Personal History - More Favorites - How Many Opinions Can One Person Possibly Have?

Best Musical Group?

First one off the top of my head is Ultravox - loved them as a kid. First heard them during Live Aid in the 80s. Took them with me to England and Scotland when I was 19, so I could hear their music in their native land, and it did sound different there. I couldn't hear Midge Ure's Scottish accent until I was surrounded by them. Still listen to them occasionally today.

Worst Musical Group?

Worst I ever heard was the Black-Eyed Peas...sorry to any fans. I did like (sorta like) one song, but that died off quickly when I tried to listen to others.

Favorite Musical Instrument?

Out of all of them? Bagpipes or uilleann pipes. Especially if they breathe fire. :-)

Or maybe the ukelele, if I'm in a mellow mood.

Least favorite musical instrument?

My least favorite instrument isn't an instrument, so much as a technique...the slide guitar. Nothing makes my skin crawl faster than a country music song with a slide guitar in it. Although, for some reason, I like blues with a slide guitar. Give me Bonnie Raitt or BB King any day!

Favorite Painting?

Rembrandt's self-portraits. For some reason, they're totally fascinating, and I can't really explain why. Just a feeling.

I also love my daughter's drawings - she did a watercolor painting with me at a church activity once, and blew everyone out of the water, it was so good!

Least favorite painting?

Jackson Pollock's paintings don't do much for me. They just look like someone spilled paint on a canvas and tricked someone into buying them for a lot of money. Great marketer, I guess, but not the best painter.

Favorite Poem?

"On His Blindness", by John Milton. Had to memorize it for an academically-talented class assignment in seventh grade, and I can still recite it by heart today, decades later.

Least favorite poem?

Anything by Charles Bukowski. That guy just rubs me the wrong way.

Favorite Poet?

My great-grandfather Clinton Stockwell (pictured here with his wife and first son). He wrote poetry on little scraps of paper, on the back of mayonnaise spread lids, on the back of old calendars ripped off, Depression-style, and he saved them all. I've got a lot of them in my family records, that I'm hoping to compile into a book of family poetry someday.

Sometimes they were funny poems for his kids, or reflective little poems about things that struck him as funny, or a little contemplation on nature or God. My favorite one is one about him being in bed at night, listening to the mice running under his bed.

His voice is similar to my own, and also sometimes a little bit like Robert Frost's voice, whom I also really, really like.

Least favorite poet?

Again, Charles Bukowski. Bleah!

Favorite Restaurant?

I've eaten in a lot of good places, but I'm not really picky about food. I just love it when someone other than me is doing the cooking.

My current favorite is probably the little Greek Mom-and-Pop restaurant here in my hometown. It's called Yia Yia's House of Gyros, and it's great.

The menu is good, and the staff is friendly. They're not stingy with the hummus. There's fake grapes and grape leaves hanging from the ceiling. The owner has pictures of his yia yia (grandmother) on the walls. Plus, there's sayings on the walls that come straight outta 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' and super-greasy Greek soap operas on the TV.  And that's not even including the complimentary little Greek donuts holes soaked in honey they bring you at the end of the meal.

My husband even forgave the roach he saw that he had to discreetly kill that one time. That really tells you something about the quality of the food, when my husband will go back after seeing a roach. Lesser restaurants have been banned for such things.


Least favorite restaurant?

I'm not fond of chain restaurants in general - fast food restaurants in particular. McDonald's is just Barbie food to me.

We go to fast food restaurants so infrequently that my kids go in, and they have to figure out how to order anything. And then they eat the food and immediately regret it afterward. My youngest son in particular will come up to me - Bleah! Mom, I don't think that was actually food!

Personally, I call that a mom win myself.

Personal History - "Favorites" Stories, Part Three

Best Fruit?

Bananas. Nothing else out there quite like them, especially with peanut butter. And yes, there is such a thing as too many bananas, I'm finding.

Worst fruit?

 Jackfruit. You need a machete to open the thing, and then you're rewarded with something huge and smelly. If you're gonna work that hard for food, it should taste like chocolate or something, not a dirty sock...

Best Holiday?

Thanksgiving. Lower expectations than Christmas, high return. Good food and family. Fall weather. Naps and Harry Potter marathons. Great memories.

Worst Holiday?

