The one where I do things FRIENDS style



"I have a question..."
Image courtesy of Vikki Taylor,
rgbstock.com

Happy Saturday!

Recently, two wonderful blogging friends, Eliza at Ellie's Blank Book and Tara at Tara Tyler Talks, were kind enough to honor me with some awards. They both presented me with the Kreativ Blogger award, Eliza gave me the One Lovely Blog award, and Tara handed me the Versatile Blogger award. Thank you both for thinking of me! Be sure to check out their amazing blogs, and take a look at my sidebar to see the fresh look Tara gave her awards.

I'm going to change things up a bit with these awards. Instead of giving ten random facts about myself, I'm going to focus only on the questions Eliza presented me, answering them with clips from one of my all-time favorite television shows: FRIENDS.

Here we go!

1. What is your favorite song? The answer could only be Phoebe's "Smelly Cat":



2. What is your favorite dessert? It's definitely not Rachel's trifle:

3. When you are upset, what do you do? I think Ross says it best:



4. What is your favorite pet? It's not this one:



5. Do you prefer to wear black or white? I like white, but not this white:



6. What is your biggest fear? I don't know if I'd call this my biggest fear, but I certainly understand where Rachel is coming from:



7. What is your attitude, mostly? Well, a lot of the time, it's kind of like this:



8. What is perfection to you? I wouldn't mind sharing Monica's idea of perfection--with just a little less OCD:



9. What is your guilty pleasure? I like sandwiches, but not as much as Joey does:




So there you go: my answers, FRIENDS style! Please feel free to grab the awards if you'd like them. Let me know if you do; I'm looking forward to reading your responses!

Creative people

Today's 100 words:

Two of my favorite television shows are Sex and the City and Friends. I'm most drawn to the creative characters, the writers, actors, and kooky, artsy types, as that's how I picture myself. I love being around others who share my creative side, but I don't know many in "real" life, which is why I enjoy these shows so much. They allow me to share the life of a writer with Carrie, to be someone else from time to time like Joey, and to allow my kooky, free-spirited side to shine, as Phoebe always does.

All roads lead somewhere--even if it's nowhere

This morning's 100 words:

Tyler, my friend from graduate school, will be visiting for a few days. I don't remember how we met--perhaps it was through a mutual friend. More likely we met in the Arthurian literature class we both took. I have no idea why I enrolled in that class. I love literature--I was a lit major--but I confess that the Arthurian tradition bores me to tears. So though I'm not sure why I was taking the class, it was probably how I met Tyler--and it led me to Rob, who I thought was the love of my life...


**Tyler arrived a few hours ago. It's great to see him again!

In the game again

It's true what they say about vacations: you need one to recuperate from the one you just took. Ever since we arrived home late Saturday night, I've been unpacking, doing laundry, cleaning, and taking the kids to appointments and storytime. Yesterday I even managed to catch up on some of my writing. (Yay!) I've been busy.

And I am exhausted.

Returning home from vacation is always difficult for me. If I could, I would move back to Michigan, back to my small town with its small-town way of life. I don't dislike living in a large city--I certainly appreciate all of the opportunities living here presents to me and my family--but I miss the atmosphere of a smaller town and the sense of community and belonging that usually goes along with it.

And then there's my family. We've always been close, and it's hard to be away from them, especially when I know I can see them only once a year. I wrote a 100-words entry about this shortly after arriving back home:

I've been back in New York for only two days, yet I'm already homesick. Although I can think of many good things about living in a large city, I still miss the small town I grew up in. Mostly, though, I miss my family. Neither my husband nor I have relatives close by, and that's really a lonely feeling. I'm not the type of person who has a large circle of friends, and even though I've made one close friend since moving here--a friend I would miss so much if she weren't in my life--the loneliness doesn't subside.

But enough of the sad stuff. What I'm happy about is being back here, blogging and interacting with my online friends! It was hard to be away for so long, and I'm very glad to be back to the world of writing.

So what's up next for me and my blog? More writing and more writing about writing--just more of doing what I love.

And I can't wait.

I want those "Sex and the City" friends

I'm on season four of my Sex and the City marathon, and I was thinking today about how great it would be to have a group of friends who are as close as Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha. I have good friends, of course, but unlike the women on the show, I really have only one best friend, one person I know I can always confide in and turn to for honest advice. There's nothing wrong with having only one best friend, of course, and I'm very appreciative of the good friends who've been there for me in all the stages of my life. I just think sometimes that it would be nice to have an entire group of friends to rely on, have fun with, laugh with, and cry with--best friends who know they can depend on each other even when no one else is on their side.

Or maybe I just want to be a part of the Sex and the City group. I think Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, Samantha, and Dana has a nice ring to it. Don't you?