Okay 62 years in 25 words or more or less. Ideas are important to me. I love my work, which is book publishing. I'm interested in the world and what goes on it. And reading about it. And talking about it. Sometimes crying about it, sometimes laughing about it.

I am iinterested in life, compassionate, and maybe funny

This is the part where I put that I like to read, walk, hang out with friends, cook for them--because it's all true. I'm a fairly accomplished poet. I'm a mom and a grandma. Paying attention to the moment. Walking on the beach. Working out with a trainer. I used to play a mean game of table tennis--even with bifocals. Haven't for a while. I love to dance. I can't carry a tune, but I love to be sung to. I am committed to building my business, which is publishing books and more about that later. Spend a lot of time (albeit I would say not an obsessive amount) doing that. It's fun. It's interesting.

Editing. Writing. Reading. Listening. Conversing. Being a friend. Hosting dinner parties. Making a house a home--for myself. And sometimes for others. Looking at paintings. Having flowers in the house. Walking on the beach. It took me some time to get good at that. Well not the stride or something, but the head and heart space. Sentence fragments.

My smile, I guess. I'm pretty centered. People have commented on that. My hands, one friend said. I'm also a native Midwesterner--so people notice me?! Eek, oh no.

Books--I read a lot of manuscripts--it's what I do for work and I love it. I'm reading a book right now about a man who met a teacher and, well, I won't say more about it just yet. And another about the meaning of time. And another about living with intention. I also read fiction. I'm an omnivorous reader of mystery novels, and I like them because (a) they're modern day morality tales--writers get to air their world views and make things come "right" to those standards in the end and (b) they're a pretty good way to learn about place/geography, odd occupations, interesting tidbits of knowledge--i.e. Dana Stabenow who writes a series in which the detective is a Native American Alaskan. Or Walter Moseley, Michael Connelly, Jonathan Kellerman--all writers who make a different Los Angeles come alive. Ditto John Sanford and William Kent Krueger--Minnesota. James Lee Burke--Louisiana (and Montana). Tony Hillerman--New Mexico--Navajo Indians. Sarah Paretsky--Chicago. I like speculative fiction of almost any sort--David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas),Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, etc.), Paul Auster. I'm frequently drawn to books in which place matters--Louise Erdrich, Julia Glass. Kate Atkinson, When WIll There Be Good News. I read some poetry--Muriel Rukeyser, William Stafford are favorites. John Berger--I'd have to say And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos is one of my all-time favorite books. Pema Chodron and Stephen Levine, especially Turning Toward the Mystery. This could get out of hand. And it only skims the surface.Maybe I better move on to those other categories.

I like movies. I do not love movies passionately the way I love books, but I do love them. Lately I've liked Crazy Heart (that scene with Robert Duval in the boat). I've seen most of what the Cohen brothers have made, including the recent A Serious Man. The Ghost Writer I loved. Michael Clayton. State of Play.

Music--Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Gillian Welch, The Band, Emmy Lou Harris, Townes Van Zandt, John Prine, Charles Ives, Vivaldi, Leo Kottke, Dave Brubeck. Again, I'm pretty omnivorous. I love being introduced to people's favorites. If I could be a musician in a rock and roll band I'd want to be a drummer. Or a percussionist if I were taking it up town to the orchestra hall. I like hearing/seeing modern classical concerts. I also prefer modern dance to ballet.

And on to food. Omnivorous. Oh, that again. Yep. Back to that again. I am a good, intuitive, simple cook. My grandma used to have these Sunday night suppers where she pulled things out of the refrigerator and put them together--pickled just about anything, sausage, leftover chicken from Sunday dinner (which was a different thing from Sunday night suppers). There would be bread and some meat and cheese and a lot of different vegetables--sauerkraut or cabbage slaw, beets, beans. In the summer egg plant, tomatoes, corn from the garden. I like to have dinner parties like that--some simple dishes. You pass them around. Eat a little of this and that. And talk. And talk. That said, eating out I like:
Vietnamese, Japanese, dim sum. Okay omnivorous.

It's elemental--earth, air, fire, water. And that leaves two more to think about. So I'll think for a bit. And having thought--connections to family and friends. Intimacy and the internet are right up there vying for #6.

Why greed and fear seem to be fueling our country right now. Why we don't take care of children. How could our health care system work. And how could we make our public schools work again. I suppose this was never a classless a country, with public education playing as big a part of that as I think (that Midwestern thing again). But I do think we owe it to children to teach them to read, to write, to think. I think about staying even.

Having dinner with friends at home or in a quiet neighborhood place, sometimes going to poetry readings, sometimes home alone decompressing--music with no words is good. Seeing a movie. Reading aloud or being read to. Enjoying a glass of wine. Hanging out with friends, talking about the day, the week, the world.

I'm a little shy. (See above--eek, oh no!)

I'm thinking about this too. Thinking too much is NOT a good thing, she said to herself. If you're open to connection. If you've got good books to suggest. If your partner doesn't have to be svelte. If you want to teach me to play the drums. Or dance. Or just hang out in the blue box and see if it feels like we'd like to connect.