Jess Banks schools you.

Reverb Broads 2011, December 30: If you could go on a trip regardless of cost, where would you go and what would you see? (courtesy of Dana at http://simply-walking.com)

I’ve already been crazy fortunate in how much of the world I’ve seen. I’d been to all 48 contiguous states, most of the provinces of Canada, and across the Mexican border before I graduated from high school. By the time I got married at 21, I’d added England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Italy, and New Zealand to the list. Like I said, crazy fortunate.

Still, there’s a whole lot of world left to see, and I’m an adventurous traveller. There are loads of things I want to see and do out there. Here are just a few:

• I want to see the wooden shrine at Ise in Japan. It’s the principal shrine for the Japanese Imperial Cult, and every twenty years, they completely rebuild the entire shrine complex on an adjoining plot because Shintos believe natural spirits live in trees, and renewing the wood rejuvenates the spiritual power of the temple.

• I want to sleep on a rooftop in Greece under that blue, blue Mediterranean summer sky.

• I want to eat my way across India, and wrap myself in its bright silk, and bathe in the holy Ganges, and let the liquid syllables of Hindi and all its dialects wash over me in the breathtaking heat.

• I want to take my family to the parts of America that stick in my memory like splinters: Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, the Black Hills, the Colorado Rockies, Yellowstone, Crater Lake, Bryce Canyon, the Grand Canyon, New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, Vermont, Bar Harbor.

• I want to go alone to a storm-washed rock in the North Atlantic or Irish Sea and let the ascetic austerity settle deep in my spirit: Skye, Skellig Michael, Iona.

• I want to steep myself in the spices and the history of Morocco and Egypt.

• I want to hear the crackle and chime of the Aurora Borealis, or the eerie midnight sun, across the skies of Iceland and Sweden.

There are a few places I have relatively less interest in visiting (Russia, South America), but were I offered the opportunity, I’d be on a plane in a heartbeat, because I love the adventure of it all. And there are places I want to go, not for pleasure, but to help with the meager skills I have to leverage: Haiti, Congo, or Senegal.

In short, I want to keep travelling. I want to see everything.

Reverb Broads 2011, December 29: What was the soundtrack of your year? Of your life? Which songs most strongly represent the various eras of your life? What songs were playing for the most crucial, formative moments of your life? Or, if the chronological approach doesn’t work for you, which songs best capture the different facets of your life? (Childhood, Love Life, Adulthood, Loss, Growth, Career, Happiness, Sadness, etc.) Please elaborate. (courtesy of Bethany/Katie)

These are just a few of my songs. I know, the list is unbelievably long as it is, but it feels so incomplete. Some of them, I don’t even like, but most of them I always have and always will. And, for better or for worse, they’re like little hyperlinks to my memory. I did the best I could with the actual links; there’s supposed to be a YouTube clip attached to each. If it doesn’t go where it’s supposed to, you can Google as well as (or better than) I can. And how could I do it in anything other than mixtape form?

Side A: Child and Teen Jess

“The Bare Necessities” from Disney’s The Jungle Book — my favorite movie, age 2

The Star Wars theme — my new favorite movie, age 2.5

“Stardust” by Willie Nelson — my first concert, age about 2

“Help!” by The Beatles — Mom is a Beatlemaniac, and she started us young

“The Rainbow Connection” from The Muppet Movie — my new favorite movie, age 4; also excellent for showing off at the rollerskating rink

“Tomorrow” from Annie — my new favorite movie, age 7, and a good audition piece

“Mickey” by Toni Basil — those first heady days of MTV and the roller-rink

“Thriller” by Michael Jackson — the cassette I got with my first walkman

“Purple Rain” by Prince — my first R-rated movie (I still stop to watch it whenever it’s on VH1)

“The One I Love” by R.E.M. — my first taste of college radio in my stepbrother’s room

“All Cried Out” by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam — my first junior high dance drama

“(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” by Bill Medley and Gloria Loring from Dirty Dancing — my new favorite movie, age 13

“Watermark” by Enya — mission trip to Appalachia, and my first taste of New Age music

“Everyday Is Like Sunday” by Morrissey — my first kiss

“So Alive” by Love and Rockets — my first chaperone-less concert

“With Or Without You” by U2 — my first high school dance drama, and the beginning of a 10-month abusive relationship