July 4th - not because of Independence Day (patriotism and freedom, all good). It's because of the heat, and the sticky, noisy celebrations. When I was two, my parents sat me next to the cannons at the July 4th celebration in our town, and I had a massive cow, because it was too loud.

I couldn't even stand hearing a balloon pop for decades after that experience. Any unexpected loud noise just shocked my entire system. I might be a little bit on the autism spectrum myself.

Best Meal?

The last restaurant meal I had. Salmon New Orleans-style, with shrimp and salad. Good stuff, and it didn't hurt me. And talking about love songs and death and who knows what else with my best friend. <3

Worst Meal?

That time Sam and I were invited to our bishop's house for a party. We thought we were finally going to get to know people in our congregation better...and when we got there, the bishop came out and told everyone thank you for coming, and then left us to sit and talk with his counselors and their wives in the kitchen, while the rest of us sat in the dining room with some weird cold chicken dinner, wondering what we were doing there. It was the food, and the company, that time.

Favorite Movie star?

Ryan Reynolds, before Deadpool. After Deadpool, a tie between Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston. What a glorious selfie sandwich that would be to have a picture with both someday!

Least favorite movie star?

Probably Charlie Sheen or Alec Baldwin. Maybe Charlie Sheen a little bit more than Alec Baldwin...?

Best Movie?

Hobbit/Lord of the Rings. I consider them all as one glorious, extended-version 24-hour movie. And I watch it every year at Christmas with the fam, and every year it's wonderful all over again.

Worst movie?

 That's a hard one - sometimes bad movies are so bad they're good, so you have to find one right in the middle of the spectrum, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

I think either Howard the Duck, or maybe The Master of Disguise? After I saw both of those, I really wanted my life wasted on them back.

Personal History - A Second Round of "Favorites"

Board Game?

Life. I like to imagine stories to go along with the gameplay. And it always reminds me of the time our church played a live-action version of the game - it was fun to watch our kids get married, have babies, and try to figure out work and school and everything.

My oldest daughter played another version of the live-action game, and actually went on a date later on with her fake husband. My youngest daughter, who never wants to get married, had a great marriage and died early, while my youngest son got married to a girl who despised him, made more money than him, and tried to turn him into her slave. So interesting to watch those dynamics play out.

Least Favorite Board Game?

Risk. I bought it for Sam - the Lord of the Rings version. Didn't realize at the time that it's the game that never ends.

Book?

It changes, and there's lots of them. Currently, I'd say it's Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. I aspire to write like that someday. Also enjoying the Journal of John Woolman, although it's pretty thick.

Least Favorite Book?

A Confederacy of Dunces. I wanted to like it. Just couldn't.

Best Candy?

When it comes to candy, it's all about the chocolate, and all about the brands. I can't eat high fructose corn syrup, so See's Candy is good, or Godiva, or Dove chocolate, or Ghiradelli for baking, or Lindt, especially their little filled bonbons that I ask for at Christmas.

Worst Candy?

There's some Mexican candy that's sold in the supermarkets here. I've had some of it, and some of it's okay, but their chocolate is very powdery for my taste, and the chocolate chili pepper candy...I just can't.

Best Card game?

Apples to Apples. Huge family favorite at our house.

Worst card game?

Anything that involves gambling, or even a hint of gambling. I'm a closet over-gambler, so I avoid anything that tends in the direction of betting.

Color?

Turquoise, or gunmetal gray. The sky gets that color sometimes before a storm, and I love it.

Worst color?

The sort of yellow-green color that baby poop turns in the first year of life. 

Best Cookie?

Cowboy cookies, or lemon bars. It's a tie.

Worst Cookie?

Those dry sugar-powdered wedding cookies, what are they called? I think they're called terrible...

Best Drink?

Water. Especially seltzer water with a little lemon juice and apple cider vinegar. Love it!

Worst Drink?

Jolt Cola. Had it once in my life when I was trying to stay up all night for the first time in my life in college. Thought I would die. Never again.

Best Flavor of ice cream?

Baskin Robbins has (or used to have) this daiquiri ice stuff that I absolutely loved. A close second was praline pecan.

Worst flavor of ice cream?

Mocha. Mostly because I don't drink coffee and I'm not used to or fond of that flavor. My mom bought it once when we were kids, because she thought it was chocolate ice cream. I tried to eat it, but it just tasted really weird. She looked at the package and took it back to the store.

