The best moments in life always happen in no particular order and with very little warning.  So, to follow suit:

– I wish cheese pizza covered all the food groups so that I would never have to bother eating anything else.

– I once rode a wooden wagon down a grassy hill because I was too impatient to wait for snow and toboggans.  There was a crash.  Consequence: slivers in rude places, and family lore that refuses to go away.

– I want a vast personal library much more urgently that I want a vast personal house.  Neil Gaiman’s collection makes me swoon.

– My first drink was Mike’s Hard, and I had it at a party in the woods behind a water bottling plant.  I considered myself very original.  Now I know better.

– I trip all over myself with love for the following, in order of degree: 1. Tycho the Cat   2. Pugs   3. All other dogs

– I’ve been both a best man and a maid of honour.

– I like having plans and taking charge, but I don’t like being busy all the time.  I need lots of unstructured time to keep my head on straight.

– Apart from bribes to stack wood ($1 a pallet – I had no union) and cut thistles (an invented chore to prevent me from converting the living room into post-apocalyptic Lego mayhem), my first real income was $60 for winning a public speaking competition in grade 4.  My speech explored the urgent question, “What would happen if the Queen of England’s castle was made out of Lego?”  (You can see the emerging theme of my childhood).

– I had god-awful taste in music until I met my friend Jen in university.  We DJ’d a campus radio show called the Middle of Somewhere which had one consistent listener, nicknamed Metric Steve.

– I created my first private email address on a whim in the summer of 1997 (nutmegs77), and then I panicked.  I had given the Internets my address.  I pictured identity theft (without really knowing what that was), mysterious vans trailing me on my bike, certain kidnapping.  When a week or two went by and I suffered none of the above I calmed down and stayed nutmegs77 until the end of high school.  I wish I could somehow go back and read the emails in that account.

– A couple of my favourite authors: Annie Proulx (especially in Postcards), Steven Heighton, Colum McCann

– I was born in B.C. but grew up on a farm near Dundalk, Ontario.  It was a tough time for farmers but we made it work for a long time with supplementary income from our very own bakery, which meant the farmhouse always smelled like fresh pies.  It was the best place in the entire world to be.

– If heaven exists, what would I like to hear God say when I arrive?
“The farm is right over there.”
(D’s answer: “Sorry about that.”)

–  I love arriving at someone else’s house for dinner and pouring that first glass of wine for each of us.

– I’m pro-choice.

– I need a lot of sleep.  Since I generally get up early in the morning, this means I usually have to crash by 9:30 p.m. on a regular old weekday night.  I know, LAME.

– I love shrimp in a shrimp ring, but loathe it in anything else.

– My sister is the poster child for following you own path.  Right now she is living in the Yukon with her husband, baby, some sheep, and nine dogs.

– When I was nine my cousin Leah and I founded the L&M Detective Agency.  Cost was 25 cents a case, plus expenses.

– When I was eight our family hosted a French exchange student whose love I desperately wanted to earn.  For some incomprehensible reason I associated the degree of her love with my basketball skills, though the best I could do was hammer a ball around on our gravel driveway and hope she was watching.  She left six months early to go back to France.

– I have a great big loving family with lots of cousins and aunts and uncles spilling out all over the place.  They write good emails and take care of each other.  I’m lucky that way.

– I stick out my tongue while concentrating, which is an endless source of hilarity and double-entendre for certain people.

– I have never been able to keep a houseplant alive longer than a couple of months, but I have high hopes for my current charge, a brave little Jade Tree.

My favourite places on Earth are:
– My grandparent’s farm in Elmvale, Ontario
– The Maritimes, even though I haven’t been there (yet)
–  Briançon, France
– Joyce’s Dublin
– Ottawa

– I am going to have kids.  Number and gender are negotiable, but the fact of them is unequivocal.  YES.

– My mom is amazing.  She got her M.A. in Social Work a few years ago and now takes care of the most vulnerable people in her community.

– My dad is also amazing.  When he turned 60 he made a list of all the things he wants to do in life, and now he’s actually doing them, one by one.

– I had only one boyfriend through all of high school.  Big mistake.  Better, I think, to have had several or none at all.

Favourite Teachers:

Mme. Henry (Grade 3): Her son Kalen had a wicked Lego collection.  Yes, I was friends with the teacher’s son.  I suppose that’s where my social woes began.

M. Sam Samson (Grade 7/8): Belongs on this list even though he made us do marching drills on the playground when we misbehaved.  Considering we were already losing major points for being in French Immersion, this cost us dearly among the English crowd.

Mme. Kloosterboer (High School French): She just completely rocked.  We still get together for dinner when I go home to Dundalk.

Mr. Pretli (High School English): By fluke there were twenty-two girls and one guy in our grade ten class.  The guy dropped out in the second week.  Somehow Mr. Pretli survived, and with great style.  At the end of the year we commissioned the shop teacher to make him a plaque.

Dr. Pero (20th C. British Lit @ UWO): He recited all of Eliot’s “The Waste Land” in character(s), which was unforgettable.  He and his wife spent a sabbatical year in Montreal while I was there for grad school, so we got to become genuine friends.  He just got cooler and cooler.

Dr. Blackmore (various @ UWO): He still writes me emails that begin “Hey, kiddo.”  Simply the greatest professor I’ve ever had.

Wayson Choy (Humber School for Writers): I was very, very lucky.