“Three Little Maids from School Are We” from The Mikado — my first college-level theater experience, as a HS sophomore in the chorus

“Skid Row (Downtown)” from Little Shop of Horrors — music from the soundtrack I sang with my girlfriends as they took me in and protected me after the abuse

“Blue Monday” by New Order — falling in love at music camp

“Cuts You Up” by Peter Murphy — first (voluntary) you-know-what

“In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel — first big breakup

“You Are The Everything” by R.E.M. — falling in love at World Affairs Seminar

“Comfortably Numb” by Pink Floyd — senior year long-distance relationship

“Blister in the Sun” by Violent Femmes — senioritis and graduation

“Under the Bridge” by Red Hot Chili Peppers — school trip to France

Side 2 — College and Old Jess

“These Are Days” by 10,000 Maniacs — first semester of college

“One Night in Bangkok” from Chess — first off-campus apartment with a boyfriend

“Supervixen” by Garbage — AmberMUSH and the start of so many good things

“Possession” by Sarah McLachlan — end of an engagement; freedom

40-Part Motet by Thomas Tallis — singing in my fantastic college choir

“Linger” by The Cranberries — study abroad in France, and the beginning of a courtship

“Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden — dating by phone call and mix tape

“Je t’aimais, je t’aime, et je t’aimerai” by Francis Cabrel — life in France

“Ngaire” by The Mutton Birds — planning a wedding, half a world away

“The Macarena” by Los del Rio — coming home, and the ’96 Olympics in Atlanta

“The Lark in the Clear Air” (trad. Irish) — the song I sang at our wedding

“Darling Nikki” by Prince — working at the record store, the song we had to sprint the length of the floor to skip before he sang the word “masturbating”

“He Watching Over Israel” from Mendelssohn’s Elijah — staging the oratorio as an opera, with my fantastic college choir again

“Candle In The Wind” by Elton John — moving to Pennsylvania

“Tubthumping” by Chumbawumba — first semester of grad school

“The Trick Is To Keep Breathing” by Garbage — my fibromyalgia diagnosis, and the depression that followed

“Du Hast” by Rammstein — so very sick during my first pregnancy, but the baby loved this song, before and after birth

“The Night” by Morphine — the song playing while I was in labor with my first son

“Woke Up This Morning” by Alabama 3, from The Sopranos— that first long summer of motherhood

“Fix You” by Coldplay — my second son arrives

“American Idiot” by Green Day — mad, mad motherhood

“Business Time” by Flight of the Conchords — moving to Wisconsin, and gaming conventions

“What’s Left of the Flag” by Flogging Molly — life in Wisconsin among my Irish family

“I Will Follow You Into The Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie — teaching at Carroll and getting by

“We Used to Be Friends” by The Dandy Warhols, from Veronica Mars — moving to Minnesota, and depression I almost didn’t survive

“Bad Things” by Jace Everett, from True Blood — rediscovering joy

“Paparazzi” by Lady Gaga — the long, hard winter, and children old enough to start influencing their parents’ listening habits

“The Parting Glass” by The High Kings — a much better summer

“Firework” by Katy Perry — the Next Big Thing arrives for my Darling Husband

“I Still Believe” by Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls — back to school, and the best concert I can remember

Our first walk as Mr. and Mrs. Banks, 5 October 1996

Reverb Broads 2011, December 28 (my birthday!): Do you consider yourself a romantic person? Do you prefer fancy dinners, roses, and chocolate, or are you more non-traditional? What’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done for a loved one or had done for you? (courtesy of Kassie at http://bravelyobey.blogspot.com/)

Answering this question feels almost redundant; my whole life is an answer to this question. But I forget sometimes that not everyone knows my weird story, so here’s a quick recap: I made friends with a guy in New Zealand on the MUSH (real-time, text-based online roleplaying game) we both played on in the mid-’90s. We talked on the phone, sent silly packages, and slowly fell in love. We became “exclusive” at the beginning of my year in France, and on my birthday in 1995, he left his island for the first time in his life to fly to London and meet me in person. He had the engagement ring in his suitcase. He asked me in Aberdeen, Scotland on New Year’s Eve; I said yes, then made him talk through all the practical details before I would even open the ring box. We travelled together for three weeks, then he went home until I was back in the States that summer. He flew in to Florida, where I was staying with my parents before returning to Kansas for my last semester of undergrad, and we’ve been together ever since.

