initially I thought that they had called her name for a table, but when she got up to the front, she was putting her name on the list -- the same thing I had been waiting to do, the same thing the girl in front of me had been waiting to do.

It only took me a second to decide to put an end to it. I took a step over to the side and said "Did you actually just push me out of the way to put your name on the list?"

She said, "Oh, I didn't know I did that."

I said "How did you not realize it when you physically pushed me out of the way?"

The hostess had no choice. She took the name of the girl that was really in line in front of me, and then my name. The girl who cut in front? Well, she didn't get her name on the list, and left in a huff, clearly embarrassed.

And I felt vindicated. Maybe I should stand up for myself more often.

Baseball v. Hockey

I went to my first hockey game of the season tonight -- my first game since last season's playoffs -- the debacle that was Game 7. But that's besides the point. Fresh off a horrible baseball season, and in the middle of a football season that I'm not too excited about, I started thinking about why it took me so long to really appreciate hockey.

So I started making a list comparing my favorite sport, baseball, against hockey.

The players:
Baseball -- Southerners, Latin Americans, and the Japanese.
Hockey -- Canadians, Eastern Europeans, and the occasional kid from New England or the upper Midwest.

The fans:
Baseball -- People with crewcuts and old Jewish men.
Hockey -- People with mullets.

The music:
Baseball -- A lot of country, with a little rap and salsa thrown in.
Hockey -- Rock N' Roll.

The weather:
Baseball -- Ideally, warm and sunny on a Sunday afternoon, but mostly hot and humid on a weekday night. And then there are rain delays . . . .
Hockey -- Cold. Earmuffs would have been nice.

The pace:
Baseball -- Leisurely.
Hockey -- Frenetic.

The resolution of a tie game:
Baseball -- Extra innings.
Hockey -- 4-on-4 overtime, and if that doesn't work, a dramatic shootout.

Somehow, I think hockey wins.

I promise I'm not ignoring you.

I'm just really really busy and tired this week.

And the World Series is on.

Dreams and Puppies

My subconscious is messing with my head. I had a dream last night -- technically this morning -- that somehow managed to make my already confusing life seem even more confusing.

And no -- it wasn't a sex dream. Or even the recurring dream that I keep having where I get in an argument with my sister and throw a glass of water at her. The main plot of the dream involved me eating a picnic lunch with several friends, coworkers, and random family members. Seems innocent enough, right? But suffice it to say that this dream has altered my perception.

Anyway, onto bigger -- and hopefully brighter things. I think I'm getting myself a puppy for my birthday. I don't know what kind yet, but here are my biggest considerations:

• I have allergies. So a dog that does not shed too badly or is considered "hypoallergenic" would be good.
• I am under 5'2", and the condo is under 1300 square feet. So a small-ish dog would be great. Bonus points for one that will fit into a pet-carrier that I can take onboard an airplane.
• After having one dog that ate linoleum, crown molding, and a Soul Asylum CD, I would prefer a dog that is not likely to chew too much important stuff. And while we're on the subject of that dog, I would like one that does not have too much separation anxiety.
• No excessive barking, and no biting. I guess that means friendly.
• The dog should be relatively smart, or at a minimum, easily trainable.
• Most important: the dog has to be cute. Supercute.

Some of my favorites are Beagles, Puggles, Malteses, Maltipoos, Cockapoos, and Yorkies. But I'd rather not buy a puppy from a breeder when there are perfectly good puppies in pounds. So, if anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

In-Flight Entertainment

I rarely talk on airplanes. I usually sit down, pull out a book or my headphones, and try to relax until I get from point A to point B. Not today.

It all started with my bag. You see, I acquired stuff at my dad's house, and decided to take a bag of it back up with me to DC -- a little blue gym bag that may or may not have been the bag I used for summer camp one year, back in the mid-1980s. Despite the fact that the bag was tiny, it would not fit in the overhead bin, thanks to some oversized suitcases and a whole bunch of tennis rackets. (Note to self: Next time you're in Florida, remember to look for your old tennis racket in the garage.)

So the guy next to me volunteered to let me put it in front of his seat. He then commented that he could judge how stressful someone's job was by the size of their coffee cup -- I happened to be drinking a Starbucks Venti Green Tea at the time. This, of course, started a conversation.

We proceeded to spend the whole two-and-a-half hour flight talking. I quickly realized that he was quite intoxicated, which made it all the more fun for me. And it got better when he found out that the onboard beverage service was cash only.

