This feels so self-indulgent. Here goes ...

Love verbal sparring, weird, indy movies, concerts, stories of any stripe, words, word games, making games up, creativity, reading, writing, the world's largest ball of twine (twine in general), wax paper, regional festivals (like the pickle festival in New York state ... that sounds like a day well spent).

There's no frigate like good conversation. It elevates the mundane to adventure, and when that happens ... man.

I love to laugh, find humor in most everything. My sense of humor is a skosh dark, which seems to surprise folks. I revel in the macabre and would have married Edward Gorey if he would have had me. Happy macabre, though. Not evil.

I really dig pumpkins. Not little ceramic pumpkins or sweaters adorned with pumpkins. Real pumpkins. In their preserved entirety (not carved and mangled ... I only carve and mangle things I loathe).

Itching to go dogsledding and to go to Manitoba and observe polar bears from a tundra buggy. And to go to Sundance. And to ride the Orient Express. And to try Absinthe ... not the Americanized rendering, though.

Ideas of a good time? Lying on a hammock playing word games, spending an afternoon trawling through a used book store, going to an SEC football game in the fall, going to a concert at the Tabernacle in Atlanta, playing board games, flipping a coin to see which way you turn at each Stop sign and winding up wherever you wind up ... fun is nearly everywhere.

I am a dog person. While I like cats, they intimidate me because they're measurably smarter than I. Love animals and cannot stand it when they're mistreated. Except for badgers and leopard seals ... I would just as soon shoot one as look at one. My volunteer activity almost always falls under the animal umbrella.

I'm rambling. Ceasing now.

Doing my best to suck the proverbial marrow out of it. Relishing time with family and friends and striving to make sure they know how much they enrich my little world, working, writing, thinking, musing, asking, honing my curiosity ...

Hmmmm ...

I can more readily tell quite the opposite! For example, I cannot do math. Please never ask me to do math. Nor can I facilitate elevator small talk.

Generally, I am able to put folks at ease. At least it seems that way.

Oh, I'm great at asking questions ad infinitum. And not half-bad at Balderdash.

People seem to comment on my sense of humor and choice of words (I am more than a little fond of words and enjoy using a variety of them, though my vocabulary isn't nearly as expansive as I'd like.).

But that may not be the first thing they notice. They may notice my inability to do math or my lack of geographical prowess or my uneven ears ... and in their infinite compassion, they may just opt not to tell me.

Reading: Edward Gorey; Salinger; Flannery O'Connor; John Muir; Poe; Sarah Vowell ... I should stop here.

Viewing: Pumpkin; Pulp Fiction; Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; A Christmas Story; Polar Express; Heathers; Fargo; The Great White; Best in Show; Year of the Dog; March of the Penguins; O' Brother, Where Art Thou? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Listening: Leonard Cohen; Eva Cassidy; Billy Joel; Willie Nelson; some jazz (but not the kind they play at the dentist's office); most country; some rock. The songs they play on iPhone commercials. Not terribly picky.

1) Faith
2) Family
3) Certain friends
4) Animals (though I don't have a pet now, I love animals)
5) The tenet that folks are, for the most part, good-natured
6) Diet Coke (or some rendering of a cold, bubbly, caffeinated
diet beverage)

How grateful I am for my extraordinary family; how I need and want to be a better daughter, granddaughter, niece, friend, citizen ... person in general; spiritual growth; various concepts around which I have trouble wrapping my mind; adjectives and adverbs; mistreated animals and how I can help; where the country is headed; decisions I've made; wordplay; word associations; writing; plights. Et cetera.

Likely watching a movie ... whether at a friend's house, with friends at my house, or at home by myself. Or playing board games. Sometimes I'm awkward.

Or not. Maybe I don't so much have a typical Friday night thing.

I'll have to ruminate on this.

Do I really need to complete that sentence? When it's right, it's right, right?

I don't have a laundry list ... hate to think of all I'd miss by living in that kind of a box. Ideally, I'd like to meet someone who gets me and whom I get. I have romanticized notions of walking hand in hand with him down the sidewalk in a quaint town, stopping at a local coffee shop, and getting lost in the most extraordinary conversation with our foreheads smooshed together.