So, there are the answers to questions 1 and 3.

But even generally speaking, I’m a pretty unapologetic romantic. I love grand gestures, though I lean toward the non-traditional in what I appreciate. While I enjoy fancy dinners and flowers as much as the next girl, the efforts that speak to really knowing me well are the ones that really ring my bell. My husband bought me a Doctor Who charm bracelet on Etsy for Christmas this year, which was just perfect. And I wear Tresor perfume partly because I love it, and partly because he always says how much he loves the way it smells on me in particular.

I also adore surprises and pulling off ninja-level arrangements. When I went away to Welsh camp during the week of my husband’s birthday, I hid presents for him for each day, all around the house, and left him clues to open each day. I hid a barbeque grill behind the television stand; I put a video of our favorite MST3K episode in one of my kitchen cupboards. I had the poor man convinced I was sneaking home from Toronto every night to hide things that he was sure hadn’t been there the day before. Part of this is helped by his general obliviousness to detail (sorry, love, but you know it’s true: a side effect of being a storytelling genius is that you’re more aware of made-up things than the ones right in front of you), but part was sheer ninjatude on my part. One of my only regrets is that I don’t really have a surprise ninja for myself.

It’s so tricky finding romance in everyday life. A lot of the time, quite honestly, we use laughter and shared interests like methadone for the elusive heroin of romantic gestures. And I’ll be the first to say that, some days, I have exactly enough romance in my body to read about five pages of a smutty novel before I fall asleep–two-way romance takes way more energy than reading about somebody else’s romance. But when the astronomical odds of ever having found my perfect partner in the world give me vertigo to contemplate, it doesn’t take much to feel like there’s romance all around me. There’ll be time (and maybe money) for grand gestures when the kids grow up.

And they lived happily ever after...

Reverb Broads 2011, December 26: Write about the things you collect, include photos, tell why these items are cherished by you? (courtesy of Catie at http://catiecake.typepad.com/catiecake/) and December 27: What does your office/home/bedroom tell others about you? (courtesy of Kristen at http://kristendomblogs.com/)

I collect a lot more things than I consciously set out to collect, which is why my house says things about me I’d rather not said out loud. But there are a few things I do set out to collect. They tend to fall into one of four main categories: toys, craft supplies, pictures, and books.

I like all kinds of silly toys, but I’m a total geek, so my toys tend to reflect that. Naturally, I’ve got a lot of Star Wars, comics, and movie-inspired toys. I also really like toys of things that wouldn’t normally be toys; I have a stuffed Anubis (the Egyptian god of the dead), a purple Lucite Ganesh statue, and a wind-up walking nun. I prefer monsters and villains over heroes, for the most part, so I have toys of my favorites, like Maleficent (the evil fairy from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty–in fact, one of them is our tree topper at the moment) and Japanese movie monsters like Godzilla and Gamera. And of course, I’ve got quite a few Muppets.

I’m also quite the craft ninja, and I’ve got a big wardrobe full of supplies, plus several large plastic tubs full of fabric, yarn, cross-stitch projects, jewelry supplies, and anything that might be improved by the application of hot glue. Crafters know that creativity could break out when you least expect it, and you’ve got to be ready.

I can’t imagine leaving walls–or any decoratable surface, really–blank, so wherever I am tends to be a visual feast of photos, posters, art, and anything else I can get to stick to a vertical surface. I’m a huge fan of Art Nouveau icon Alphonse Mucha, and Art Nouveau blends well with my passion for Celtic designs. I also like art that contains visual jokes or is multi-referential. For instance, I’ve got a huge bus-stop poster from France that shows a painting of Saint Peter (painted in rich Italian Renaissance style, with even an ornate gilt frame on the edges of the poster) as he reaches for a round of Brie floating above him. The caption at the bottom reads, “Il n’y a rien au-dessus de President” (There’s Nothing Above President [Cheese]). The absurdity of the elaborate art and the sacrilegious slogan (quite remarkable to find in a nominally Catholic country) tickle my funny bone. And I’m a very sentimental person who likes to be surrounded by loved ones, so I have photos of family and friends everywhere.

