in her typical fashion, mandy was totally in character when this picture was taken, but let me assure you that she is pretty much the exact opposite of margo tennenbaum. first of all, she’s not adopted. second of all, she has all of her fingers. third, and most importantly, she’s FAR from melancholy. in fact, mandy is one of the most upbeat and wisecracking people i’ve ever had to fortune to come across, and i can tell you from personal experience that a mere five minutes in her presence will leave you in a good mood (and almost always laughing).

i met mandy a couple of years ago through meredith, and given my high esteem for the latter lady, i knew right away that mandy and i would be friends. not only does she make me laugh, but she’s also just as nerdy as i am when it comes to stuff like buffy and mcgosling (for the uninformed, that’s rachel mcadams and ryan gosling, the greatest couple to ever exist). since meeting mandy, my day to day existence has been improved dramatically by her constant stream of emails containing everything from updates about “dollhouse” (forecast: bad) to pictures of her insanely adorable nephew to hilarious commentary on, well, pretty much anything!

in fact, i should just quite writing and move on to the interview so that you can experience mandy’s engaging humor and sassy charm for yrself!

oh, but one more thing: i know this might be hard to believe, given the amount of cute kid pictures displayed on this blog, but i’m pretty sure that mandy wins in the kindergarten portrait department. when you see it, you’ll believe it.

mandy! maybe it’s cos you’re a film geek, or maybe i’m just in a tv-sploitation mood, but i’ve decided to structure this interview, e! hollywood style. so let’s start with “mandy: the beginning.” tell me about yr family, where you were born, etc.

Okay, I was born in St. Louis Park, Minnesota in 1977. My parents actually weren’t supposed to be able to have kids, so they’d already adopted my older sister, Mia. Then, I “surprised” them, and I guess after they figured out that they could have kids after all, they had my little sister. St. Louis Park is/was a really Jewish part of the Minneapolis suburbs. (My mom’s Jewish, and my dad is Lutheran. We grew up knowing about both.) Pretty quickly, we moved a little further north to Champlin. Then, after my little sister Sarah was born, we got a bigger house in Dayton, where I lived from four on through high school. My dad is from Minnesota, but my mom was an army brat, and is from all over. They actually met because my dad was on leave in Las Vegas, and went to some show, where he got seated next to my mom’s parents. They thought he was a nice boy, so they set him up with my mom. She actually thought he was kind of full of himself, but having the priorities of an early twenties girl, thought he was cute and liked his car (he drove a corvette), so she continued seeing him, and the rest, as they say, is history!

Mandy: My family when I was in second grade. My dad used to cut my bangs. Not his calling…

tell me more about “mandy: the early years.” what were you like as a kid? what did you do for fun?

I was quite the indoor kid. I had lots of eye problems (lazy eye, near-sighted, you name it), so I was at the eye doctor a lot, getting eye patches, new glasses, stuff like that. So, running around outside never really appealed to me. It’s kind of hard to ride your bike with one eye covered. Try it! I had surgery twice to correct it, so you can’t really tell now unless you look closely. I also grew up two houses away from my best friend (still to this day!) Amy, and we played together 6-7 days a week! Among our favorite activities: watching anything to do with Pee-Wee Herman, making movies with our dads’ video cameras (Hello, foreshadowing!), and we were particularly into playing Barbies, but really elaborate dramatic “horror movie” productions. I still remember that there was one Barbie whose head had come off, and we had to jam it all the way down onto the neck to make it stay on after that, so we dubbed her “Evil Barbie”, and she was always shoving the other barbies out of the big windows of their dream house, and pushing their corvettes off of Amy’s bed. We finally started scaring our little sisters, so our moms made us stop.

Mandy: Me just a few days before my second eye surgery. Direly needed, obviously.

you grew up with snow, which is a v. foreign concept to me. what was THAT like? are you pro-snow or anti-snow?

I’m pro-snow when looking at it, but quite anti-snow actually living in it. As soon as I would get one chunk of snow under my mitten, I’d cry and go inside. (Again, an indoor kid.) There were also many Halloween costumes that were ruined by having to put a snowsuit on underneath it. It also made for some scary early driving years! I always like freaking out my Texas friends by telling them stories about weird cold weather games we’d play, like the Snow Fist game. That’s when you grab a fistful of snow in your bare hand, and hold it in there as long as you can. Whoever can hold it the longest, wins! (You Texans can try this game with an ice cube.) I also have fond memories of things like the time my dad packed down the snow in the backyard, washed it down with the hose, and made us a skating rink, and when he built us an igloo out of the snow in the frontyard. (With TONS left over, by the way!)

SEE? I TOLD YOU!! CUTEST PICTURE EVER! little mandy, i want to put you in my pocket and take you home with me!

let’s move on to “mandy: growing pains.” how was yr high school experience? what sorts of things did you do?

High school was pretty decent. I wasn’t POPULAR, but I wasn’t unpopular, either. By high school, I was definitely already into film, and was lucky enough to be attending an arts magnet high school, so I got to do a lot of photography and video editing classes. I was also interested in writing, so I had my after school Writer’s Group meetings. I was also on the yearbook staff, and in these two groups, I met the three friends from high school that I still keep in contact with: Sara, Sarah, and Kate. At the time, I wanted to be a Disney animator, so I spent a lot of my after school time drawing Disney characters from all of their movies, and was also obsessed with the new Mickey Mouse Club. Somewhere at my parents’ house is a box of VHS tapes of EVERY episode, except for one. That one torments me… I wasn’t gay yet (or at least, not aware of it!), but I didn’t really date boys either. I was pretty married to movies, and just liked hanging out with my friends!

Mandy: My tenth grade portrait. You can’t see it, but my braces matched the Santa Fe pattern in that shirt.

what inspired you to move across the country to go to UT? similarly, when did yr passion for film/media arise?

Well, I was 90% sure that I wanted to study film, but Minnesota doesn’t really have any film schools, so I knew I’d have to go out of state. My parents struck a deal with me that If I stayed in state for my first two years, I could go anywhere I wanted after that, debt free, on their dime. So, I majored in theater at the University of Minnesota for those two years. Around halfway through year two, I started deciding what I wanted to do. My cousin came up for Christmas, and was telling me all about how much he loved going to UT. (I had gone to visit him there when I was in high school, and remembered it being really fun.) I read a bunch about their film school, and it sounded up my alley, so I applied. It took a really long time to hear, and I got two letters from them saying “You’ve made the cut, but there’s still too many applicants, so we have to cut again. Standby…” Finally, at the beginning of July, I found out that I got in, and moved six weeks later!

I’ve loved tv and movies since I can remember. Taking me to the movies was my parents’ go to “bribe” to get me to do something without a fuss. I love telling stories, and have always been fascinated by the fact that even though everyone KNOWS that it’s fake and just acting, we will still sit on the edge of our seats, scared that something terrible will happen to them. It’s this common experience that we can bond with a stranger over. “Did you see that episode of Buffy?” “Yes! Oh my GOD! I was freaking out!” I think there’s something really special about that.

buffy nerds unite! meredith as evil willow, sarah as tank girl (it was an apocalypse party) and mandy as one of the fearsome gentlemen.

was it difficult to transition from minnesota to austin? did you experience any kind of culture shock?

It was definitely difficult at first. I’m not very outgoing, and actually quite shy when first meeting people, so moving across the country where I only knew my cousin was definitely hard. Good move on my parents’ part making me stay close to home for the first two years. I don’t think I’d have been brave enough to do it at eighteen! I had never been in such hot weather, either! It was probably a good thing that I moved down here in August, because I got through the hottest part right away, and got used to Texas. I’ve been here eleven years now, so I’d call it a success!

let’s explore “mandy: the college years.” what did you enjoy about UT?

UT was great, because it was so big. That meant that you could just get lost in the shuffle if you wanted to be anonymous, but you could also find your little niches, and carve out an identity there. Mine was definitely at film school, and I spent nearly all of my time there, just sucking up as much knowledge as I could, and helping anyone who wanted it with their own projects. I ended up tutoring other kids there for my “college job”. It’s also where I came out, and met my first girlfriend. I also spent tons of time at my co-op, which was where I found my best friends from college. (See next question for more!)

in my previous interview with matt s., he talked about the joys of living in a co-op. you guys met each other at taos, correct? tell me about yr own co-op experience. also, what was college matt like? what about college meredith and college erin? (this is the “behind the music” portion of the interview).

Okay, let’s do this chronologically. I met Erin first. She came to Taos when I’d lived there for a year. We bonded at orientation, because she liked the salmon colored Hush Puppies I was wearing (Hello, late 90s fashion!). We became good friends after bonding over our love of tv, and particularly over Buffy! She was pretty similar to how she is now, but perhaps a little more prone to receiving eviction notices. (Sorry, Erin!) She was kind of famous for it around Taos, actually! I will also say of her that she has impeccable taste in tv. She will never steer you wrong.

I met Matt next, both through our mutual Taos friend Fritz, and moreso when he started dating Erin. We were buddies right off. We spent lots of college playing Tetris, listening to records, and abusing our powers as officers at Taos by cooking food once the kitchen had closed! I joke with Meredith that he is how I know I’m gay, because if I wasn’t, I’d have tried to steal him from her years ago! I was there when he decided to build his TOTALLY awesome bar! He mentioned that he was going to build a bar over Christmas break, and I was all “Mmm, that’s nice.” I figured it’d just be a wooden box type bar. That was the last time I ever doubted his DIY skills! I came back, and he’d added all of this awesome detailing on it, and was converting a dorm fridge into a kegerator! Matt’s claim to fame at Taos was as the record holder for most noses broken during Taos baseball games!

erin, mandy, mereditha and matt dressed as twin peak characters. what a bunch of co-op crazies!

I then met Mere through Matt, because at this point, they had started dating. Officially, we met at a party he threw, and we have been best friends ever since! Meredith was the same cheerful, optimistic girl that she is now. She and I threw joint birthday parties every year up until last year, and the funnest part was always planning our theme together! (We both love theme costume parties.) Our favorite regular thing to do together was to go to Copper Tank for their dollar pint Mondays. I have many fond memories of hanging out with them at Copper Tank, and actually drive by where it used to be every morning on my way to work!

moving on to “mandy: in real life.” what did you do after graduation?

I took a break one semester before the end, and moved to L.A. to take a fellowship at CBS on a soap opera there. I really liked doing that a lot, but I wanted to get my diploma (I was too close not to!), and told myself that I’d go back out there “just as soon as I’m done with school”. Well, I went back, and upon graduating, was asked to help teach a class at UT. I was also doing well editing project freelance for UT faculty and other folks around town. Plus, my friends were all there, and my film “connections” (i.e., people who could help me make my own movies for cheap/free) were all in Austin, so I stuck around “just a little longer”. I ended up taking a job at Apple Computer to make ends meet once public arts funding (thanks for ANOTHER great move, W!) dried up and professors had no grants, and a few years ago, finally got back to making a paycheck with my film degree by taking a job at a post-production house.

now you work for a film editing company that has a really silly name. tell me about what you do!