Best Flower?

Forget-me-nots. Mostly because of an LDS Conference talk (like a sermon) that I loved by that name. I also love the purple roses that grow in my yard, and I really hope that plant didn't completely die in the heat this year.

Worst Flower?

I'm not much of a flower hater, but I guess those orange lillies you see sometimes in flower arrangements. I think they're pretty, but they've got that brown pollen stuff that gets all over your face and hands. A little annoying, at the most.

Personal History - A Few 'Favorite' Stories

Favorite animal overall?

How can I possibly choose? Lemur? Manatee? Peacock? Puffins? Koalas? It might be about a hundred-way tie on that one. We watch a fair amount of nature documentaries.


Favorite domestic animal?

Hands-down, cats. I love cats - they're beautiful and funny, and they leave me alone and forget my very existence until they're ready to be fed.

Perfect.

Least favorite animal?

Sharks. Also spiders. Not cute or cuddly at all. Also sting rays, after they killed Bill Irwin. But that was kind of his fault for swimming with them, I guess. I give some animals a very wide berth.



Favorite Artist?

Again, hard choice. First one that comes to mind is DaVinci, simply for the Pieta. Going to see it in person in Italy is on my bucket list.

Another possible favorite is Rembrandt Van Rijn, because of an experience I had at the National Gallery when I visited England. They had one of his self-portraits hanging in one part of the gallery. When I looked at it, I had a very strange sort of experience - like, I'd seen him before sometime, or known him personally, at a very deep level. Never had an experience like that with a painting before, or since. I do like his work.

Least Favorite Artist?

Any artist who does paintings or sculptures or plays of Christ or Christian symbols (or any religion really) and then does things utterly disrespectful, like immerse them in urine or cover them in feces, etc. I don't cotton to those sorts of monkeyshines about people's beliefs - I respect an artist's right to do it, but that doesn't mean I go there or support that sort of thing.

Favorite Athlete?

Laird Hamilton and Gabby Reece (surfing and beach volleyball, respectively; also married to each other). They're awesome.

Least Favorite Athlete?

Probably...Tonya Harding (ice skating). Memorable, for sure, but not my favorite.

Author?

You might as well ask me who's my favorite child, though I do have some I prefer (authors, I mean, of course).

Bradbury is my poppa. Asimov is up there too. Shakespeare, Chesterton, Herbert, Dunne, Dickinson, Tolkien, Dickens, CS Lewis, Dr. Seuss and Dav Pilkey, among others. I keep a list of authors who don't let me down, and revisit them as much as possible.

Least Favorite Author?

I also keep a list of those I avoid. Never reading Edgar Allen Poe, ever again. Nor Guy de Maupassant. Or Hemingway, or Roald Dahl.

Gasp, you say? Classic authors? Well, that's the wonderful thing about adulthood. No one can force you to read anything anymore! I gave them a fair chance, and they blew it.

I'm done reading Twain, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, or Bukowski. I say bleah on Bukowski in particular.

Personal History - Going Walkabout

What is the most beautiful place you have ever visited and what was it like?

The most beautiful place was the first place I ever went to visit - the Highlands of Scotland. I treated myself after I got my first job, and my first credit card. The first thing I ever bought was tickets to England, and I spent about three days alone in London, wandering around streets, enjoying myself immensely.

Then I took a train up to Glasgow, seeing the English countryside. Glasgow was dark and gorgeous, and then in the evening, I rode the train up to Kyle of Loch Alsh, this provincial town up north, where there was a hostel I booked at.

The hostel was massively uncomfortable (sleeping with total strangers in the same room was not the most restful experience ever for me), but I got up before the sun the next morning, checked out, and went down to the lake edge.

It was pebbles instead of sand, and I just looked out over the water as the sun rose. I had my Ultravox CD in the player, and listened to the music as the sun rose.

A sheet of clouds rolled over the top of the hills, then down the other side and over the water. I couldn't pull my eyes away, and I never wanted to leave that moment. I had a feeling that I belonged there - like, my DNA belonged there. It was hard to pull myself away.

I got back on the train back to London, and saw the landscape I'd missed in the dark on the way up. I couldn't believe my eyes.