Finally, I would like to have ALL THE BOOKS RIGHT NOW THANK YOU. My husband actually asked me whether I wanted a Kindle for my birthday this year, and he really didn’t know whether I would enjoy it. I had to answer honestly: no, I prefer books. I can’t inscribe or annotate a download; I can’t press a favorite PDF into a friend’s hand with passionate entreaties to share my new find. I’m terrible about getting rid of books, too; I’ve felt less attached to some of my cats than I am to some of my books. I’ve got some incredibly cool autographed volumes, and some lovely old books (though I don’t collect old books just because they’re old, despite what my family thinks), but all my books are like beloved children. Sure, it’s time to let some of them leave the nest; I’m tired of carting hundreds of pounds of things I’ll never read again from residence to residence. But I’m rarely happier than I am in a room filled with books, those I’ve read and loved, and those that sit like treasure chests waiting to be discovered.

My desk at work reflects all of these things, except the books, because when I’m at work I’m not supposed to be reading anything but emails and roleplaying games. I’ve got my adorable sons, Captain Jack Harkness, The Beatles (that’s the corner of a black-and-white poster at the top right) and Eric the vampire to keep me company, and The Endless watch over my work from atop my monitor. My boys’ artwork and a picture of Padme Amidala in the style of Mucha adorn my walls, and a host of other little friends crowd around my keyboard.

What does it say about me? It says I’m a geek, of course. It says I haven’t grown up. It says I love color and cute men. It says my bosses are very cool and patient with my quirkiness. It says I’m ready for the kids who are sometimes in the office. It says I’ve got a lot going on. What it doesn’t say–but it’s good to know–is that there are always snacks in my top left drawer. Lots of tasty snacks.

My desk at the Atlas Games offices

Reverb Broads 2011, December 24: Name your top 5 best holiday gifts given or received. Who gave it to you? Who were you giving it to? Why was it memorable? (courtesy of Kassie at http://bravelyobey.blogspot.com) and December 25: Silent Sunday–Just post a picture that represents your day.

It’s not that I don’t love getting presents, or that I don’t get awesome ones from the folks who love me. But the most memorable Christmases have been the ones when I really nailed it with a gift for someone else. Those moments are the Holy Grail of gift giving for me, and I’ve drunk from the cup a time or two.

My most triumphant moment as a gift giver was my first Christmas home from college. Lawrence, KS is a great, quirky town with an awesome downtown shopping and eating district on Massachusetts Avenue. And for the first time, since I was living away from home, I didn’t have to worry about hiding presents–I was practically drunk with the freedom. That year, I found the perfect things for absolutely everyone in my family. They weren’t big or extravagant, but they were Exactly Right.

My grandpa used to take us for nature walks in the birch woods on the cliffs along Lake Michigan, so I got him a little birch bark box. I filled it with the kind of jelly beans he used to eat by the pound on all the road trips we took. I got my grandma gorgeous smelling handmade soaps. She liked them so much, she announced to everyone that she “would keep them with her undies” so they smelled nice; they stayed in that drawer for years.

I’d found a picture of Brandon Lee as The Crow at an on-campus art sale earlier that fall, and I picked up a silver frame with cutouts that showed through the black velvet backing board in a cool geometric pattern around the photo. My hardcore little sister practically swooned. I got my mom a special release Enya Christmas CD that she played all vacation. And I’m sure the presents for my brother and my dad were awesome too, but the snot monsters occupying my brain at the moment are blocking my recall.

I just remember smiling nonstop and basking in the glow of everyone’s enjoyment. They were clever, thoughtful gifts that let them know I’d been thinking of them, even while I was away in the exciting whirl of my first college semester, and I knew they would think of me when they saw those things after I’d gone back to school.

I’ve scored a few more precise hits over the years, and I love pulling off the “but how I didn’t I can’t even” surprises. My kids are incredibly gratifying recipients, too–all the manners and graciousness that eludes them in most of their day-to-day life flows freely as they gush and hug and adore every little thing, even the duplicates and the obviously lame. But never since have I managed such a perfect storm of intention and execution. How I love to keep trying, though.