Silly name, indeed! I work for charlieuniformtango (CUT in military speak. Get it?), and am an assistant editor here. We mostly do commercials, and some music videos. Basically, my job is to bring all of the footage for the editors and organize it so that they can find their way through all of it. I’m also on hand while they’re working in case they need me to build them any graphics, or to make quicktimes or dvds for clients to see the cuts they’ve made. Once the project is done being edited, I’m in charge of making sure all of the right film is colored, and that the online/special effects people know what to do to it. A good comparison would be, if editors were surgeons, and they asked for the scalpel, I’d be that other guy that picks up the scalpel and hands it to them. I like what I do. I get to monkey on computers a lot, learn how to be a better editor from the editor I assist, and have access to an entire facility so I can edit my own stuff during the off time! It is a LOT of hours and that makes it hard for me to make any plans in advance, but they treat us well, so I can’t really complain too much!

i would be remiss if i didn’t mention yr four legged friend, rupert. i love rupert! i pretty much already know the answer to this question BUT, for the benefit of pants world, tell me why he’s so amazing.

He’s just naturally a sweet, smart dog. I totally lucked out. I actually got him from a breeder who had set up a truck full of dogs at a hot dog stand, which is a funny gimmick, considering they were dachshunds! I have had lots of people tell me that while they aren’t normally dog people, they love Rupert! He’s really into people as opposed to other animals. There’s nothing he likes more than when I have people over for a party. He’s an excellent mingler. He also loves wearing outfits, and will often bring me a selection from the little bin of clothes that he has. He’s not really a “sit” and “roll over” kind of dog, though. His tricks are a little more, uh, specialized. For example, he does a trick I taught him called “‘Nam flashback”. I clap my hands loudly and yell “Boom!” He then yelps until I pat him and tell him “Charlie’s gone.” He will also run to the door and bark if you yell “Come in!”, even if no one has knocked. He’s totally the most fun dog ever, and I’m not just saying that because he’s mine!

mandy failed to mention that rupert is also a computer whiz!

and of course, i MUST ask you about “mandy: in a family way,” which is really just a scandalous way of saying that you’re an aunt now (i told you, this is the e! hollywood version). can you please tell me about yr adorable nephew and share a picture or two? i need my squee fix!

Dude, I TOTALLY thought I was going to be cooler than liking a boring old baby. But, I am DEFINITELY not! He’s just the cutest dude ever. He’s super sweet, and never cries! He’s definitely got a Jeronimus face. Red-haired, and totally cute! His name is Dean. My dad’s named Don, and my brother-in-law’s dad is named Dan, so they kind of riffed off of both, and came up with Dean! It’s totally impossible not to squee whenever you are hanging out with him! Everybody fights over getting to hold him and play with him, too. My mom was complaining to me a couple of days ago about how my dad won’t let her play with Dean as much as he gets to! I constantly keep pictures of him in my iPhone, and videos as well!

the incredibly cute dean, doing what he does best: basking in the glow of adoration (from grandpa).

it hurts me to say this, but you’re an even bigger buffy fan than i am (in fact, dear readers, mandy made me my v. own buffy trivial pursuit game!). tell me about yr love/hate affair with joss whedon and yr favorite character on the show.

Oh, Joss. If Joss and I were in a relationship on facebook, it would definitely be “it’s complicated”. I love the multi-faceted and elaborate worlds and people that he creates. He can hide such intelligence in something as seemingly silly as a monster that makes people sing. He actually killed my favorite character, Tara. I know how controversial she is to have as a favorite, but I just love where they took her character. She was so small, meek, and shy when she first came on, and by the end, she was this strong and powerful wiccan who had found her family and place in the world! An excellent metaphor for all of us, I think… I love the whole Buffyverse, though. It is also one of my surefire ways to decide that somebody is worth being buddies with. I did indeed make a full on Buffy edition of Trivial Pursuit for Miss Pants! I photoshopped a regular card, put Buffy questions on it (even in the same font!), and then took a regular board and photoshopped a new face for it, with buffy squares on the board! It was fun to do, almost as much so as it is to play! I also (nerd alert!) went to a Buffy posting board party once with Erin, in L.A. You know I’m a film nerd when I barely noticed that I was standing next to some of the stars, but got totally nauseous when I met the writers. My fave is Jane Espenson, and I was TOTALLY starstruck! I also got to meet Joss himself, and it felt similar to what I imagine meeting God himself is like…

what is yr secret power?

I can find the funny in any situation. Quite handy in the event of a bummer!

do you sleep in jimjams? what kind?

I’m a big fan of jammies! I used to have TONS of different ones. Nowadays, though, I usually sleep in jammy pants and a tank top. I’m quite thermal when I sleep, so I can’t bundle up too much.

what is yr #1 favorite food?

Sausage! I live, live, live for Wurstfest! Any kind of sausage, really. Breakfast sausage, smoked sausage, bratwurst. You name it!

mandy and meredith, champions of wurstfest.

what is yr top restaurant recommendation in austin? what’s the best thing on the menu?

I’ve become obsessed with Woodland. It’s not too expensive, and close to where I live. Great drinks, too! I recommend getting a La Boheme, which is champagne and elderflower liquor. Then, the Arugula and Fennel salad, and pretty much any of their soups! Their brunch is also excellent. I always leave stuffed!

tell me about yr top area of expertise.

Film and tv trivia for sure. Specifically, recalling the theme song to any and all televisions shows EVER.

what was yr favorite item of clothing as a child?

I had a striped velour shirt that I LOVED. When I had my first eye surgery, I made my mom let me wear my “stripey shirt”.

what was yr favorite toy as a child? (the moody bonus question)

I collected Star Wars figures, so I’ll say all of them, collectively. Either that, or I had a mini drum set with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem on it.

mandy with her new favorite toy.

what do you plan on doing when you’re 80?

I’m trying to talk Meredith into a Golden Girls type scenario, where we all live together, and do funny old lady things. You’re totes invited, by the way! I call being the “Sophia”, though.

if you could assemble yr own ocean’s 11, who would you pick and why?

Well, as per most people, Matt makes my list. He can make us gadgets to get the jewels/money/fine home furnishings we are interesting in heisting. Both Meredith and Posh herself will be on hand for planner pantsing, because while I love having plans, I’m bad at actually making them. My friend Ashley would be in charge of making us a good mix to listen to in the getaway car. She’s also quite feisty, so she could break out some kung fu moves if need be. My friend Hilary will be the muscle for sure. She’s 5’2″, and not even 100 pounds, but it’s 100 pounds of sheer feisty! Henri would be in there because he can pretty much talk anybody into anything. Erin would be the getaway car driver. She’s been my getaway car driver since college, so why mess with success? My friend Erica would be there for sure. She has excellent charm abilities, but can totally kung fu her way out of situations, too. I need a computer genius still, so I pick my friend Lars for that. He’s very computery (that’s a technical term). My friend Amy is a good photographer, so she’d be in charge of surveillance. And, finally, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, for her kung fu skills.

mandy and lars, caught in the act of making super secret oceans 11 plans.

what is yr best karaoke song?

I like doing “Fancy” by Reba McEntire, and “A Little Respect” by Erasure. Both bring down the house.

do people ever tell you that you look like someone famous? who?

I used to get Anne Heche a lot, back when she still had a career. I hated that, though. Who wants to look like somebody found barefoot in Fresno, looking for her spaceship?

tell me something scandalous!

Last time I went to IKEA, I wasn’t wearing underwear.

well mandy, this interview managed to exceed my already high expectations for “laughter per line.” plus i learned some new things that confirm what i already know: you’re awesome! thanks for letting me share yr excellence with pants world!

and really, her name should always be typed like AMBER OLIVER!! because i just can’t help but sort of *exclaim* it whenever i say it.

one, because i just love the way her name sounds. there’s a natural rhythm to it, a sweet roundess of sound that really echoes her personality.

two, because amber is a dazzling, irresistible force of nature! she’s the kind of gal that really lights up the room the second she walks in, with her incredible energy, her boisterous storytelling and, most importantly, her no-holds-barred, raucous laughter. there are no meek, lukewarm hellos for amber; the minute you see her, you have no choice but to yell, “AMBER OLIVER!!!” followed by a little dance and/or fist pump in the air.

amber oliver means instant dance party.

amber oliver means HIP STYLE.

amber oliver means big-hug love.

amber oliver means contagious energy!

so, i met amber a few years ago (when was it, 2006?) in my community small group that meets on wednesday nights. i was instantly jealous of her insanely cool fashion sense and intrigued by her profession– elementary school theater teacher. and, as usually occurs with two outgoing, extra-friendly people, we were total pals in no time!

amber, like me, gets REALLY EXCITED about things she loves, and so, when we’re, say, going to a ryan adams concert, THE WORLD BETTER WATCH OUT BECAUSE WE CANNOT BE CONTAINED. she’s also prone to telling cute stories about her students or *hilarious* tales of her two little nephews, which is basically like crack to me. plus she’s perfected the art of being a “regular” at her favorite hotspots, a skill that i’ve coveted since i watched “cheers” reruns as a kid. basically, when you combine all of these factors, it’s OBVIOUS why i’m totally a huge amber oliver fan.

plus, guess what? her birthday is on sunday! so i consider this celebration of all things ambo to be perfectly timed.

AMBER OLIVER! LET’S GET (THIS PARTY) STARTED!

let’s start with page 1: once upon a time, amber was born… (tell me about yr family, where you were born, all the good stuff!)

Wow, what an amazing chance for me to shamelessly plug my 26th birthday!!!!

On October 19th 1982 I was born in Liberty, TX to a very young Angie and Roy Oliver (my mom was 21 and my dad was 22). I grew one town over in Dayton, Texas. I have one older sister, Candice, but I’ve always have called her Candi or if I wanted to make her really mad I used to call her Sissy. With that being said I’ve always considered myself belonging to a big family. Both of my parents’ families are from Dayton and when I was younger they all lived within a 15 minute drive from us.

amber and her totally massive, crazytown family.

I was extremely close with my dad’s parents, NeNe and PawPaw. When I was a little girl my PawPaw had me trained to reply, “I’m PawPaw’s girl” whenever someone asked, “Whose girl are you?” We spent a lot of time at NeNe and PawPaw’s house and usually my cousin’s Leah and Lori were there too. Leah is my sister’s age, 30, and Lori is a year younger than me, 25. (A fun side note: all of the granddaughters on the Oliver side are October babies, Lori and Candi actually share a birthday). Leah and Lori were really like sisters to me growing up, we played pretty hard as little girls…somewhere there is video of Lori and me prancing around in NeNe’s clothes singing ‘rich lady rich lady. I am such a rich lady’.

NeNe and PawPaw are both very skilled crafts-people; My NeNe is an amazing painter, cook and master sewer but I would say her specialty would be quilting. I have always loved watching my NeNe use her hands and I still believe she can do ANYTHING. Actually, Sarah, you have seen one of NeNe’s masterpieces, she made my sister’s wedding cake. My PawPaw can build anything, seriously anything, and as kid I loved to see what PawPaw was up to, I was always down for a ride if he was driving!

cutie patootie little amber.