You see pictures of these things, but the real thing floored me - it was all I could do to keep from licking the window or jumping off the train to disappear forever into those hills. I would have died, but I'd have died happy.

Decided to live and cherish the memory of it instead, which I have for many years. Would love to go back.

What is the longest trip that you have ever gone on? Where did you go?

I think the longest trip I've ever been on was a tie between the England/Scotland trip, and my trip to Maui in Hawaii. Both were about a week long. Yes, I know. I need to get out more.

Hopefully, someday. Right now, I content myself with Google Maps trips on my lunch break sometimes. My favorite virtual trips have been Italy, Denver in the mountains, Norway on those long bleak roads, Hawaii, and Ireland. Anywhere in Ireland - it's all gorgeous.

What has been your favorite vacation? Where did you go and why was it special? 

My honeymoon. Sam and I couldn't afford to go on one right away after we got married (there is no lurch in the world like the lurch of showing up at work on Monday morning after you've gotten married last Saturday).

We waited a couple of years to save up for something nice, and went to Colonial Williamsburg and Busch Gardens for our honeymoon. I think the anticipation really made it special, and it was a lovely time. Very relaxing and beautiful in the town, and had loads of fun at Busch Gardens. Bought a pennywhistle I never learned to play, but I would buy another one if I went back. Ate whatever we wanted until we died - great restaurants. Screamed on the rides. German folk dancing. Couldn't have been better.

Personal History - Inept Encounters of the Celebrity Kind

Have you ever met any famous people?

A few, but I don't handle celebrity well. I think it's because they're too 'shiny' for me, due to having been on television or the Internet.

There are lots of people I would love to meet in person - and yet, at the same time, I fear such moments, because they hardly ever go well.

Something about having been in front of a camera anywhere before I meet you...it just doesn't bode well for us ever engaging in any sort of normal human interaction.

Cannonball and Raymond on Hotel Balderdash

My brothers and I used to watch a TV show in Salt Lake City called 'Hotel Balderdash', which was your basic clown show that framed a bunch of cartoons. Cannonball was a round guy who ran Hotel Balderdash, with a little mustache and bowler a la Oliver Hardy, and Harvey was this really long and lanky guy who worked with him, with a tie and a tan top hat.

They were always asking for kids to come on the show, and once my brother and I got tickets. We got there to the set, and the cameras were turned on, and there was Harvey and Cannonball in the flesh, talking directly to us kids. I even got the microphone in my face. My first fifteen minutes of fame, at age five.

 I couldn't say a word. Terrified.

I was one of those kids guys like that probably hated to have to deal with, because I didn't say anything. Just sat there and looked scared. My brother had to answer for us both. I might even have cried, sad to say.

Later on, on the local UHF stations, there was another show I loved with a pirate captain and his human-sized parrot named Biff - I think it was called Lighthouse 20. We got on that show too, with the same tragic results. Could not say a word, but I remember I enjoyed that experience more.

Rick Moranis

When I went to New York City after high school to study acting at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, I went months without seeing a single famous person - not that I was really looking for them. The city itself really just swallowed up my entire focus. Fascinating place.

I think about three months into my experience there, I was walking around the southern tip of Central Park with my friend Tim from school, and right at the big statue there, I saw Rick Moranis.

This wasn't too many years after Ghostbusters came out, and I'd also loved him in Strange Brew and from his SCTV and SNL work - had a celebrity crush on his actually. He was dressed in all mousy brown, and talking to another guy.

The sight of him overwhelmed me entirely, and I made this huge audible 'GASP!' noise.

Not only did he hear the GASP from beyond, but he turned around and looked right at me.

I grabbed Tim and started down another street, so completely embarrassed I hoped in vain that the ground would swallow me up.

"What? What is it?" Tim said.

"That was RICK MORANIS back there!!! Just keep walking! Don't turn around!"

"Rick who?" Tim said. He couldn't understand why I didn't stop and say hello, but that was utterly out of the question. Especially after the 'GASP!'.

Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne

Another phase of my life involved working as a night cashier at the Carnegie Deli next to Carnegie Hall, desperately trying to earn money. That location alone was amazing - I was right next door to the Russian Tea Room, where celebrities proliferated, and just the thought was exciting, but I could never bring myself to go over there.

