Interview

As a freshman, I took one journalism course, and it didn't cover the interview. What I learned I gleaned from Barbara Walters and Leslie Stahl's Face the Nation (I was a news junkie as a kid—still am). I am still learning a bit from Terry Gross, too. I know enough not to ask yes or no questions, to research my subject before I write my questions, and to establish a good rapport, a trusting ear, with my interviewee.

Of course, when I am being interviewed, I fall into the same trap I set for others: I reveal too much; I am dangerously intimate.

The following are my answers to Brownie's questions in keeping with the Interview Meme making the blog rounds these days. The rules follow my entry, though I'm changing them a bit.*

If you won $10,000,000 in the lottery, what would you buy first and why?

You know, I have a lot of people to pay back after my retail debacle and my years of adjunct slacking, so before I buy anything, my parents and husband each get a hundred grand. Oh, who am I kidding? I'm going out that very day, before I even have the cash, and buying a Nikon D100 camera with all the acouterments. And I'm treating all my pals to crabcakes and beer at Kocos. And I'm buying a white sheet cake.

What kind of people do you not like and why?

Oh, you know, the usuals: racists, sexists, anti-Semites; is it hypocritical to hate haters? Or is that simply self-loathing? I've always wanted to have a band that wore t-shirts saying, "I loathe Nick," "I detest Nick," "I abhor Nick," and "I despise Nick"; we'd be called The Four Nick Haters. I dislike people who don't laugh (especially at that joke).

Tell me about your best day.

I won't lie and tell you that it was the day I had my baby. That was a grand day, indeed, but I was tired and sore and tired! Besides, having other best days doesn't diminish the value of days with my girl.

So, was it the time in the picture when I visited Utah for the first time and hiked the West Rim Trail at Zion National Park? My husband, his brother, and I hiked the 14 miles in two days, camping out mid-way. We drank warm beer and made goofy hats out of sticks and bandanas and took lots of pictures. It was one of the happiest days.

Maybe it was the day I spent with my girlfriend in a canoe on the Pokomoke River, portaging over downed trees, steering her head first into a snake dangling from a tree branch, snapping pictures of a beautiful owl and a nasty old turkey vulture. We camped that night and drank hot chocolate on a pier that hung over a river full of bullfrogs.

Or perhaps it was the day Christine and I, my husband, and our friend, Mitch, spent the day hiking at Great Falls, VA, with our dog, Beowulf. It was crisp and cool and gorgeous. We positioned ourselves on different spots on a rock and each stepped out of the scene to snap the photo; only the dog was in every shot. We all came home, took a nap, and went to a Shawn Colvin concert that night.

Funny—all of these times involved photography and a chemically altered reality.

What is your favorite holiday and why?

Does my birthday count? That's the day it can be all about me—facials, massages, CAKE. Otherwise, it is Halloween, the holiday all about scaring the bejesus out of little kids and stealing their candy.

Tell me something about yourself that people who know you well would find surprising.

I can't spell? Would anything surprise anyone who knew me? I have no big secrets of my own, but I have held them for others. Others' secrets are not as heavy.

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The Rules:
1. If you'd like to be interviewed, comment: "Interview me, please!"
2. I will ask you five new questions in that comments section (*not as an actual blog entry, as the previous rules stated).
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.