This year's entry for Memorable Gift: Connor and his create-your-own-Sonic Screwdriver kit

Reverb Broads 2011, December 22: If someone made a board game of your life, what would it look like? What pieces would you need to play? (courtesy of ME)

I’m a gamer, married to a game designer, and this is my prompt–it’s pretty unforgivable that I’m late in responding to it. If it were a game based on my life today, though, it would be Attack of the Alien Snot Invaders, and the object of the game would be to string two coherent thoughts together through the stuffed-up haze I’m in.

But I can do better than that. And while I love Niki’s answer of Calvinball, I can think of a few specific design features that capture some of the skills it takes to navigate my life.

• Every color on the board is assigned a different color word. If you call a space by the wrong color word, all the assigned color words change.

• The board looks like the one for Life, but the college portion takes up half the board, and you get nothing (at least in-game) for making it through.

• Every three minutes, you roll a die. If it comes up odd, you answer an extremely random trivia question. If it comes up even, you have to recall the location of a vital object belonging to another player. If you fail either of these tasks, a ninja sneaks up behind you and blows an air horn in your ear.

• Every five minutes, you have to complete a task of mental or physical dexterity. You can’t move forward until you successfully accomplish it. Once you’ve managed to do it, it’s assumed that you can do it again anytime, so dexterity challenges stack every time you’re assigned a new one.

• If you want to choose which space you’re going to move to next, you have to make another player guess a movie title. You may either draw something using only one straight line and one circle, or you may say one, and only one, word, as many times or ways as you like.

• At random intervals, a midget runs up and smashes your fingers with a meat tenderizer, just to keep the pain fresh and unpredictable.

• At a different random interval, other midgets run up. They may smother you with affection, or scream dire imprecations. There’s no way to know which it’s going to be until they’re already in your lap.

• Other players earn points by piling crap in your play space.

• The other player you like best has to play from a different room. You may text all you want, but while you text, more crap piles up.

• Every time you ask for a moment of quiet to think about your next move, someone inserts ten spaces into the board between you and the next designated rest space.

• There’s no compensation structure, but every ten minutes, someone compliments 1) your hair color, 2) your grammar, or 3) the least important thing you’re doing at the time.

I’m sure Hasbro will jump all over this, so buy stock in ProfBanks Games now!

Reverb Broads 2011, December 21: If you returned (or went, if you’ve never been) to college to study anything you want, what would you major in, and why? (courtesy of Matt at http://thegeekygay.posterous.com) and December 23: If you could have any job, what would it be? (courtesy of Dana at http://simply-walking.com)

I am a teacher, simply put. Whatever I learn, I want to share with others–family and friends would probably agree that this happens whether they want it to or not. I wasn’t able to finish my doctorate at the university where I took my comprehensive exams, so if I could go back to college, my first priority would be completion of a degree to get me back into a classroom. I’ve been able to teach without the Ph.D., but adjunct teaching positions are both underpaid and insecure, and with so many Ph.D.s on the market right now, the few colleges hiring these days can choose applicants with doctorates, when previously they would have to offer a professorship to lure them in.

While the Ph.D. would be nice, because I really do prefer to teach at the college level, I’m not opposed to the idea of teaching high school, especially French. I substitute-taught for a few years, and I enjoyed those days in the French classroom far more than I expected to. My only reservation is whether my body could hack the physical demands of a schoolteacher’s schedule, but I’ve considered more than a few times the possibilities of getting certified. Honestly, it’s only the financial investment that’s prevented me from doing so.

I’m trained as a historian, and I love ferreting stories out of disparate records, but it’s all so I can tell those stories to others. Since the sources I’m most interested in are from other times and places, I think of languages as lock picks; the more tools I have, the more stories I can unlock. My B.A. is in French, which I’ve been learning since I was 11, and I’m still reasonably fluent despite the fifteen years since my last stay in a Francophone country. I also studied Latin for several years, a necessary exercise for any medievalist. Between those two and a good dictionary, I’ve got 50-75% comprehension of written or spoken Spanish and Italian, though I don’t have the grammar or vocab to form replies. Additionally, I can decipher texts in other languages I’ve studied: German, Anglo-Saxon, Old French (very different from the modern version), Old Irish, and Modern Welsh.

I could go to school from now until the day I die and not learn all the languages I would like to. I can’t be the only person with two wish lists of languages: the ones I want for study (Modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic, more Welsh, Old Norse, and Japanese), and the ones I want to learn for fun (Hindi, Arabic, more Italian, maybe Norwegian or Swedish).