The other night cashier, Princess, a lady from Jamaica, looked like she had panthers for parents. She had the longest fake fingernails I'd ever seen, and could balance a drawer perfectly every time (something that my nervous, sweaty manager wished that I could do, and never did - but he kept telling me how Princess could do it.)

The art deco pieces of art in the restaurant, the other manager Saed who kept hitting on me in very broken English on the evening shift, and the waiters who kept drawing him off adorably for me - life was never boring in that place.

Other than the Russian Tea Room, celebrity sightings weren't really on my mind...until the day when a disheveled man with gray skin and long, greasy hair walked up to my counter with a woman about his age with their bill.  He looked terrible, like he hadn't had a shower for a while. I rang them up, and then saw his knuckles on the counter, tattooed with O-Z-Z-Y, and realized who it was.

I think I might have smiled at them, probably more smiling to myself at how he looked versus how he was supposed to look. Sharon wasn't famous then, but I recognized her later when she was, as the lady standing next to him.

I told Princess all about it later, and she said, "Ozzy who?"

George W. Bush

When I started work at SMU, the George Bush Presidential Library was being installed, and there were a lot of celebrations that staff members were asked to help out with. One of them was a speech given by George Bush himself in front of the big-domed Dedman building, all decked out for the occasion.

I was seating people, and all of a sudden, there he was. I didn't get to speak to him directly, but he walked very close to me....too close.

My first reaction was, "This is a man that people want to assassinate....how close do I want to be standing to him?"

I immediately, in a quiet panic, put about fifty feet between him and me, and then felt comfortable enough to listen to his speech. I liked him. He has a very folksy sort of manner.

He could still pop up anywhere, anytime, since his library is close by. Hopefully I'll be more prepared if he does, but I dunno....no amount of preparation seems to help.

Ken Burns

My college has guest speakers that come in to speak - and I enjoyed volunteering at those functions as well, for many years, usually handing out programs or planting questions for the speaker, or directing people as to where to sit. The guests are all sorts of artists and photographers and journalists who come to speak - really interesting to hear their stories.

Once I was assigned to the green room, where the speaker was going to meet with some students and sponsors. Never have I felt so self-conscious. I knew the photographers, and I spoke to them a little. I guess I was supposed to speak to the students, but I felt rooted to the spot in fear, and I didn't do that much.

Then Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker who was speaking that day, came in, and shook everyone's hand, including mine. Direct, physical contact with someone whose work I enjoyed, and I was unable to tell him that, because I was the deer in the headlights.

"And who are you?" he asked me.

"Oh, I'm just a volunteer, I'm nobody," came flying out from the dregs of my subconscious brain. I think I was just trying to make some noise that sounded halfway normal.

"Nobody?" he asked me.

I laughed that fake-type laugh, only to keep myself from melting into a puddle of complete embarrassment for saying something so incredibly...

He went on down the line, thankfully, and I've never been assigned to green room duty since. I hope I never am, ever again.

Because this is what happens whenever I get around anyone even a little bit famous, and it's just weird and wrong...(sigh)

Personal History - Hobbies...Hobby, Actually

What are your hobbies? What did you like to do when you were not working?

There's only one - writing, and then a little reading to fuel the writing. Well, a lot of reading.

Got my first journal at age eight, and haven't stopped writing since.

Tried writing letters to people, but most people gave up with an apology that they weren't good letter-writers.

Email helped a little - written thousands of chatty emails to family and friends over the years. Wrote a short play in high school that one blackout completely erased - twenty pages. Never rewrote it. The loss was too great.

Poetry would emerge from my pen when the proper urge hit me, and still does from time to time, usually when something strikes me as tragic or funny.

I wrote online articles and blogs for pay for awhile - really terrible pay. Movie reviews. Facebook posts. Whatever.

Kept journaling, especially during the darkest years of my life. Can't really read those journals very easily now, but they helped me survive it.

Then one big idea decided it wanted to be a really bad screenplay, and then a halfway decent novel, and then a trilogy. Haven't finished beyond the first novel yet, but the rest of the story is still dancing around in my head, and has been for years.

Started writing short stories to kind of train myself better how to write, and that was fun. Up to 17 of them at current count - aiming for about 50 or so. I've lost more short stories than most people have ever written.

Currently I'm writing bios for the family history work I'm doing - little history stories from and about my family.

Who knows what's next? :-)