2. I loathe the color pink. Which makes me wonder suddenly why there's a small pink basket sitting right in front of me on my desk top. ::making a note to paint that basket real soon now::

3. When I was 13 or 14, I broke a finger popping flies. (That's the baseball game, not some arcane housefly explosion deal.) I'd loaned my glove to a younger cousin, and caught a deep fly ball on the tip of one finger first. It hurt like the very devil, but I caught the ball anyway, and trotted up to take my turn at bat. Batting was my favorite part of popping flies, anyway.

Well, batting hurt like the devil, too, but after a couple of swings I figured out that it didn't hurt as much if I crooked the finger over and wedged it in next to the bat, and I finished the game. That night over dinner I told my parents I thought I'd broken my finger. They pooh-poohed it, said I'd just stubbed it, and took turns pulling it to get it loosened back out.

I could feel the ends of the bone rubbing, but nobody really wanted to hear my opinion.

Long story short, two weeks later my mom finally took me to the doc, who took an x-ray and told us my finger was broken. Imagine that. But it had already begun to heal after two weeks of excruciating pain, people pulling on it, and an inability to sleep without propping my hand up on the headboard of the bed at night. So I could either let him re-break it and straighten it, or I could live with it crooked.

Which is why I have one crooked finger to this day.

4. I once sang for Ronald Reagan when he was running for president. I'm not proud of it, but it is damn weird.

5. I share my living space with a longtime partner, a teen-age daughter, one senior-citizen dog and three assorted (nuts) cats. Rarely a dull moment.

6. I like olives. So sue me. My family hates olives, so I feel almost criminalized every time I eat them, but still I hold tight to my love for the salty, savory treats.

7. I have an undergraduate degree from a Baptist Bible college, where I majored in secondary education and minored in speech, history, English and Bible. People who know me find this really funny. My current closest thing to a religion is paganism, or maybe Wicca. I like to describe myself as a recovering Baptist.

8. I love horses, and have owned three in my life, all three black. Dixie, Dusty and Blackjack. I currently don't have any horses in my life.

9. The first time I registered to vote was as a Republican because the guy I was dating was an avid Republican. I voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 as a joke and was totally stunned when he actually won. (Needless to say, I didn't watch much news back then.) I've since been a stout Independent and haven't cast a single joke vote in 20 years.

10. I own four small dragons: Homer, a black and gold dragon who occupies a ledge between two windows, came from the Atlanta Fantasy Fair back in the '80s; Harley, a mottled brown and green dragon who sits atop my collection of Wicca/pagan books, is a Beanie Baby; the Chinese Dragon, beside Harley, also came from Ty; and Sophie, a gorgeous red and gold dragon who flies in the window above them all, came from the 2003 Atlanta Fantasy Fair.

11. In high school (back in the late '60s, early '70s), my best friends were the circle of "hippies and freaks" in my small-town rural school. I was their "token straight," and actually kinda wore my title proudly.

For the record, I'm no longer straight in any way, shape or fashion.

12. My one blood nephew, Peyton, is the cutest, most rambunctious 4-year-old ever put on this earth. I wish I played a larger part in his life, but since I missed the first three years or so, I kinda punted my chance. But I'm always glad to get to spend time with him when I can.

13. In graduate school, at Ohio University, I helped stage the first ever science fiction convention on campus the summer that "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Star Wars" came out. It lasted less than a day. We (the ones who put it on) expected about 50 people to show up at the Baker Center for our games, trivia contests, book displays, costumes, videos of old TV shows, model displays, and a "wow'em" "video" game called Moon Lander that was played on one engineering guy's calculator. (This was pre-video games, kiddies, for the most part).

We were stunned when more than 500 showed up.

I walked around in my hand-made Darth Vader cloak all day, ran the trivia contests and the panel interview with Daniel Keyes (who wrote "Flowers for Algernon") and Walter Tevis (who wrote "The Man Who Fell to Earth"). Both were on the faculty at OU.

It might well have been the best time of my life to that point.

14. When I was a senior in high school, I won the lead in the school play and was ecstatic. I later had to give it up because the week of dress rehearsals conflicted with our church's revival and my parents wouldn't let me miss the damn revival. Like I hadn't sat through enough revivals by that point.

That might have been one of the worst times of my life to that point.

15. My daughter's best friend suffers from depression with psychotic features, and has been hospitalized twice already. My heart hurts for her, and for my daughter. But I told her Spirit must think she's very strong, to put both a bipolar mother and a depressed best friend in her life and trust that she will be able to deal with it. She is thoughtful and strong, and not afraid to admit to her feelings. I think she will be well through life.

16. I got the Monkees Music Box Set for my birthday and I'm not ashamed.

17. I have bipolar disorder. In retrospect, I know I've had it since at least high school, but I survived it through a combination of dogged stubbornness and sheer good luck. I was finally diagnosed in 1998, more or less, and have been working on getting things under control since then.

18. I think Bill Nye the Science Guy is funnier than half the comedians on Saturday Night Live.

19. On a related note, I just don't get Adam Sandler. Don't get him at all. Barely get Ben Stiller, but at least he's a little funnier. Adam Sandler just needs spanking, and not in a good way. And sent to military school.

On the other hand, he does OK when matched with Drew Barrymore. Maybe they should stick together. Who knows.

20. I love scary movies. Not gross-out movies or "boo" movies, but actually scary tension movies that stick with you for a while. Like Alien or Carrie. Or The Exorcist. Or any number of Hitchcock movies.

21. Brownies are the universe's perfect food. No apologies.

22. When it comes to music, I have eclectic tastes, to say the least. I love Celtic music and Johnny Cash, some country music and Pink Floyd. Nobody will ever play better metal than Led Zeppelin. I'm a fan of U2, R.E.M., the Monkees, Richard Thompson, Steve Earle, Alison Krauss, Tempest, Cowboy Junkies, Counting Crows, Bonnie Riatt, Gregorian chants and musicals. And some soundtracks. And Barbra Streisand. And Tom Waits. And The Doors. And New Age instrumental music. NIN and Jethro Tull. Lynynd Skynyrd and Lucinda Williams. And Andy Griffith singing old-time hymns. And that just scratches the surface.

23. I liked Queer Eye for the Straight Guy from the very first episode. So sue me. They're funny and seem to honestly give a care about the people they're working with.

24. If there's a more glorious food than ice-cold Pepsi with salted peanuts on a hot day, I've yet to find it. Well, maybe ice-cold watermelon.

25. I secretly loved San Francisco. Don't tell my family: I have them convinced I didn't really like it. But as big cities go, it's a fabulous place. I just have trouble with cities as a whole. And a small amount of trouble with bridges, which made the Jewel by the Bay somewhat problematical. But I did love it. What a beautiful place, so full of life.