Now a-days my family has grown to the inth degree ….like whoa. My Paw Paw and I are still close but recently he has nicknamed me Austin. I truly feel blessing to have such a great relationship with my family like I do.

you and yr sister seem really close. Were you always that way, or did you ever have a time where you, say, put gum in her hair?

Me put gum in my sister’s hair, never! That was something my sister, the sly trickster, would have done. As kids we really were not very close, there is a 4 year age difference between us and when you are younger that is a BIG difference. I was ALWAYS up to something, I was 100% kid and in my own world of pretend 100% of the time. My sister on the other hand was always being Miss Joe Cool; seriously she was a teenager at the age of 7. Miss Cool Candice wasn’t much into chillin’ with her little sister. A normal conversation between us would go something like this:

Me: Hey Candi (as I sit down next to her)
Candi: EWWW get away from me! You stink, go take a bath.
Me: (walking away to go play outside)

ORR

Me: sitting on top of her to kiss her. (Apparently I was really good at being annoying).

a dazzling display of sisterhood cuteness. you can see from the trucker hat and scarf that amber was already a hipster by age 3.

Candi has always had my back though, like when I was in Kindergarten and I had a crush on Steven Ashby, Candi totally wrote a love letter for me to give to him. It wasn’t until we got older that we go really close…it is a relationship that my sister summed up perfectly in a blog: “We speak a language only her and I understand…I get her.”

aww! now i wish i had a sister! although i guess that would mean a split in the christmas presents… hmm…

you grew up in dayton, tx. tell me about yr childhood and what it was like to be a kid in that community.

Dayton is a small town; at least it was when I was growing up. Everyone knew everyone, which is pretty cool when you are a little kid, it really was a community. All my teachers from K to 5th grade either taught my sister or grew up with my parents. In Dayton we never locked our doors and frequently walked across the street to ask for a cup of sugar. I had a really great childhood in Dayton; it was carefree and full of good memories. It wasn’t until high school that I could not wait to get out of Dodge. Even though I plan to stay in Austin, I will always consider Dayton home.

snapshot of an idllyic childhood. check those training wheels!

you obviously have a flair for the dramatic. has this always been the case?

Pretty much. Playing pretend was (and is) my forte and performing is in my blood. I had imaginary friends as a kid, Gindo and Darlin, they traveled with me always. And of course there was a summer of the Amber Shows, I would create songs with chorography and sell tickets to the neighborhood kids.

There was also a several times when my dad set up the video camera to the TV so I could see myself and I would perform my own variety show, little did I know he was taping me….these tapes are stored in a secret place so don’t even try to find them. I also was a twirler, I did this from Kindergarten to 6th grade so I was always in recitals, parades, and competitions. I loved twirling.

omgg!! tiny twirler!!!!!

what were you like in high school? what sorts of activities/clubs did you participate in?

High school was kind of hard for me. I was good kid and growing up in a small town made me feel like I had to choose between the party crew and the goodie two shoes crew. I wanted to be in neither so I was my own crew. I was friends with everyone and mostly bounced around from group to group. I always felt like was an outsider, a very involved social outsider albeit. I was hard to find close friends but eventually I did, a fellow hyper-involved outsider, Glenna Carmack. She was a godsend….Glenna and I did a lot of dreaming together and we both had big plans for our future, plans that didn’t involve living in Dayton for the rest of our lives.

freshman duchess?! amber, you were total high school royalty!

I also had a high school boyfriend, Christian MacDonald. Christian was my best friend and a perfect first love. Our favorite date was to go to the gas station and buy a ton of snacks on his dad’s gas card and drive into Houston and get lost. My dates with Christian were some of the happiest times of my high school life. (And yes Christian and I are still very close).

amber, totally bringing it on. i am kinda jealous that you actually sort of *lived* “friday night lights.”

As for activities and clubs, I did it all. Let’s see here I was in: FFA, BPA, Student council president, Drama Club President. NHS, National Thespian Society, and I was a cheerleader (Head Cheerleader my senior year). Outside of school I was a cheerleading coach and I was heavily involved in community theatre. I was a busy busy girl but I loved every moment of it.

please tell me you still have yr FFA jacket.

when you decided to attend UT, did you know that you wanted to study theatre education? how did that passion come about?

Out of all my high school activities, theatre was my passion. My theatre teacher, Ms G, had a big hand in shaping who I am today. Ms G grew up in Toronto and when she graduated she decided she wanted to do something she has never done before, thus moving to small town Texas to teach theatre. My freshman year was Ms. G’s first year in Dayton, and we automatically hit it off. I was sooo intrigued by her and wanted to learn everything she had to teach me. Ms G. really pushed me to get out my comfort both on and off the stage and she challenged me to go beyond what I ever expected out of myself. Ms G. presented the world of theatre as a community and a venue for self-discovery and change. I knew that I wanted to be someone’s Ms. G one day.

girl, you totally are!!! (<– now i’m teary-eyed)

sophomore amber and her co-star, logan, in the valley players community theatre production of “gypsy.”

while in college, you worked at diesel. is this where you gained yr totally hip fashion sense, or did you already have it (and that’s how you got the job)?

Fashion has been a big from me. In high school I had a subscription to Vanity Fair so I could collage the fashions I loved. SO my freshman year at UT when I saw the Diesel store opening I knew I HAD TO work there. Once I was a part of the Diesel family I feel I really gained my own fashion sense, and man, I had some GREAT outfits during those years.

seriously, I always love yr outfits. do you mind sharing with pants world a few of yr style tips?

Tip #1: If you can put it on you can pull it off. Never be afraid to try something new when comes to fashion, that is when it get FUN.
Tip #2: You need several big fashion pieces, the ones that POP. Pair these POP pieces with simple pieces from your wardrobe. I.E. Neon Yellow Reebox High top with a pair indigo demin and a black T. H-O-T.
Tip #3. Make sure you pay attention to stores at the end of a season that is when you will find the best sale. Don’t forget about the high-end stores, even SAKS has affordable ‘pop’ pieces at the end of a season.
Tip #4: everyone need one very nice pair of jeans, buy a pair based on fit and fabrics, then ignore cost.
Tip #5: never take yourself too seriously.

hot retro jacket? check. designer fanny pack? of course. fashionista at the wheel? you BETCHA.

since you graduated from college, you’ve been working as a theatre teacher at an elementary school in leander. YOU ARE TOTALLY MS. G!!! what sorts of challenges did you encounter during yr first year? what are things you know now, as a teacher, that you wish you knew then?

Wow that is actually a hard question. I had an amazing and pretty seamless first year. The educational theatre program at UT really prepared me for that year, there wasn’t much that happened that I didn’t expect or wasn’t equipped to handle. ….okay I take that back, there is one point of weakness in my teaching, I think farts are hilarious. My first year did not know how to handle this in my class (cause dude it happens like once a class period). Now I just ignore but if it is really funny and the kid who dealt it is laughing then I’ll join in the laughter ☺ and now I realize that is okay!

teacher amber. note the HP poster (HOLLA) and the ice cream bar that the cafeteria lady gave her in spite of her lack of a permission slip.

i LOVE hearing about the activities you facilitate in yr classroom (seriously, can i visit yr class sometime? i promise to behave). can you share a few of yr all time greatest hits?

Of course you can come visit! And no need to worry about behavior, the bad kids are my favorite

Right now I working on creating Podcasts with my students– this explores the idea of theatre as storytelling. Right now we are working on podcast called This Elementary Life (modeled after This American Life). I believe it is important to let students know that their voice and their stories are important and that some one wants to listen!

that is such a fantastic idea!!! i hope the podcasts will be online so i can listen and squee along!

don’t you wish yr elementary school teacher had been this cool?!

and of course, you’re my #1 source for stories about cute little kids. tell me a few of yr faves!

HaHa. So last year I was standing at my door welcoming my first grade class and this little boy walks up to me and says “I’m not feeling good today…pause….and I can do a really good funky chicken!”

I had student last year that would a notorious kisser, not of classmates but of teachers. One day I was sitting in my chair reading a story and he just walked right up to me and planted a big wet on me. It took me so much by surprise that I didn’t know how to react! Luckily this student’s mom works at the school so we had a talk about it and she let me that this is an issue and he is supposed to ask beforehand! As last year progressed he went to just kissing your hand and this year we no longer have the problem…. I have to say I kind of miss it. He is definitly a special kid and has a big space in my heart.

oohh!! that is the sweetest!! seriously, amber, you’re like my squee dealer. I AM ADDICTED.

speaking of cute kids, you are the v. proud aunt of two (soon to be three!) adorable boys. go ahead, do yr auntly duty and tell us about their awesomeness!

OMG. Seriously I love Oliver (Ollie) and Otto so much it hurts. Ollie and Otto are the sweetest, cutest, and funniest kids alive.

freaking adorable otto and his doting aunt.

My all-time favorite Ollie story comes from my sister’ blog:

“Lil man has a hard time remembering to stop what he playing and run to the bathroom when he needs to go. Saturday when we were playing outside he made a habit of “relieving himself” in the grass when he needed to go. I would praise him for going b/c thankfully he remembered to stop playing and pee but he didn’t have time to make it inside to a bathroom. When we got home and were showering I explained to him that his wee wee was private. His best playmate is our 5 year old neighbor girl and obviously Ollie doesn’t understand boundaries older kids get. So, I told him he should tee-tee in private and no one needs to see him do that especially girls. He was quick to tell me “NO, my wee wee is a Cool Cat*!” It was hard to hold back my grin…I really couldn’t argue with the dude. I’ll leave the rest up to dad to handle.

*I’d like to note that I have never referred to anything as a cool cat to my son. I have no clue where he heard this.”

after you told me that story the first time, i immediately retold it to about ten different people because IT IS SO AWESOME. gah.

what is yr secret power?

I have gift of parking, I can always find a good spot. It is kinda like the Room of Requirement from Harry Potter but with parking. This secret power is very helpful on Saturday night in particular.

do you sleep in jimjams? what kind?

Yes. I have the most amazing bamboo cotton camisole nightie dress. Love love love it. I actually wore it to the pirate party, I love it that much. I got it at whole foods, so can you too!

me and amber, looking fierce at the aformentioned pirate party.

what is yr #1 favorite food?

Macaroni and cheese. Any kind. I take when and how I can get it…I’m a mac and cheese junkie.

AMEN, SISTER! there is no shame in our addiction.

what is yr top restaurant recommendation in austin? what’s the best thing on the menu?

Mushashino. Get the Evil Kneivroll and an Avocado Kama…I think everyone should save up their pennies and a have a Mushashino feast, get everything you want and desert too! Soo YUMMMMMY. That place makes me happy.

tell me about yr top area of expertise.

I am a master sleeper! I can sleep anywhere, loud or quiet. Anytime, dark or light. And yes I consider this an expertise.

what was yr favorite item of clothing as a child?