I think the highlight for him was when we started going through the Sky Mall catalog, only to find that almost every page of his copy had been defaced with hand drawn pictures of male genitalia. He thought it was hysterically funny, so I told him to rent Superbad.

The flight seemed to go by very quickly. Clearly I need to allow myself to be entertained by random strangers more often.

Home

Until today, I never really understood the saying "You can never go home again."

I was in my old hometown today, for the first time in years. Out of curiosity, I decided to drive by the old house. It has a new roof, and new front doors, and a fence around the backyard where there's now a swingset. It's the same house, but it's not my home -- and hasn't been my home for years. Heck, it hasn't even been my family's house for over six years.

It made me recall how, when I was in law school, I had this one particularly horrible semester. I'm not sure if it was classes or something else, but whatever it was, it was really draining. My last exam was Evidence, and after the test was over, I got right in the car and drove the four-and-a-half hours back to Coral Springs -- pretty much on the verge of tears the entire way. And I walked into the house, took one look at my mother, and started crying. Not just because I was stressed out and upset, but also because I was relieved to be home.

I got an A on that exam, just like my mother said I would.

It's different now. In conversation today, I referred to coming to Florida as "coming home," but it's not really true. My house is the condo in Arlington, and the place where my dad lives is just that -- no more, no less. My home, at least the way I remember it, does not really exist anymore.

My mother was home.

Question-and-Answer time

Here it is, the moment you've been waiting for: the answers to the Ask Dara Anything! 2008 Edition Questions.

1. DSL asked -- well, sort-of asked -- "I would ask if you've ever had jeans hemmed, but you live in VA".
   
   I fail to see why living in Virginia would make me more or less likely to have had jeans hemmed. But this I do know: When getting jeans hemmed, you should have them take off the cuffs and then reattach them so they look right.



2. DSL also asked, "Why did you never tell me what you thought of contra dancing?"
   
   Partly because you posted it as a comment on the other blog, the one I haven't updated in weeks. But mostly because you didn't really ask me. Not in person, anyway.



3. Violindan asked, "Dara, what do you think DSL's random, forgotten question was?"
   
   Dan, I think it had something to do with the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow. Or contra dancing.



4. Miss Scarlet asked three questions: (1) What would be your perfect vacation? (2) Do you like pickles? olives? onions? (3) Do you agree that fall is awesome?
   
   (1) I thought that driving up the California coast was a pretty amazing vacation, close to perfect. But I love to go to new places. Right now, I think I'd love to take a tour of Italy or Australia or go to Japan, Thailand/Cambodia, or China, or go to Argentina and drink a lot of Malbec.
   
   (2) I love pickles. Especially half-sours. I like some olives, especially in martinis. As for onions, I generally only like them when they're cooked, but I do love the pearl onions that they put into martinis.
   
   (3) Fall is awesome: Not only was I born in the fall, but I love fall colors. But, to be honest, I spent way too much of my life living in Florida to be that keenly excited about the colder weather. As long as the daytime temperature stays between 70-80, I'm fine.



5. Sara asked, "What is you all time favorite comfort food and will you share the recipe?"
   
   In all honesty, my favorite comfort food is mac and cheese, and when I make it it's out of the blue box. I do love Noodles & Company's take on it, though -- and eat it way too much.
   
   As for things that I make, the closest thing that I have that is not a cookie is my Nana's recipe for Tuna Noodle Casserole -- and it's the easiest thing in the world. One bag of egg noodles, two cans of tuna in oil, two cans of cream of mushroom soup, one can of peas (drained) and some breadcrumbs and butter. Boil the noodles, and mix everything together in a casserole dish, then sprinkle the breadcrumbs on top and dot with the butter. Bake in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes or so, or until it is browned on top but not too crispy.



6. TINGB asked "Which is the worst of the "Viva Viagra!" commercials I'm forced to endure during every commercial break of the baseball playoffs?"
   
   All of them, my dear, all of them. Any time they show any commercial about anything to do with erectile dysfunction, I cringe. For me and for society in general.



7. Peter wrote to me via Facebook: "Dear Ask Dara: Tonight should I watch the Vice Presidential debate or my Forgetting Sarah Marshall DVD from Netflix? On the one hand, even though I've heard that the movie is hilarious, the debate might be funnier (I enjoy dark comedy). But, if I don't watch my Netflix DVD and return it immediately, I will not be getting the most value for my money out of Netflix."
   
