me, and then some

What is your most marked characteristic?
Goofiness, for better or worse. I'm continuing to push for legislation to make uncool the new cool.

What is the quality you most like in a man?
Can make me laugh until I can't breathe, extremely smart but not arrogant about it, walks that fine line between offbeat and wacko, very kind, has fun doing pretty much anything, good kisser.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Can make me laugh until I can't breathe, extremely smart but not arrogant about it, walks that fine line between offbeat and wacko, very kind, has fun doing pretty much anything, GREAT kisser.

What do you most value in your friends?
Just that they're there, whatever the weather. Flakiness is kryptonite to friendship. For a girl who isn't serious about too much, I take my friendships seriously and I think my friends pretty much know that I adore them. (I should also say that I have some of the kindest, funniest, most wonderful friends on the planet, and many of them have friends who are also the kindest, funniest, most wonderful people on the planet, so I feel very fortunate to be surrounded by circles of awesomeness.)

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
I can be ditzy.

What is your favorite occupation?
I love my job. Having said that, it pisses me off sometimes, just like anybody's job does, but I love and believe in what I do in a way that is hard for me to express without being sappy. If I wasn't doing this I'd probably be teaching second grade. Other than that, I'd love to be a columnist again, for a real paper this time. (Jen's friend Audrey writes a column for the Jewish Advocate called Everyone Loves a Single Girl, which I think sounds like the most fun thing ever.)

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
First, I would have to have finished everything on my to-do list (notice I'm too Type A to have suggested just ripping up my to-do list), and then I'd leave for Fiji with my friends and/or Ron King.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Seeing kids that I love who have terrible parents. (Here's my PSA for any of those considering procreating, from the admittedly secondhand perspective of someone without kids: Read to them before bed, help them with their homework, make sure you feed them well, go to every school play you can, and put them first in every way possible. This isn't a "The More You Know" commercial...it's heartbreaking how many parents don't have this shit figured out. Okay, rant over.)

In which country would you like to live?
Australia or New Zealand, but only for a little while because I'd get homesick, plus I'd get sick of all the hobbits.

Who are your favorite writers?
John Irving, Wally Lamb, John Steinbeck, Pamela Painter, Oliver Sacks, J.K. Rowling, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Blake Nelson (sometimes).

Who are your favorite poets?
Quinton Duval, Christopher Gilbert, Pablo Neruda, e.e. cummings, and whoever wrote that poem about plums in the icebox.

What is it that you most dislike?
When you're mean or ignorant or too smooth; I like simple and sweet and silly. And, of course, the Big Five: coffee, cheese, potatoes, bananas, and beans. Dunkin' Donuts actually has banana-flavored coffee now...blech.

Which talent would you like to have?
I'd like to be able to sing really, really well. Then I'd go on American Idol and when I won, instead of screaming "Thank you, America!", I'd dismantle the whole franchise on live TV, but not before getting the nation grooving to my rendition of "More Than a Woman" by the Bee Gees, falsetto and all, but then I'd launch into "Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me" by Mac Davis for that "come hither, now go away" effect.

How would you like to die?
In my sleep, as an old lady, warm in my bed, and then I'll walk up the steps and kiss Leonardo DiCaprio and have all the people around us clap. Yuck. Just drop me off a building or something, but not for 70 or so years.

What is your current state of mind?
Tired, but good.

What is your motto?
Don't do anything I wouldn't do, peanut.