My sister was a cheerleader all through Jr. High and High School and when she was in junior high my mom had this shirt made that had a cheerleader painted on the front with pompoms that you pinned on her hands and on the back it said “Candi’s Little Sis”. I freakin’ loved that shirt! My sister was the coolest kid in schooland I wanted everyone to know that I was her sister!!

ok, could you (and yr mom) be any cuter?!!!!

ok, the cheerleader shirt sounds sweet but LOOK AT THIS FASHION MASTERPIECE. you are totally the tot spokesperson for ocean pacific.

what was yr favorite toy as a child? (the moody bonus question)

My fisher price kitchen set…I loved that sucker. It had the whole kitchen set up along with a microwave and toaster!!! Breakfast my favorite meal to cook, I had a skillet and plastic eggs that cracked and had fried eggs inside…seriously it was so much fun. My mom actually just cleaned it out for Ollie to play with and I have to admit I got a little jealous and territorial.

what do you plan on doing when you’re 80?

I think it would be cool to be one of those old ladies that still runs marathons….yeah.

if you could assemble yr own ocean’s 11, who would you pick and why?

Okay Olivers 11

1. Ollie because of his irresistible personality. You cannot meet him without loving him nor can you ever tell him ‘no’.
2. Leana Shefman. This girl she is able to work her way into any party, any concert, anywhere and be sitting VIP by the end of the night. I’ve witness the amazing skill before..like whoa.
3. Lindsay Muse, she has such grace under pressure and has be ability to calm me down when I’m in a tizzy.
4. Jeremy-my-brother-in-law, we can deafen an entire room with our laughter combined…you never know when that might come in handy.
5. Ricky Lenhart, this my one of best friends! Ricky mechanical engineer so he knows a lot about stuff that I have no clue about plus he is one of my emergency contacts…you got have one of those in your group.
6. Bred, he would be my photographer.
7. Courtney Buie- this girl bring the fun to any room, she makes me laugh so hard!! Her Journey interpretive dancing skills are out of this world!!!
8. Tess Chambless- she would be my organizer, she has a system set up for everything. PLUS she is my style guru!!!
9. Sarah Pants- Sarah you just make things happen, a natural leader! You are a great listener, a sign of a true friend in my opinion.
10 Ryan Ray, he is my go to man when i need new good music to listen to.
11. Candi- i think this might be apparent

what is yr best karaoke song?

Hey Ya! by outcast. But if I’m at Circle C, I’ll go with Dwight Yoakam’s “Turn it Up, Turn It on,Turn Me Loose”, you gotta get that crowd on your side early on in the game y’all!!!!

dude. the cowboys at CCC LOVED it when you did that song. you killed it.

karaoke amber, making not only a musical statement but fashion headlines as well.

do people ever tell you that you look like someone famous? who?

When I was a younger I would get Jodi Foster. The first time someone told me that I was in the 4th grade and it made me cry! You see I loved the movie “Freaky Friday” and Jodi Foster as a kid…well…not so cute. I wasn’t until I got older that I understood that was a compliment. Actually just today I got Kate from “LA Ink”…but I don’t know who that is.

tell me something scandalous!

I cheated on a spelling test in the 2nd grade……..but I couldn’t handle the guilt so I told on myself. haha. My teacher still gave me a 100 because of my honestly. I’m not very good with being scandalous.

thanks so much for letting me interview you, amber! it was a pleasure to share yr awesomeness with pants world. now, let’s go get martinis at parkside…

p.s. you can check out amber’s delightful little blog here.

LINKS

feeling bad about the state of things? read the story of andrew young and be INSPIRED.

what? that wasn’t enough for you? well, then how about the tale of two holocaust survivors who found love years after they met in germany (thanks, selina, for making me sigh, “SO BEAUTIFUL!” repeatedly today).

squee of the day: j. reminded me that i had not yet posted upside down dogs, which is just a big old slobbery, wacky mess of great.

you might think that an inteview could not possibly improve upon the impression provided by this photo, BUT you would be wrong. because matt’s awesomeness cannot even be HANDLED by one picture, and i think you guys are really gonna love this interview.

so, back in janauary of 2005, i was getting to know a lovely lady by the name of meredith, whose boyfriend had recently moved away to houston. as we became better and better friends, i frankly felt relieved that i didn’t have to share her with some guy, no matter how wonderful he sounded.

and then, on a visit to houston, i finally met “the boyfriend.” and i realized that someone worthy of meredith actually existed! (which, given my estimation of her, speaks volumes about him). because matt was (is) absolutely marvelous! in fact, our first meeting was totally representative of the amazingess of matt: he welcomed me into his home like an old friend, then proceeded to serve me a *delicious* dinner, complete with homemade sangria. uh, paging DIRECT ROUTE TO MY HEART.

after that, i completely understood why my dear friend meredith was absolutely and totally in love with this bearded gourmet gentleman. and even when she moved to houston to be with him, i was more happy than sad, because it simply meant that i would be spending time in the future with *both* of them.

matt is pretty much the definition of “jack of all trades.” he’s one of those people that you might want to hate, cos he’s good at everything, but then you meet him and really just want him to be yr best friend. he has mad engineering skills, which means he can build and repair all kinds of things; he cooks *incredible* meals; he brews beer (and other tasty bevvies, like champers!!! i know!!); and, most importantly, he’s a genuine, highly intelligent, compassionate person, and i am extremely lucky to count him as a friend.

and you guys are lucky too, cos today you get to learn more about him! let’s get started!

matt does the best baumer i’ve ever seen (with fellow tenenbaum margo at mandy and meredith’s birthday party, 2006).

matt, i honestly have a hard time imagining you before you could grow a beard. so, help me out here. what was yr childhood like? where were you born, and what is yr family like?

My childhood was pretty average when I think about it. As a toddler I was into everything. I could open any lock out there. I could get out of my car seat before my mom made it around to the front seat. In fact my brother Michael, three years my senior, had to ask me, as a two year old, to open up the child safety locks on the cabinet for him. I was outside constantly (see pictures of my sun-bleached white hair). I was one of those kids who liked to get really dirty. I’m sure I looked like Pigpen from Peanuts. To further illustrate my point, one of my favorite pastimes was napping in the doghouse with my dog. My dad, who is a doctor, and my mom, who was a nurse, were an odd mix of cool and laid back when it came to activities like hobbies, sports and candy consumption and fairly strict when it came to my social agenda. I got caught with general underage paraphernalia like cigarettes and voter registration cards and that didn’t make the situation any better. I was generally a good kid and somehow made it through high school graduation without getting arrested or drug behind a car—no small feat in College Station.

LOOK AT THIS CUTENESS!!!!!!

what was it like to grow up in college station? how did you feel about living in the “shadow” of A&M?

I was born at the medical school in Galveston as a third generation Gavestonian. My parents moved me to Temple, TX after my first nine months and we stayed there for five years. Then we moved to College Station, TX where I finished out my basic schooling. I was raised on steady diet of Aggie culture. My dad took me to tons of football games, baseball games, and midnight yell practices. I’ve actually been to more Aggie sporting events than Longhorn. They were fun but by my senior year in high school, I couldn’t imagine going to A&M. My liberal viewpoints didn’t really fit in with the College Station culture and out of a graduating class of 696 students, I was one out of four who would attend UT. Luckily my brother went to UT before I did so it was less of a shock to my Aggie dad.

as a kid, did you show signs of yr future career in engineering?

As I said before, I was into everything. Opening cabinet locks and cars seats was just the beginning. I always had little projects going. I frequently took things apart and tried to put them back together. I was mostly unsuccessful at this. My mom is super creative and did lots of arts and crafts so we did lots of projects together. One of my first “inventions” was a system of strings and pulleys connected to my light switch. That way I could pull on this rubber chicken (always a comedian) hanging over my bed and I could turn out my light without getting out of bed. Of course now I would just buy a bedside lamp. In high school I worked at a movie theater and became interested in filmmaking. I applied to UT’s RTF program but did not get in (too many science classes, not enough theater classes). I had been taking drafting classes and automotive technology in high school and that sounded like engineering if you put them together so I decided I’d do that. It was kind of a ‘might as well’ situation. Then I found out that engineering was actually difficult.

a screaming matt, momma and daddy schlabach, 1981. i can see where matt gets his classy style from…

what were you like in high school? what sorts of activities were you involved in?

In high school I was mostly into nerd type classes and activities (here is my final senior project where I took apart and modeled my entire VW bug engine after taking it apart). I was also in science club, German club, and marching band. Yeah, I told you—nerd classes. I had long hair and a goatee. I won’t provide you with any pics from that era but if anyone ever wants to see my skeezy driver’s license picture from when I was 16, let me know. I ran with an odd mix of people. I felt a lot like Lindsay Weir in Freaks and Geeks. I took all advanced classes and did fairly well while most of my friends didn’t do either. Mostly we just played a lot of hacky sack. Other activities included car surfing and smoking behind the gym.

tell me about your experience at UT, particularly living in the taos co-op, cos i am fascinated by the idea that co-ops actually function and, like, stay clean.

I’m sure a lot of people have a lot of bad things to say about Taos. I lived there for five years. I had some really great times and met lots of people. It wasn’t always the cleanest but there was always someone to hang out with and there were lots of parties. The best and worst part about it was that it was similar to a dorm but run by students. That means if you get the wrong person in charge, the place can really go south quickly. I probably continued to live there because I did various positions such as director and maintenance man that earned me 50% off my rent–$300 per month for rent, food, and bills is not too bad in Austin. I also had a lottery room that was twice the size of any other, had its own bathroom (a rarity), the only bath tub among all 96 units. Pretty sweet deal. Plus it had an awesome woodshop where I spent an entire Christmas break building my bar—one of my most prized possessions.

yr bar is, indeed, amazing and yet another symbol of yr crafty engineering skills!

when and how did you develop yr love for cooking?

As long as I can remember, I have always loved to watch cooking shows. Don’t know why. Oddly enough, I did not even try to cook anything beyond mac and cheese or slice and bake cookies until age 12 or so. One day my mom took me to a cooking class and I tried a few recipes out of their cookbook. I just kept cooking and cooking and haven’t stopped since. It’s one of my favorite things to do. That’s why even after a long day, I don’t really mind cooking a huge meal.

matt, 1989. i’m digging the collar.

you take great pride in yr german ancestry. is this the root of yr passion for home brewing? tell me about yr first attempt at creating beer and, from there, how you evolved into a Total Brew Master.

I definitely enjoy being German. I guess it’s because my family is so German. I am 75% German and the rest Swedish and Norwegian. I don’t know if this is where I got my passion for homebrewing but I did find out, after I began brewing, that my great grandfather used to make his own beer at home (esp. during prohibition) and my grandfather used to sneak in and sample it when no one was looking.

My first attempt to make beer was a complete disaster. Sanitation is of the utmost importance. I wasn’t thinking and I made a misstep. When I tried the final product, it was indescribably bad and left a powdery film in your mouth. I have become extremely paranoid since and (*knock on wood*) have not had a contaminated batch since. Since then I’ve read every piece of literature on beer making, aka zymurgy, that I can get my hands on. I was even able to weasel my way into getting a job at a homebrew supply store and got all my equipment and ingredients at cost. And that’s the story of how my closet became so full of crap.

matt, in full-on german gear, celebrating his culture in the best way possible– with food!

because i’m honestly curious, can you (briefly) outlind the steps involved in making a “basic” beer?