Finally, every once in a while, I toss around the wild notion that it might be fun to go to seminary and get myself trained and ordained as at Unitarian Universalist minister. It’s not as disconnected from the rest of this as it may seem. World religions are an area of historical expertise for me, especially the connections among them–people tell the same kinds of stories, the world over, to explain the mysteries of life, which is what religion basically is. And UUs believe that there’s no One Right Path to truth, so all the linguistic and historical study I’ve already done gives me perspective on the variations of the human story, as well as its universality. There isn’t a whole lot of difference between lecturing and preaching, when it comes down to it, and I like to take care of people. Again, financial considerations keep me from really pursuing this, at least for the time being, but who knows? Whatever I end up doing, I’ll be the one behind the podium.

Reverb Broads 2011, December 20: Life is a work of art, or so they say. What beauty do you regularly appreciate/revere in your life? (courtesy of Neha at http://whereyouarehere.blogspot.com/)

I experience beauty differently than most people. See, I’m a synesthete. What the hell is that, you say? Never heard of synethesia? The World English Dictionary defines the term as “the subjective sensation of a sense other than the one being stimulated. For example, a sound may evoke sensations of colour.”

I haven’t thought of myself as a synesthete until recently, when a discussion with another one ended with her saying, “Oh, no, you totally are.” And as I went into Research Mode, I discovered that synesthesia isn’t uncommon among neurodiverse people, especially those with Autism Spectrum Disorders, because their sensory perceptions are already slightly bent. 

As I explore the interactions among my senses more consciously than ever before, I’m discovering that my favorite things are my favorites because they register on more than one sense. For example, I love Pantone color 2757. It’s the deep rich blue of the sky just before full dark, or a Marc Chagall painting. But it’s also the color that fills my mind when the Bass IIs of a choir dip down below the staff, like in Franz Biebl’s Ave Maria. Those notes unfurl over me like a bolt of midnight velvet; I could just roll around in them, and an unbearably rich, creamy taste like foie gras fills my mouth.

And the air right now, that keen winter smell that portends snow (but doesn’t yet freeze your boogers, if you know what I mean), blows up banks of fluffy cumulus clouds in my mind, airier than the leaden walls of vapor that hug so close to the northern sky these days. It’s a bright, fluffy smell, just a fraction bluer than powdered sugar, with a clean minty smell. I want to eat that smell like marshmallows.

These associations dazzle me sometimes, and I know the distracted, mile-long stare that captures me when I fall into a whirl of sensations. I just wish you all could taste what I hear.

Reverb Broads 2011, December 19: Self-Portrait: Post a picture of you that you like, write about yourself, post a video — what do you want your self-portrait to say about you? (courtesy of Kristen at http://kristendomblogs.com)

I’ve reserved my right to remain on the other side of cameras ever since high school, but every once in a while, someone sneaks a picture of me. Most of them are generally appalling. But some make me happy because they reveal something about myself that I hope is true.

Like that I’m a good mom who’ll make a fool of herself to make her kids happy.

Me jousting with Connor at the Minnesota Children's Museum

 Or that I really do have magic in my hands.

Me crocheting, apparently faster than shutter speed

I’d like to think pictures can prove that I’m not crazy when I say that my children are Not Normal.

This is what happens when Griffin and Connor get their hands on my sunglasses. I swear to the gods that this was their idea.

And sometimes, pictures help me believe that I really do have a happy soul, deep down.

A beautiful day for AIDS Walk Wisconsin, along the shores of Lake Michigan, 2008

But mostly, they just remind me how incredibly lucky I am.

Reverb Broads 2011, December 18: Who would you most like to meet and why? (courtesy of Dana at http://simply-walking.com)

I hope this doesn’t come off as completely obnoxious, but I’m going to bow to the fates/superstition on this one, and leave it wide open. I’ve had some of the most amazing luck in meeting people I admire, and I don’t want to jinx whatever the universe has in store for me. Sure, there are the obvious ones, like wishing for a kiss from Alexander Skarsgard, but really, I’ve already met several lifetime”s worth of awesome, amazing famous (and sometimes “niche-famous”) people.

