7 Questions with a Witty Writer: Nuns in Transylvania Edition

It’s Monday, so that means it’s time for 7 Questions.  Today’s victim is one of our newer faces; known for her sensitivity, wit and ability to properly load the glitter cannons.

1.  You’re tasked with creating a new ice cream flavor, what is it and why?

If there could be Thai peanut sauce flavored ice cream with chocolate and chilis in it, I would be okay with that. Why? Because sweet, spicy, and cold all need to go together.

2.  You’re chosen to remake any movie originally made between 1975-1990.  What movie do you remake and how do you cast it?

I was only born six years before that, so I have to try to think of movies that came out then. I think Footloose came out the year I was born? What if we remade that with Elijah Kelley (that awesome dancing kid from Hairspray) as Kevin Bacon and Emily Browning as the preacher’s kid in the red boots (I think she could use a more redemptive/empowering role after Sucker Punch) and maybe it would be worth casting John Lithgow in the same role ’cause who are we kidding, nobody’s going to beat him. And if we wanted to make it Footloose: The Creepy Version we could have Sarah Jessica Parker play Rusty again.

3.  What terrible song gets stuck in your head?

I’m not sure if it qualifies as a “terrible song,” necessarily, but I get the songs from Disney’s Robin Hood stuck in my head all the time. Oodelally. See also Rasputin’s theme, “In the Dark of the Night,” from Anastasia.

4. Tell us about a woman who has been influential in your life.

I had three professors in my English department at Bible College whom we affectionately referred to as the Holy Trinity – one because, like God the Father, all knowledge seems to emanate from her; one because, like Christ, she was full of light and love and grace; and finally, the last one because, like the Holy Spirit, she was a little nuts. Maybe unpredictable and prone to theatrics might be a better description. I might be a complete apostate for that, but the three of them made me a better writer and guided me on my way to becoming a better person. They were in every way both the best teachers and the best mentors I could have asked for: practical, compassionate, not willing to go with the flow just because it would have made their lives easier or their careers more profitable. These are the women who stood up in class and said the University ought to have welcomed the Soul Force riders with open arms, the women who went to bat for the girl the University tried to kick out when she got pregnant, the women who fed students who were out of money and couldn’t feed themselves, hired students as assistants who couldn’t find degree-related internships, and counseled students to pursue their dreams with vigor and hard-headed reason.

5. What’s your favorite joke?

I am! Honestly, if I couldn’t laugh at myself sometimes there just wouldn’t be anything to laugh at. I will also take any joke that you can tell someone is really enjoying telling. My mom has a favorite one about nuns in Transylvania. I love nuns.

6. A band is now following you around performing your personal soundtrack wherever you go, who are they, and what are they playing?

Did you see Rango? You know those lizards?

7. What’s on your desk right now?

I don’t have a desk! We have “work tables” at work and everyone moves around a lot. I work from the couch at home, where I am right now, and so next to me, there’s my cell phone displaying my tasklist on the Epic Win app, a copy of The Heart of Understanding by Thich Nhat Hanh, Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist, a power cable for the laptop I’m using, three remotes (Apple, xBox, television set), a 5-year journal I keep track of the books I’m reading in, The Two Towers, my purse, and another stack of books that includes Leaving Tangier by Tahar Ben Jelloun, Happy Families by Carlos Fuentes, a Kindle that needs to be recharged, Miss Manners on {Painfully Proper} Weddings, the collected letters of Seneca, collected poems of Wordsworth, and a book I just finished and loved: Adam’s Task – Calling Animals by Name by Vicki Hearne. Within reach but not actually on the couch are a Diet Coke, a stationery set with lurid yellow and fuchsia flowers on it, a stack of books and pamphlets from Women for Sobriety, and Rolling Stone with Russell Brand on the cover.