OK, I usually get eyes glazing over when I talk about this so if you didn’t fall asleep when I was talking about my nerd classes earlier, you may now—do not operate heavy machinery if reading this. Beer starts with malt which is a sprouted seed (barley usually but it could be corn or wheat). The seed contains food in the form of starch which grows the plant until it can get sunlight. Once the grain is sprouted it is fired to different degrees (resulting in different colored beers) to stop growth. Sprouting creates enzymes that turn starch into sugar for food. The brewer takes this sprouted grain (note: it is bought this way, nobody really does their own malting) and crushes it up and mixes it with hot water. Holding the oatmeal-like mash at different temperatures results in different thicknesses of beer (think Guiness versus Bud light). Holding the mash at that temperature for a period of time gets the enzymes working on converting starch to a sugar that the yeast can eat. The mash is then drained and as much sugar as possible is rinsed from the grains. The resulting runoff is boiled and hops are added. The length of the boil determines the amount of bitterness, flavor, and aroma that they contribute. The mixture is then rapidly cooled to 60-80F through the use of heat exchangers and then you add yeast and let it ferment for two to six weeks. Ales ferment at room temperature and take less time and lagers are fermented at 45-55F and take longer. The whole cooking process takes about six to nine hours depending on the style. Like any recipe, different ingredients make different styles of beer. Each region of the world has different strains of yeast and hops and even a different mineral content in the water. All of these affect the final product. There are easier ways to make your own beer like buying the extracted sugars and diluting them in water but the final product isn’t as good.

all i can say is, whoah. i have gained a new appreciation for beer. except for lone star. i love lone star, but i can’t respect it.

what’s yr favorite thing that you have ever brewed? what’s the *hardest* thing you’ve ever made?

Actually my favorite beer and most challenging beer are one and the same. It’s a weizenbock that I brewed for the St. Arnold Big Batch Brew Bash. I knew I was going to have to pull out all the stops if I was going to win the competition and in the end, though I didn’t, I had a supreme beer scoring a 43 out of 50 points. I named the beer Vexation Wiezenbock because absolutely everything bad that could happen along the way of making beer, did.

matt shows off his AMAZINGLY HIGH score at the st. arnold competition. dude, i was there, so i can say this: you totally should’ve won first place for that extremely tasty brew business!

any future projects/challenges looming on the horizon?

I’m really excited to open my own brewpub with Meredith one day. Since I started working for the man and realized that the engineering world is actually exactly as they portray it in Office Space, I knew I could only be completely happy if I were working for myself. I’ve been saving as much money as possible so that in just about three more years, I can quit my job and go to brew school. Barring any unforeseen mishaps, and the crash of our national economy, I hope to be up and running in five to six years. Besides that, I fill my spare time coming up with new recipes for beer and food.

on behalf of all of my future meals at yr home, i applaud this use of yr spare time.

i know you’re working as an engineer, but tell me a little bit more about what you *actually* do. so then when, say, my dad asks me, i’ll sound v. knowledgeable.

Engineering in my industry can either be incredibly boring or really interesting depending on what day you pick. Most of the time it’s the former which is why a lot of people don’t ask me that question. I am a mechanical engineer for the chemical/petrochemical industry in Houston. Mechanical engineers are the all-purpose engineers. Specifically I am responsible for gathering data from the process/chemical engineers (pressures, temperatures, capacities) and turning it into a specification that an equipment supplier or fabricator can understand. I then buy the equipment and transmit the information to all the other engineers—tell the electrical engineers how much power we need, the civil engineers how big of a foundation to support it, the instrumentation engineers what signals go to the control room, and the pipers where to make the connection. And that’s how you make a chemical plant. More specifically I am a lead engineer which means that I manage all the mechanical engineers on a project and check their work. I just finished a $150 million project that produces the plastic that goes into car dashboards and Legos. I am just beginning a $3 billion project that turns coal into gasoline or diesel. Doesn’t sound interesting? It’s when you solve a seemingly impossible problem that it’s interesting.

all i know is, it takes a lead engineer to look this awesome/evil, esp. when you’re standing next to the all powerful maleficent!

about six months after i moved from houston to austin, you moved from austin to houston (i tried not to be offended). what was that transition like for you? what sorts of conceptions did you have of houston, and how have those changed in the past few years?

Like just about everyone in Austin, I was prepared to hate Houston. And, when I ended up living in the neighborhood with the second or third highest crime rate in the city, I did. I finally got a place in the Montrose/River Oaks area and got a few tips from a friend, who feels the urge to talk about what a good time she’s having all the time, and things got better. They got even better when Meredith moved down here to be with me. I’m sorry I had to steal her away from you. I am now totally converted to a pro-Houstonian. There’s so much going on here and since it’s a lot cheaper to live in than Austin so you can do so much more. Now I live in the coolest place ever and have an awesome lady and two kitties.

matt with mia, also known as eliza doolittle.

ok not to get too girlie BUT tell me ALL ABOUT how you and meredith first met. SQUEE!!!!

As I mentioned earlier, I worked at a movie theater in high school. Because I hate looking for jobs, I transferred to the Cinemark in Austin. I got promoted to manager and a few years later, a box office worker named Meredith came to work there. We had an instant connection and found out we have the exact taste in everything. I mean eerily so. Movies, music, books, you name it. Even though she’s an English major and I’m an engineer, somehow it works. She gets me to let loose and I keep her grounded.

We had to keep the relationship secret from everyone at work because it was strictly forbidden to date someone in a higher or lower position. Of course everyone found out eventually but I had basically quit by that time and was only keeping a shift or two a month to get free movies.

and, because it’s really rare nowadays, how the heck did you manage to really and truly surprise (some might even say shock) her with yr marriage proposal?

I don’t know really, I’m surprised myself. Everyone (except my parents, oddly enough) continually asked us when we were going to get married. Like, all the time. Meredith and I are both the kind of people that dig in deeper when people try to force us to do something. We talked about marriage many times and knew we were going to do it eventually but wanted it to be on our terms. I had been browsing for rings for a few months but could only find ones that were totally fug. Then when Daniel told me about the custom ring designer he used, I figured I’d give it a shot. I had to work it in for some holiday where Meredith was getting a present so I could hide the ring from her. Otherwise she would totally be on to me if I said “whatever you do, don’t look in that box.” I had to have a good reason like, “Don’t look in that box because your birthday present is in there.” She had also been asking me for specifics on when we were going to do it for general life-planning reasons and I told her I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. I’m sure that helped add to the surprise.

matt and meredith in colorado, on the trip where they got engaged! squee!

what is yr secret power?

I would have to say either fixing or building things. I have this obsession with fiddling with stuff. As long as I can remember, I was in my parents’ garage trying to build some project. I’ve rebuilt bikes, car engines, tables, and more. I also accidentally break things a lot which makes it handy that I can fix it. I can also do some light stitch work in case my clothing needs repair.

do you sleep in jimjams? what kind?

I produce an insane amount of body heat and for that reason I can only sleep in boxers. Some nights I even sleep without a sheet. Sorry to brag Sarah, but I don’t have to wear long underwear under my jeans in the summer.

STOP RUBBING IT IN. GAH.

what is yr #1 favorite food?

Funny enough, though we’re vegetarian during the week, I would have to say my all time favorite food is steak. There’s nothing better out there than a nice medium-rare tenderloin seasoned to perfection.
what is yr top restaurant recommendation in austin? what’s the best thing on the menu?
You’ll probably laugh about this but my top restaurant is actually more of a food stand—or shack if you will. I would have to say Taco Shack. I crave their shack tacos constantly. I don’t know what it is about them but I have to get them any time I’m in Austin. Also, if I get a second choice I would have to say Thundercloud and their California club. That is some tasty business.

tell me about yr top area of expertise.

I think it’s hard to pin down because I would not consider myself to be of a professional level or expert in brewing, cooking, or engineering. I feel that I have so much left to learn in each area. As odd or lame as it sounds, I think my expertise is in learning how to do things. I know that’s a really general statement but let me explain. I feel that, even though I love technology like my new iPhone, in general people have lost the desire to do anything themselves. Every product we want is available from the store. No one really cares about how beer is made, or how to make your own sausage, or how to make soap. I feel like because everything is so readily available, we’ve lost the romantic connection with the things in our lives as simple as a jar of preserves. I have this nostalgia for a time in which I didn’t live where everything was homemade. For that reason, I feel this desire to learn everything about how something is made. I sometimes spend weeks off and on researching single topics like how to make your own cheese. Someone has to keep it alive, right?

i agree, the preservation of cheese is my top priority.

this is probably one of my favorite pictures of matt, taken at wurstfest. i found those glasses on the ground, and they instantly transformed matt into a muppet.

what was yr favorite item of clothing as a child?

I didn’t really have a favorite item that I can remember but I do remember being fond of my Superman pjs with the Velcro-attached cape. Maybe that was a hint to my Smallville obsession later in life.

what was yr favorite toy as a child? (the moody bonus question)

I actually had two. One was named Meany Lion and he was a gift from our pastor when I snapped my femur on the Christmas right before my third birthday. Yeah, we’re talking half-body cast. The other was a cat named Mietzi (which is the typical German name for a cat—the American equivalent being Boots for a cat or Fido for a dog). I had it on a leash and I basically used it as a dust mop because I drug it all around the house.

OMGGGG LITTLE BOYS IN SUITS!!!!! i love how michael is all serious, whereas matt is totally aware that he’s charmin’ the ladies with that tie and navy blazer.

what do you plan on doing when you’re 80?

This is a hard question because I used to not be able to imagine making it to 30. Not in any morbid way, I just had absolutely no idea what I would be doing. It’s easier now because it’s only a few years off but 80 sounds impossible to imagine. I would say from today, that if I could have a woodshop to build my own furniture and a large covered porch to sit on and drink tea in the morning, and beer in the afternoon, that would be just about perfect.

if you could assemble yr own ocean’s 11, who would you pick and why?

I have so many friends with so many talents that of course we would have the best Ocean’s 11. 1. Meredith would definitely have to be in there to help plan and organize everything and to actually get people to show up, 2. Jerry to set up all the video surveillance equipment, 3. Sarah to put us through training and bonding exercises so we function better as a team and show up on time, 4. Jill because she’s an actress and can use that southern charm to get past any guards blocking our passage 5. Henri would be responsible for getting us our access badges (fake or real) 6. Daniel would be responsible for making sure that we have enough beverages and grillable meats for the after party, 7. Ray to take care of our wireless sensor networks, 8. Juliet to make sure we all leave hydrated and with a brown bag lunch, 9. Leah to clear all of our visas with the various consulates, 10. Fritz to drive the getaway car because even though his driving scares me to death, in the ten years I’ve known him, he’s never been in a wreck, 11. my brother Michael for his general genius knowledge of most things.

what is yr best karaoke song?

My all time classic karaoke song would have to be Joe Cocker’s With a Little Help from My Friends. Some new found favorites that I have picked up are Journey’s Lights and Sisqo’s Thong Song (don’t judge me, karaoke is supposed to be fun). Speaking of which, how long has it been since we’ve gone, Sarah? When are we going next?

dude, i know!!! we need to hit up circle country club! stat!

matt, letting those wild vocals run free in the heartland of karaoke, tokyo.

do people ever tell you that you look like someone famous? who?

