Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing: The 14 Question Meme

Cheers to all of us thieves!

1. What do you consider your hometown to be? Chicago

2. What’s the hardest part of your average day? Getting there, wherever "there" happens to be. I find it hard to leave for work at a reasonable time, or once I'm there it's hard to put my pencil down and come home, or haul my fat ass to the health club.

3. The easiest? Why? Feeding the felines. Tending to them always makes me happy. My cats were all shelter rescues, and I'm so pleased to know that they went from being stray or abandoned to enjoying mealtimes in my kitchen.

4. What beverage do you reach for to quench your thirst? Coke.

5. What is one not-so-secret goal you have for your life? I’ll let you keep your secret ones to yourself. Getting -- and staying! -- organized here at home.I made a serious attempt over the summer and made real headway, but now I'm overrun with paper again.

6. What physical pain do you fear most? For example, I’m trying to decide how bad my jaw pain needs to get before I risk a potential needle from my dentist. So, for me, throbbing is preferable to jabbing. Migraines! They are brutal, I literally cannot move without pain so excruciating that I'm nauseous. And have you ever tried to vomit without moving? If I don't take my football-shaped prescription Naproxen at the very first sign of pain, I'm resigned to first hours of misery and then the hours of sleep required for healing and then I've sacrificed a day to a freaking headache.

7. Where do you find solace? I find that little happens in life that can't be made better by listening to the Beatles or watching Cubs baseball.

8. What makes you the saddest when you read/see the news? Senseless violence. Some stories really get under my skin. One was Nailah Franklin, the young woman whose family and friends were mobilized and passionate, trying to enlist the entire city in the search to save her. It was too awful when, days later, her body was found. Another was Blair Holt, the honor student who lost his life on the way home from school when he pushed a classmate out of the line of gangbanger fire. When I develop my globes for Mimi's Blogblast for Peace, it's not Afghanistan or Iraq or Darfur that I'm thinking of. I dream of my hometown, the day when there will be no more victims like Nailah Franklin and Blair Holt.

9. What do you eat for a favorite snack? Apple slices. Plain, or with cinnamon, or caramel or cheese, if you don't mind.

10. What movie could you/would you watch more than two or three times and still enjoy just as much as the first time? The Way We Were. I love how at the beginning of the movie, Hubbell is the gorgeous golden boy "for whom everything comes too easily," and Katie is all unfashionably sharp elbows and passion. He allows himself to give up what was truly important to him in order to keep his life easy, comfortable and neutral. By the end of the movie, while Hubbell is subdued and just kinda pale, she is still vibrant, still enthusiastic, still fighting for what she believes in. To thine own self be true! Of course, some day I'd like to see a movie where the heroine manages to maintain her individuality and get the gorgeous guy.

11. What boy/girl first made you cry? I truly don't remember. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.

12. What brand of coffee/tea do you drink most often? I hate, loathe, despise and abominate coffee. The brand of tea in my kitchen right now is Bigelow.

13. Dig in the dirt with or without garden gloves? I don't have a garden.

14. James Taylor or Carly Simon? Why must I choose?