Whom I’ve met says a lot about me, too. They tend to fall into a few distinct categories. The first is musicians. I’ve attended a LOT of concerts, many of which at small venues where the rules are different than at big arena shows. I hung out with Robby Gray and the rest of Modern English after a show, and I met Angelo from Fishbone as he came out of a phone booth. My dad shamelessly exploited his own credentials as a musician to get us backstage in Atlanta to meet Itzhak Perlman and Frederica von Stade.

The backs of Cam's and my younger, long-haired selves, as we met Itzhak Perlman in 1996

I also had the incredible good fortune to sing under Simon Carrington, one of the founding members of the King’s Singers, during his first directing gig, at the University of Kansas. I’d had him for a year when I went away to France to study, and he invited me to his family’s summer home in Cahors after our school years were over. He spoiled me for every other choir director.

Me with Simon and Hilary Carrington after a lovely dinner in France, 1996

I’ve also met a lot of famous chefs. Part of this is because I love food and cooking; part is because State College, PA, where I lived for a decade, has an awesome public radio/TV station that hosts a fundraiser called the Connoisseur’s Dinner every year. When my favorite TV chef, Nick Stellino (then, of PBS’ Cucina Amore), was announced as the host in 2002, I called the event organizer and asked if I could do anything at all to cook with him. She gave me the best answer in the world when asking for something outrageous:  “Well, now that you mention it…” I ended up doing prep for a special VIP in-studio demonstration the day of the dinner. He said I chopped my garlic personally; I glowed for months.

Me and Nick Stellino, at an in-studio event at WPSX, 2002

I had the same good fortune three years later, when the incomparable Jacques Pepin was the guest.

Me and Jacques Pepin, at an in-studio event at WPSX, 2005

And I met Graham Kerr (“the Galloping Gourmet”) at a signing at the Barnes & Noble where my husband worked.

Me and Graham Kerr at the State College B&N, 1999

I’ve also met a lot of people under geeky or completely random circumstances. I have a picture of Warwick Davis holding Connor when he was just six weeks old, and one of Jamie Bamber holding Griffin when he was three months old. Mary McDonnell signed my notebook for free because I talked with her about the cult of Saint Brigit. I’ve met all of the cast members of Mystery Science Theater 3000 except Kevin Murphy and Mike Nelson. I shook hands with John Hodgman. I met Lauren Graham outside a bathroom at LAX on a trip to New Zealand (that picture is in a box in storage, or I would totally have posted it). My husband works for Margaret Weis, and we know Tracy Hickman as well. And Jason Marsden walked me back to the hotel after the White Wolf party at Gen Con.

And I know a bunch of people who are very famous, as long as you’re in the right population. A lot of those are writers and game designers who are friends from the ancient days of AmberMUSH. Jim Butcher introduced me to my husband, and I’ve known his family since his son was 3 (he’s in college now). And now his beautiful wife Shannon is a famous writer too.

Our longtime gaming group: the Valentines, the Butchers, and the Bankses (2003)

I made C.E. Murphy cry with laughter at horrifically embarrassing stories . And I’ve danced at the weddings of the three founders of Evil Hat.

Fred Hicks, with Seth and two monster party favors, at his wedding reception in 2002.

So while I wouldn’t say no to this:

I think I’ll leave my options open.

UPDATE: Did I mention I forget things? ‘Cause I do. I forgot to mention that I saw Jerry Falwell in the Memphis airport once. I didn’t punch him; I consider that a personal triumph.

I got to meet Bob Costas when he spoke at Penn State. I asked him if I could do research for him at the Olympics, because I love the bizarre geographical and historical facts he shares on air. He said no, but he’d take a picture with me:

And this summer, I got to meet two romance authors I really admire, Connie Brockway and Eloisa James. They were awesome.

Romance superstars Eloisa James (left) and Connie Brockway (right) at a 2011 signing in MN.

I’d seen an elderly man as I took my seat, and noted that he seemed both out of place at a romance signing, and strangely familiar. Then Eloisa happened to mention that her dad was there that night. And that her dad had won a National Book Award. In one of those slo-mo moments in life, I turned and realized exactly who her dad was, and why he was familiar to me. Her dad is Robert Bly. I asked him to sign a book for my husband, and he offered to take a picture. So when I say the universe is good to me, if in completely random ways, I totally mean it.

Me and one of my heroes, poet Robert Bly, in 2011