Back when I had a goatee I got that I look like Edward Norton. I guess I can kind of see it. After I switched to the full beard I’ve received significantly fewer comparisons to famous people. About the only one I can think of, and this is odd, but this German exchange student at Taos Co-op used to call me Seabeard because I reminded him of the captain from Titanic. I don’t know about that but it was kind of a cool nickname.

tell me something scandalous!

I wish I could give you something on this but I think the things that are minorly scandalous are too lame to mention and the things are actually scandalous, are too scandalous to reveal on the interweb. Sorry.

matt, here is no need to apologize, cos this interview has been absolutely fantastic!!! i’ve actually learned some new things about you, which only serve to make you more awesome, which defies all laws of science and logic (i know i’m saying this to an engineer, but it’s true). thanks so much for letting me interview you!

and pants world, as always, feel free to ask matt questions in the comments!

oh MAN have i been excited about finally doing this entry!!!

cos my mom is amazing!!!

in fact, a few nights ago, i experienced a gracious reminder of my mother’s love in the form of two photo albums full of cards. see, when i was growing up, mom kept *every single* card i ever received and carefully preserved them in albums, which i now keep under a side table in my living room. i hadn’t looked at this collection in ages, so when i happened to randomly spy them the other night, i began flipping through the yellowed pages, crammed with strawberry shortcake birthday cards and slumber party invitations. included among these mementos are hand-written lists my mother kept of every birthday gift i received (so i could dutifully follow up with thank you notes). the cards brought on a sweet wave of nostalgia, but i was struck even more by the gesture of love inherent in this carefully archived collection. with every page, i could *feel* how much my mother loved me, how much she made me the center of her life, how much she was with me at every step on the road.

i count myself among a blessed minority of the earth’s population, because i can say, with absolute and beautiful clarity, that i have *never* had a time in my life when i did not feel loved.

and that is all due to my parents.

i’ve already outlined the many reasons why i have the best dad in the world, and now it’s time to explain (briefly, otherwise this blog would border on eternity) why my mom is pretty much the queen of my universe.

mom and me during our “just girls” trip to NYC last summer.

1. The Little Things

mom is basically the world’s leading on expert on how to transmit love via small, thoughtful gestures. from notes in my lunchbox to secretly folding my laundry when i bring it over to her house (yes, that is in the present tense), she is always finding little ways to remind me that i matter. her example inspires me to constantly remind my loved ones how much i care about them; in other words, you can thank her for my repeated outbursts of “I LOVE YOU GUYS!”

2. Everyone’s Family

i know several people who consider my mom to be their second mother, because she has always taken an active interest in my friends. in fact, “active interest” is an understatement. half the time i’m talking to my mom, she’s asking me questions like, “so how’s talena doing?” and “what does meredith’s engagement ring look like?!!” it’s almost like i’m the people magazine of my friends, and my mom is our most loyal subscriber. when i lived at home, i was always encouraged to invite friends over, and they would inevitably stay for dinner at my mom’s request. our house was a museum of love, curated by my mother.

3. The Librarian

as you will soon discover, my mom used to be a librarian, and one of the greatest gifts she has given me is a love for reading. when i was growing up, she would always volunteer at my school library, where i would often go and meet her at the end of the day. the library at my elementary school was located in a charming old house, and i treasure my memories of those sweet afternoons when i would curl up by the window with a book while my mom and mrs. nolan, the librarian, chatted themselves into a life-long friendship (they still keep in touch to this day).

mom and me during our family trip to d.c. i was totally rockin’ that headband.

4. Do the Right Thing

my conscience has a v. strong voice, and it sounds remarkably like my mother. along with *her* mother (mama helen), my mom possesses the most sturdy moral compass i’ve ever come across; i feel like i could conquer a mount everest of problems with the tools she has given me. over and over again, my mother gently taught me how to live my life honorably and compassionately. as i get older, i see how rare some of those values are in this world, and i am incredibly thankful that i witnessed them every day as my mother’s daughter.

they say parents are judged by the quality of their children, and i hope you can see why it matters, it really matters, that i do my mother justice.

now, don’t you feel lucky that you’re about to spend some quality internet time with this incredible lady?

ok, mom, let’s get this interview started! i’m excited! i’d like to start with yr parents (my grandparents). can you tell me a little bit about mama helen and granddad– where they’re from, how they met, what they did?

Your grandfather was born in 1908 and grew up in Chicago. He went to college and then started law school (his father was an attorney) but decided to get into the retail business. He started working for Sears in 1932 and worked all over the country. He said he liked opening new stores, especially in California. Meanwhile, your grandmother came into the world in Ponder, Texas, in 1918. She had 5 brothers and one sister. She grew up in Baytown, Texas, attended Lee College there and graduated from TWU in 1936. She went to work for the YWCA and then for the USO. Granddad had joined the army after 1941 and was stationed at a camp near Bay City, Texas. Mama Helen was organizing activities for the USO in Bay City. She planned dances for the area women and the soldiers. Granddad came to one of the dances and asked her to dance. She declined, saying she was working, but he persisted.

gordon and helen. they made a striking couple, didn’t they?

They were married in February of 1944. Did you know that Paw and Nana were married in January of the same year! After the war ended and Granddad returned from Europe, he and Mama Helen moved to Laborite, Indiana, and he resumed his job with Sears. My brother Scott was born in 1945, so Mama Helen became a stay at home mom. Then I came along in 1946 so she was a busy mother!

i love this picture, cos you can clearly see how much helen adored her precious little sue.

mom’s first birthday, with darling scott and proud papa. my grandfather was so handsome!

you’re the middle child, between uncle scott and uncle david. tell me about your life with two brothers!

Uncle Scott and I are 16 months apart and then Uncle David came 9 years later. Scott had a difficult birth and as a result he has learning disabilities. When I was in the second grade, your grandparents found a great school for Scott in Richardson, Texas. We were living in Wichita, Kansas, so that was far away and I had difficulty adjusting to his absence. For about four years, I was an only child. Scott did come home in the summers and holidays. When David came along, he was like a doll I could play with!!

mom and her favorite doll. check that shoe and sock combo!

We were all back together when Scott finished school and I was going into the 8th grade. At that time we were living on 80 acres outside Wichita and your grandparents were raising sheep. Scott even had a pet sheep named Patsy who stayed on the back porch until we persuade her to return to the other sheep.

mom and scott totally had their own neighborhood bike gang! i had no idea i was following in her footsteps…

just like dad, you moved around a lot when you were growing up, since granddad worked for sears. tell me every place you’ve lived and which cities you liked the most (and the least).

I was born in Indiana. Then we moved to Michigan, next to Kansas, then Nebraska. Granddad decided to retire in 1965, the year I graduated from high school. Then he and Mama Helen bought some property outside of Aurora, Missouri, and built a retirement home there. I started college, attending a small school in Emporia, Kansas and then transferred to Southwest Missouri State in Springfield, Missouri. Your grandparents had a hard time staying in one place and I think they moved 5 more times after Aurora! I guess I liked Wichita the best and Omaha the least. I went to three different high schools so it was hard to make friends.

mom’s totally adorable school picture (dad thinks she looks like dorothy).

what did you do for fun when you were a kid?

We spent a lot of time outside. My favorite thing to do was to play “dress up” with Valerie, my next door neighbor. I had this really neat old suitcase that had a couple of long ball gown dresses my Grandmother gave me. With a few hats and old rhinestone jewelry (which I really wish I had now), Valerie and I looked fabulous!! When we got a black and white TV, Scott and I watched Howdy Doody and the Mickey Mouse Club. There were some amusements parks in Wichita and sometimes we went there. Every so often we would go the movies and even the drive in ones. I was in Campfire Girls, starting out as a Bluebird and then moving up to a Campfire girl. Mama Helen was our group leader. When we moved out to the farm, it was too far away to attend meetings. I did join 4H and participated in some projects, until we moved again.

I LOVE THIS PICTURE. SO MUCH. esp. scott’s hat and mom’s elegant fur stole.

what did you think you would be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a flight attendant or airline hostess as they were called then.

how would you describe yourself as a teenager?

I was an introvert and was not involved in many activities. I was in the Spanish club in high school. I was in a play in junior high but did not do anything in high school. My high school was a school for two years and then became a junior high. I think the school administration did not encourage many clubs or organizations since the school would change in two years. However, they did play football and basketball. Oh, that reminds me, I was in the pep club for a year—I had forgotten about that!

mom, i really really wish you had saved this dress so that i could wear it. you look so classy and beautiful!

what kind of music did you like?

I liked rock and classical music. I took piano lessons in elementary school and even though I did not like to practice, I did like the music. Always wanted to learn to play Beethoven and Chopin but without practicing that was impossible!

when i was growing up, you gave me your original copies of “anne of green gables” and “the secret garden” to read. were those some of yr favorite books as an adolescent? what other novels did you treasure?

I LOVED Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames (she was a nurse), and some books about an airline hostess, but can’t remember her name. Then I discovered Anne, Honeybunch, the Bobbsy Twins and many others. In junior high Arthur Conon Doyle and Sherlock Holmes grabbed me as well as other authors. The Bronte sisters, Jane Austin, Margaret Mitchell and so many more authors kept me busy in high school. I liked mysteries too. Reading is still my favorite thing to do.

did you work when you were in high school?

I did not have job but I did a lot of babysitting.

where did you go to college? did you ever face any sexism as a woman attending a university? were there different expectations or rules for girls than for boys?

My first two years of college were spent at Kansas State Teachers College in Emporia, Kansas. It is now called Emporia College. The last two years were in Springfield, Missouri, at Southwest Missouri State, now called University of Missouri at Springfield, I think. I received a BS in Education, so I can teach English anywhere. No sexism that I remember, but we had very strict rules, i.e. No pants unless you were bowling, 11:00 curfew on weekends. I was an RA in the dorm my second year in school and part of the job was to work on the switchboard. Does anyone know what that is? I answered the phones for the dorm. How’s that for ancient history!! I do believe the boys had a lot more freedom. There were not many rules for them. I do not remember if the boys had a curfew. No coed dorms in 1965 in my small Kansas town. Rules were not so strict in Springfield but I think the dorms still did have hours. I lived in an apartment and that gave me unlimited freedom.

no pants unless you were bowling?!!!!! uh, wow. talk about pantsism!!

mom’s engagement picture… that hair flip is extraordinary. p.s. unlike her prom dress, she actually did save this one, and now it’s in my closet!

what inspired you to become a librarian? and why did you pick LSU for your graduate work?

My mother’s sister was a librarian and I decided that would be something I could see myself doing. She had experience in school, college and public libraries and was well known in library circles in Texas. I talked to her about what I should do. My first college had a graduate program for library science, but after I took a couple of courses, I thought the faculty was mostly 50+in years and I wanted younger professors.

what was your first librarian job like?