   Peter, If you are really limited to one or the other, I'd flip a coin -- heads debate, tails movie. The debate is likely to be scary funny, and it is very important, but it lacks plot. The movie is very very funny, but it isn't THAT important to trade in your movies right away (this from someone who has had the same movie since August).
   
   Of course, the better answer is a compromise: stay up late and watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall after the debate.
   
   But whatever you do, just make sure the kids are asleep before you start the movie.



8. Then Anna wrote: "Dear Dara, Should I give in to my husband's demands that I stay up late for the ten cents savings of watching all Netflix DVDs immediately? Besides I hate Sarah Marshall."
   
   Anna, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a very funny movie. It's worth it. But in general, I'm with you on the Netflix thing. One extra day ain't gonna break the budget.
   
   (Ed. Note: Then Anna wrote "Um, Actually I just learned Sarah Marshall and Sarah Silverman are different people." So I think it made her decision easier.)

The Great Schlep

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Book Meme

Miss Scarlet posted a meme about books, and for fun, I'm going to do it.

The rules are:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on the blog.
3. Write six random bookish things about yourself.
4. Tag sixish people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know he or she has been tagged.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

So here goes . . .

1. I have to finish books, even if I hate them. I can't start a new book until I've finished the current book.
2. I have four bookcases filled with books in the new guestroom -- two short and two tall.
3. As a kid, my favorite book was Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. (If you haven't read it, you should.)
4. When I was cleaning out my old apartment, I found a ton of the bookmarks that you get for free from the bookstores.
5. I like to read the book before seeing the movie, but I am almost never one of those people who says that the book is so much better.
6. In the second grade, I did a book report -- complete with diorama -- on The Thorn Birds. I read the book because my mom wouldn't let me stay up to watch the miniseries on tv. And let's just say that it was completely inappropriate material for an 8 year-old.

Tags: Eh, whatever. Do it if you want to do it.

Vice-Presidential Debate Drinking Game

In a surprising bit of awesomeness, TV Guide posted this Vice-Presidential debate drinking game:

The rules are simple. You take a drink....

If Biden:
• refers to John McCain as "a friend" or someone he respects just before trashing him.
• tries in any way to justify the complete failure that is Amtrak.
• has to explain what his son did for a living after law school.
• says any of the following: "climate change," "biofuels," "green," "ethanol," "drilling," "Big Oil," or "Bridge to Nowhere."
• refers to Palin's recent interview with Katie Couric.
• exceeds his time limit.
• mentions the number of years of experience he has.
• makes any allusions to the pregnancy of Palin's daughter Bristol.
• displays righteous anger.
• suggests a title for Larry Flynt's Sarah Palin-themed adult film.

If Palin:
• invokes McCain's POW history
• mentions her husband or any of her children by name (make it a double if she says "Track in Iraq").
• says any of the following: "pitbull," "lipstick," "hockey mom," "Joe Six-Pack," "maverick," "barracuda," "glass ceiling," or "plagiarism."
• says "gosh," "gee," "golly," "darn," "heck" or any other homespun curse euphemism.
• evades answering a question.
• cries poverty.
• is actually carrying a firearm.
• cites Russia's proximity to Alaska or talks about her great love for the state of Israel in response to a question about foreign policy (been there, done that!).
• mentions by name any animal species native to her home state.
• is wearing a suit that costs more than her plane.

If either candidate:
• says any of the following: "change," "God," "hope," "Beltway," "insider," "lobbyist," "energy," or "Bush."
• says "Delaware" or "Alaska" in a funny accent to sound folksy.
• invokes the specter of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
• actually curses.
• says "Wall Street" and "Main Street" in the same sentence.
• uses hyperbole to talk about the current financial crisis.
• says, "Let me finish."
• mispronounces the name of a world leader.
• milks the crowd for applause.
• mentions Tina Fey.

I am sure that I will have one heck of a headache tomorrow.

Ask Dara Anything! 2008 Edition -- reminder to submit questions

I know my readership is down significantly of late, but seriously folks, doesn't anyone have a question for me?

Ask me about your taxes or tax policy in general. Ask me about home decor. Ask me about what I ate for dinner or what I watched on tv. Ask me who I think is going to win this craptastic season of Project Runway. Just somebody ask me a question -- by next Wednesday.