"Brother John, how are you, why are you sleeping?"

At 4:00 a.m I agreed to complete this. Brother John, here's to solidarity and subversiveness. And I hope to post your answers here, if you'll let me.

Childhood ambition - to marry rich

Fondest memory - riding my red Schwinn ten speed with my best friend Liz who also had a red Schwinn ten speed

Favorite soundtrack - I mostly don't like soundtracks

Favorite music - It changes constantly, but this is what I've been listening to a lot in the last year: Johnny Cash, The Pogues, The Magnetic Fields, Beck, Wilco, The Beatles, Elliott Smith, Yo La Tengo, David Gray, Radiohead, The Clash, Belle and Sebastian, The Velvet Underground, Iron & Wine, Neil Young, Billie Holiday, Thelonius Monk, Madonna, Woody Guthrie, fiddle player Martin Hayes

Favorite retreat - I like to get out to a good bar. Good bars sometimes have good music. Good bars offer a good time, most of the time. Good bars tolerate a lot, but not everything. Good bars can be walked to. Good bars don't take themselves too seriously. Good bars let people be.

The person who has impacted your life the most: It's a toss up between Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Sanger. My life would be altogether different without the fights of either of these women--one for suffrage and one for birth control. I also wouldn't be here if it weren't for my mother and father. And, without Tad, my life would be something else entirely, three children different.

Proudest moment: leaving the church of my upbringing and accepting that I can love my parents and disagree with them

Biggest challenge: leaving the church of my upbringing and accepting that I can love my parents and disagree with them. Also, knowing when enough is enough.

Describe the perfect day: I don't believe in perfect days. Perhaps I believe in perfect moments like I believe in love. There's a lot of sadness in the world. Then, there are a lot of people making themselves sad in the process of trying to be perfect or make perfection.

First job: that I got paid minimum wage for: Red's Frozen Yogurt and Ice Cream as a blender of candy, nuts, and fruits with frozen things

Biggest failure: failure to keep my house as clean as some people think it should be

Favorite movie: currently it's Donnie Darko for the classroom love/fear scene

Strongest trait: I'm opinionated. I can also be intuitive.

Favorite book: It changes frequently, but for now it's One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Talent(s) others say you have: People say that I'm creative. People say that I take good pictures. Someone once said that I'm a "great shootist." I liked that. It made me laugh.

Country of ancestor's origin: I'm a Euromutt, I think.

Favorite ancestor: I admire the women who came before I did. They had a lot to contend with. I wish that I could be more specific here, but I don't know them well enough.

Favorite scripture:

508

I'm ceded--I've stopped being Theirs--
The name They dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church
Is finished using, now,
And They can put it with my Dolls
My childhood, and the string of spools,
I've finished threading--too--

Baptized, before, without choice,
But this time, consciously, of Grace--
Unto supremest name--
Called to my Full--The Crescent dropped--
Existence's whole Arc, filled up,
With one small Diadem.

My second Rank--too small the first--
Crowned--Crowing--on my Father's breast--
A half unconscious Queen--
But this time--Adequate--Erect,
With Will to choose, or to reject,
And I choose, just a Crown--

--Emily Dickinson

Something that inspires you: moments of clarity--this could be sitting atop a toilet or atop a mountain, things of beauty and functionality, and the fierce love that I feel for my children

Something that fills me with dread: trying to answer most of these questions without hurting anyone. Or, thinking that I can answer them without hurting anyone.