My first job as a librarian was in a high school in Lake Charles, Louisiana. It was a unique experience! The school was in a minority area in Lake Charles. There were, maybe, 10 white students in the schools and the rest were African American. Growing up, I lived in a white community and there were few black students in the three high schools I attended. My job was to take care of the library, catalog and order new books and have a few “How to use the Library classes”. I suppose I had a hard time understanding why anyone would not want to be in or use the library. So many of the students did not know how to read or did not enjoy reading. It was definitely a challenge to teach and encourage students who do not even want to be in school. This was the first time I had ever encountered kids who stole books. On the plus side, I formed a library club and in the meetings we would talk about books and reading. At the end of the school year the club had enough money to take a bus to Galveston and spend the day at the beach. This was the first time some of the students had ever been out of Lake Charles or Louisiana.

a field trip to galveston?! mom, you were totally a cool school librarian.

ok now back up and tell me about meeting dad! i’ve already heard his side of the story, but I want to get yr perspective on the random hippie dude who gave you a ride one day.

Dad and I met one day when he drove his car to the campus and offered me and the girl I was walking with a ride. I think I had seen him before, riding his bike to school. We lived in the same apartment complex. Can’t remember if he asked me out then or of it was another time when we saw each other. Our first date was a Halloween party one of his friends gave!

how did dad propose to you?!!

I was a part of the program at LSU to partner students and elementary school students from lower income neighborhoods (maybe like Big Brothers/Big Sisters).There was a group activity and Dad took me. After we dropped off James at his home, Dad and I drove back to my apartment.  Before we got out of the car, Dad gave me a bottle of champagne and my engagement ring was hanging around the neck of the bottle. He asked me to marry him and I said yes.

just married!! mom, you look so beautiful, and so does that cake!! dad, nice hair.

champers!! way to go, dad.

share a few memories of yr early married life. i love hearing about my hipster twenty something parents!

Our first home was a furnished apartment in Lake Charles. Naturally, right after our 2 day honeymoon to New Orleans, Dad was sent offshore for work. It was an adjustment for both of us since we were not used to sharing rooms and beds! That double bed was just not big enough!!We did meet two other newlywed couples in the complex and did things together, like spur-of-the moment trips to Astroworld and dinner parties. Lake Charles did not have tons of places to go for fun, but Dad and I had a small sail boat so we would take it out on the lake. I also had a yellow MGB sports convertible, with a matching MG jacket!

mom, you were totally stylin’!!!

i dig the matching hair and glasses. hipsterific!

what was life like after you moved to houston?

Life was faster paced in Houston. Dad worked downtown and I even worked for Conoco for a couple of months, doing clerical work. I got a job at a bookstore near the Galleria until I was able to start working for the Harris County Library. We had a nice apartment on San Felipe, near Voss. It was exciting to be in a large city and even more fun to make new friends. After Dad left Conoco and went to work for the engineering firm, we had a lot of great times with some of the people he worked with and their wives and girlfriends.

ok, so now I will enter the picture (yes!). did you have any weird cravings when you were pregnant with me? like, say, mac ‘n’ cheese? cupcakes? reese’s?

The only thing I really craved was chocolate milk!

dad, mom, and me (as a bump), christmas 1978.

did you know, in advance, that you wanted to be a stay at home mom, or did this decision just kind of evolve organically?

I think the idea of staying at home did indeed evolve organically. I wanted to be the best mother I could and I was blessed to be able to stay home with you. Dad was gone often so my staying at home worked out to be the best for all of us.

i’ll ask you the same narcissistic question i asked dad: what was it like to be my mom?

It has been one of the most fulfilling times in my life. It was and is a joyful experience.

as you can see, it was a joyful experience for both of us.

how would you compare your childhood to mine? when i was growing up, did i ever remind you of yourself?

Mama Helen said I was always a very adventurous child. I don’t think you were as daring but you did like the teacup ride at Disneyworld and the roller coasters at Astroworld! You always had friends over and were involved in many after school activities (art, music, scouts and more) and I do not remember doing much like that.

what sort of ideal did you strive for as a mother? what were the values you sought to instill in me?

I wanted to be the mother to you that my mother was for me. She had two other children so her time with me was more limited. I wanted you to love God, put other people before yourself and pursue a satisfying career, whatever that turned out to be. I wanted you to be self reliant but also to depend on God. I think being honest and truthful is one of the most important values I sought to instill in you.

mom, instilling her love of reading in me. p.s. from this angle, she looks exactly like i do now. crazy!

mom, you know how much I love yr beef stroganoff. wow did you learn to cook?

Like most girls, I learned to cook from my mother. I did go to a neat cooking class in the 5th grade, through the Campfire Girls. I also had lots of practice with two brothers. Your Uncle David is also talented in the kitchen!

you’ve done a lot of volunteer work since I was born. tell me about one of your favorite volunteer experiences.

One of the most fun volunteer works I did was in Lafayette, Louisiana. The history museum had a large dinosaur exhibit, the kind with the animals that move and make noise. I was a tour guide for school groups. The kids were always excited about the tours!!

mom’s volunteering was captured at an early age by a life magazine photographer!

you and i watched the v. first episode of buffy together, and ever since then, you have consistently out-cooled me with yr viewing habits, like “gilmore girls” and “roswell.” since you are obvs on the cutting edge, which current shows would you recommend?

Thanks for thinking of me being on the cutting edge! There aren’t many shows like the ones listed above. I am watching Fringe and am looking forward to Life on Mars, Eleventh Hour, and Dollhouse. I also like the Sarah Connors Chronicles.

what is yr secret power?

I am a mother—they have lots of secret powers!

like the secret power of hugs! this picture is from our girl scout train trip, which was seriously the coolest thing ever.

do you sleep in jimjams? what kind?

T-shirt and pj bottoms

what is yr #1 favorite food?

Lamb

what is yr top restaurant recommendation in austin? what’s the best thing on the menu?

Z Tejas, everything!

tell me about yr top area of expertise.

Spelling and grammar. You should know everything I learned about diagramming sentences, I learned in the 6th grade. I was an English major in college.

this photo is from our trip to hawaii for dad’s high school reunion. i remember secretly liking mom’s dress more than mine, cos it was pink. what i don’t remember is how AWESOME my haircut was.

what was yr favorite item of clothing as a child?

I had a yellow dress I wore for Easter.

what was yr favorite toy as a child? (the moody bonus question)

My Terri Lee doll and her beautiful clothes

what do you plan on doing when you’re 80?

Attending classes, reading and taking care of Dad.

me and my proud parents at my rice graduation. this photo makes me squee.

if you could assemble yr own ocean’s 11, who would you pick and why?

I think all my group would be some of my family plus your extremely talented friends—the best of the best.

what is yr best karaoke song?

I don’t do karaoke

mom, we must rectify this situation immediately.

tell me something scandalous!

When I was 4 years old, I took Scott and we ran away from home. Not really, but we walked across a major road and down the street to a house that I wanted to look at!  It was probably 4 or 5 blocks away from home. Your grandmother was not happy with me!

whoah, mom!! i’m shocked! the only time i ran away from home, i ended up under the dining room table with a box of thin mints.

mom, thank you so much for taking the time to answer all of my questions. it means so much to me to record your history and experiences, and reading about them makes me feel even more blessed to be your daughter.

i love you mom!

p.s. pants world, don’t forget that you can ask questions in the comments!

LINKS

amy poehler’s new tv show just got better… will arnett better!!!!!!

this is one of the sweetest stories ever. which i’m sure lifetime will make into a movie and ruin.

moody sent me this video of an elephant in houston helping out with hurricane clean-up. GAH why are elephants so great?!!!!

my favorite cat, winston, really likes blueberries. and fingers.

i know the picture is blurry, but i feel like it perfectly captures the essence of erin. the girl is like a modern day audrey hepburn, stylish and sophisticated, whimsical and overflowing with creativity.

i met erin back in 2004 when she moved to austin as a fresh faced college graduate. i immediately admired the fact that she was a painter, a *real* painter, who worked hard to get her pieces into galleries and shows. i treasure artistic friends, both for their unique perspectives as well as the hope that their creativity will rub off on me, and erin made an excellent addition to my “collection.” she just made it look so EASY, creating massive acrylic masterpieces out of the rich marriage of music and her imagination. the girl picked up the bow to her cello and instantly joined about ten different local bands. a month after she moved to austin, she was already making waves.

recently, i’ve been able to spend more time with erin, and i couldn’t be more delighted. she’s the girlie girl’s dream friend, always up for martinis, bike rides and tea parties. in fact, she recently sent me an email proposing that we take a troop beverly hills camping trip, complete with fondue and (i’m hoping) high end designer tents. yeah, this is where i pat myself on the back for my exquisite taste in friends.

on that note, let’s get the interview started! it’s cookie time (cookie time)!

so, erin. i found out the other day that you grew up in arlington. what was yr childhood like? yr family?

I’m the oldest of three kids (my brother Michael, 24 and half-sister Cara, 14) and a first-generation Texan.  My mom and dad met in California when he got drafted to the L.A. Lakers and she was Tina Turner’s business manager. 

whoah whoah WHOAH. i have to stop you right there. yr mom managed tina turner?!!! SPILL IT!!!

So my mom, having grown up in Los Angeles, apparently used to hang out with rock stars (Jim Morrison gave her a book of his poetry and she was friends with Jefferson Airplane).  At one point, she was working at a law firm that was handling Tina’s divorce from Ike.  My mother being the skillful and wonderful person that she is, won Tina over completely and was offered the job of Tina’s business manager (which my mom says involved making sure everyone got paid).  I rented “What’s Love Got to Do with It” starring Angela Bassett as Tina Turner, but couldn’t find any character who was supposed to be my mom.

um. that is amazing. ok, back to yr regularly scheduled interview…

They (my parents) moved around a few times after they first got married, following my dad’s basketball career (They spent one b-ball season in Anchorage, AK when he played for the CBA.) until the Mavericks were formed in 1980, bringing them to the Dallas area.

erin and her little bro, rocking the navy and red. seriously, WHERE CAN I GET THOSE OVERALLS? also i love how you can see grown-up erin’s reflection in the glass.

My parents (and thus, my extended family) come from two very different places- my dad was the middle of five kids born and raised in small town Pennsylvania where his dad (Grandpa Ed) was a steel mill worker and the Davis brood could be found every Sunday at the Catholic church; my mom and her younger sister, my middle-namesake Sandra Adelle, grew up in Los Angeles where Grandpa Norman worked in Hollywood (and did until he retired this year at 91 years old).  Summertime in Pennsylvania involved lots of cousins crowded into my grandparent’s house, trips to the penny candy store down the block and the entire town of Monaca shutting down to host a sequence of Brad Davis themed events (including a golf tournament, basketball camp and athletic banquet).  On the flip-side, summers in California can be summarized in three words: Crazy (but sweet) Jewish Relatives.  This cast of characters includes my grandpa’s bookie brother, Uncle Earl, grandma’s brother-in-law Uncle Jerry who, until Mike & I were teenagers, would chase us around the house and “bite our tushis,” and, of course, the infamous Grandma Lorraine (see below).

My mom was the coolest (and still is) of all my friend’s parents.  She always wore high heels (even to the gym), had big blond hair, long red fingernails and regularly attended arena rock (AC/DC, Poison, Aerosmith, etc.) shows.  As a result, memories of my childhood are set against the backdrop of 80′s hair metal classics like Bon Jovi’s “Bad Medicine” (which Mom would sing when giving Michael or I cough syrup) and Aerosmith’s “Dude Looks Like a Lady” (which Mom serenaded our cat Oliver with, as he was especially pretty for a boy cat).  It was no surprise to anyone when, after she and my dad split up in 1991, she began dating (and eventually married) Kenny, a hair metal drummer (His bands, DT Roxx and Stiff, opened for groups like White Snake when they’d do club tours through Texas.).

erin and her totally awesome, hair metal-loving, high heel-wearing, tina turner-knowing mom.

so yr mom managed tina turner AND regularly attended arena hair metal shows? SHE IS MY NEW HERO. speaking of heroes, i’ve heard some great stories about yr grandmother, and now i totally want to meet her. can you share a few of yr favorite gems about her?

Oh,  Grandma Lorraine.  This could be a blog all on its own.  If I was going to write a book of short stories about her (which I may someday), I would title the chapters as follows: “Why All the Waiters in California Hate Grandma Lorraine,” “Grandma Flies to Vegas, Spends All Her Money in the Airport Gift Shop, and Flies Back the Same Day,” “Grandma Denounces Jesus on Christmas Day (Because She Can’t Remember the Words to “O Come All Ye Faithful”),” “Grandma Gets Us a Free Stay at a San Diego Hotel for Endlessly Complaining to the Staff That Her Pillow Smells Like Urine,” and “Grandma & Scott Baio are the Godparents to Twin Boys Who Will Need Lots of Therapy.”

Her most recent antics have my grandfather (who half-jokingly threatens justifiable homicide whenever he speaks of his wife of 61 years) trying to bring on his own death.  (See the transcript below I’ve put together of a phone conversation between my Grandma and my mother)

Mom: [after having talked with Grandma several minutes already] So can I talk to Dad?
Grandma: [shouting] Norman!  Norman, Michele wants to talk to you. [Long pause]  He said he can’t come to the phone.
Mom:  Why not?  What is he doing?
Grandma: [shouting] Norman, she wants to know what you’re doing. [Another long pause]  He’s laying on the living room floor.
Mom:  What?!  Is he okay?  Why is he laying on the floor?
Grandma: [shouting] Norman, she wants to know why you’re on the floor.  [Yet another long pause]  He says he wants to die.

Yes folks, my Grandfather had so much of Grandma that he literally laid down on their living room floor and attempted to will himself to die.  But honestly, most people who’ve spent more than ten minutes with Grandma reach that “Jesus, take me now” moment.

grandma lorraine looks just as sassy in person as i imagined.

the woman is obviously a legend for a reason. sweet fancy moses! yr poor grandfather…

since yr dad was a basketball player, did you spend a lot of time going to games and hanging out with the players? i can totally picture you as the cute little unofficial mascot for the team. i know you played basketball as well… did you do it because it runs in yr family, or because you really enjoyed it?

My dad was in the NBA for 15 years (12 of which he was point guard for the Dallas Mavericks) so I definitely grew up with it.  I was the first Maverick baby (none of the other guys on the team had families yet) and spent much of my childhood in Reunion Arena where I honed the art of sleeping through the noise of a pro sporting event.  I had little personal interest in basketball when I was young, packing what I termed my “Bored Bag” (complete with books and art supplies) whenever we’d go to games.  That said, I really enjoyed the guys on my dad’s team.  I remember the year we hosted the Mavericks Christmas Party at our house and a series of 6-foot-something players streamed into our foyer, ducking to get through the doorway.  It definitely made for a unique upbringing which, of course, included yearly speaking engagements at my school where Dad would talk about work ethic and perseverance.

My parents forced me into YMCA basketball when I was 12, which I didn’t care for and in which I had no natural ability.  I continued to play until I was 15, though, mostly because my friends did.  I never got very good at it; I was an anomaly- a point guard who couldn’t handle the ball.  My skill set was limited to shooting three pointers (which I was surprisingly good at), taking charges (I was great at getting knocked down.) and re-filling the team’s water bottles (I like to help.).

Through a miscommunication with our athletic director, I got roped into coaching girls basketball at my previous school where my team ended up winning the district championship.  As it turns out, I’ve learned quite a bit about basketball (i.e. technique, drills, plays, etc.) through osmosis and, while my own talent is questionable, I can actually coach pretty well.  My family finds this endlessly entertaining, laughing uncontrollably at the thought of their daughter, who spent her years on the court saying “excuse me” to her opponents, now teaching kids to box-out and grab for rebounds.

erin is so tiny compared to her maverick dad. FYI I LOVE THIS PICTURE.

when and how did you discover yr passion for art?

My maternal grandfather and my mom’s younger sister are/ were both gifted artists.  Grandpa taught drawing at Carnegie Mellon (back when it was Carnegie Tech) and is an accomplished stained glass artist.  When I showed an affinity for art when I was little, my grandfather was instrumental in nurturing that interest, encouraging me to take classes and always keep drawing.  As a 4-year old, I remember thinking that all I wanted to be when I grew up was an artist.  I had a Crayola swing set in my backyard, a crayon collection (a giant metal popcorn bucket filled with crayons) and would spend afternoons with my paints in front of the TV making “happy little trees” along with Bob Ross.

When I took a more musical route during my teenage years, I briefly thought I’d go into music (as a band director- haha), but while I was at Baylor I ended up changing my major to art and never felt more at home than when I was in the studio building.

how long have you been playing the cello? do you write yr own music sometimes?

While I technically started with the cello when I was 10, I took a hiatus (to venture into the land of woodwind instruments) until I was 20, at which point I randomly decided to pick up the cello again.  By this time, though, I’d forgotten everything I’d learned and essentially took to playing entirely by ear.  To this day, it’s the one instrument I play that I do not know how to tune, do not know the proper fingerings for and prefer to tell people “I’m not a cello player; I’m a girl who owns a cello.”  Despite my lack of formal training, I’ve held my own with nearly 10 different bands and/or recording projects, including Balmorhea, Zookeeper and Moth! Fight!

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmRvikulcAA&feature=related]

check out miss no formal training parents playing with balmorhea.

As for writing my own music, I usually just write my own parts to songs others compose (never a whole song by myself).  I attempted to write a song on my ukulele last week and, after strumming my choice chords for about 30 minutes, realized I’d just “written” Camera Obscura’s “Happy New Year.”  Oops.

what were you like in high school?

I was the quintessential band nerd.  By high school, I played clarinet, bass clarinet and baritone saxophone and was in five different ensembles at any given time; and if that’s still not nerdy enough for you, I was also the band president who dated the drum major my senior year.  Say what you will about band nerds, but we were a close-knit bunch and, when my high school reunion rolls around in 2 more years, they’ll be the only ones I’m truly interested to see again.  Wearing 6 inch feathers on your head will bond you to people for life.

At some point, though, I managed to find a spare, non-band moment to get into speech and debate, which I took to immediately.  My specialty was Lincoln-Douglas debate and, with the black Petite Sophisticate suit my step-mom got me for Christmas, I swept the local tournament circuit.  My biggest thrill was going into my rounds and meekly introducing myself to my opponent (I can come across pretty quiet, especially initially) only to rip through the case once the debate had begun.  I even made a girl cry once- It was awesome.

awww! feel the band nerd love!

wow, i just realized that almost everyone i’ve interviewed on this blog was a band nerd. even my dad. where all my drama geeks at?!!

so, what made you decide to attend baylor for college? what was yr undergraduate experience like?

I chose Baylor because a) It was a private school (and, being so, I assumed it would be more “serious” and “quiet”) and b) my dad said I’d get cold if I went to Penn State.  Nowhere in my selection process did “largest Baptist university in the world” enter into the equation and thus I won the distinct honor of being un-churched freshman.  It was no longer good enough that I was a nice person because, in this world, if you weren’t a church member with a daily quiet time, you weren’t truly “good.”  My musical tastes became suspect to my conservative roommates (but, honestly, it was Dave Matthews- pretty suspect indeed) and I was the butt of many dorm jokes when I couldn’t find the “Book of Scriptures” in my Bible.  (Note to Christians: You/ we throw around ‘Scriptures says,’ without qualifying that it is the term used for all Biblical content.  To people who don’t know better, it could be (and has been) very confusing, just FYI.)  I nearly transferred after my freshman year until three significant things happened…

1) I began attending UBC (a church in Waco) where I met some of the most delightfully foul-mouthed but kind-hearted people I’ve ever known.  Their actions (not their words) convinced me to rethink my views on Christianity and, as a result, I was enveloped by this loving and accepting group.  It was at UBC that I was baptized (at the age of 20) and eventually served as a deacon.

erin’s “lunch bunch” group in college, 2003. note michelle, another poshdeluxe reader, in the pink shirt.

2) I discovered “Traveling Mercies” by Anne Lamott.  Her personal accounts of her flawed, grace-filled life gave me hope and encouragement for my own.  I bought it at the Baylor Bookstore (having heard it recommended by my favorite Lit professor) and couldn’t believe that our campus bookstore would sell a book that contained the graphic language and situations that this one did.  I got to meet Lamott at a book signing in Austin three years ago and I almost burst into tears when she said “hello.”

3) I became an art major.  After switching (get ready for this) from music education to English to museum studies to telecommunications, I eventually found my way “home” to the art department.  I settled on art education specifically (because Dad said I needed to be able to make a living at art and I can’t graphic design my way out of a paper bag) and spent the next four years taking great classes like lithography, oil painting and metal sculpture (I can weld!).

tell me about some of yr artwork. how would you describe yr style? do you have a favorite piece that you’ve created?

I’ve had the most experience (i.e. exhibitions, awards, etc.) in painting, which started as oils but then evolved into acrylics and watercolors (because they’re less expensive and dry faster).  Most people are surprised that I work in a very loose, organic and largely non-representational style (Think Jackson Pollock.) as I am a fairly neurotic, orderly person.  The first series of paintings I did were all based on songs that I’d listen to repeatedly during the painting process and were all non-objective and on wood panels (very, very heavy to hang).  My painting has changed a bit over the years, one of my biggest influences being my ex-husband and fellow painter Ben.  We did several joint exhibitions together and used to paint collaboratively on a regular basis, so it was only natural that our styles began to rub off on one another.  He’s incredibly talented, especially with colors and layering and I’ve tried for a long time to achieve something similar.

My favorite painting was one of the first in my Epiphany series (the one I mentioned above), painted to a song by a band I loved in college called Quiet, Lovely.  It’s at my dad’s house in Arlington, as my step-mother refuses to part with it.

a piece from the epiphany series entitled, “you could save me.”

for the past few years, you’ve worked as an art teacher. how do you instill an appreciation for art in children? what are some of yr favorite classroom activities?

I have been teaching art in schools for a little over 4 years now and I still wake up excited to go to work.  I have taught all ages, but I really enjoy working with smaller kids, as they have that great balance of unabashed creativity and unlimited inhibitions.  I’m adamantly opposed to “popsicle stick and cotton ball” artsy-craftsy things (even for 1st graders) and prefer instead to teach my students about the fundamentals of art, including art history and technique.  It’s an age-old lesson in drawing, but one of my favorite things to teach has always been shading to create form (i.e. using shading to make objects appear 3-dimensional).  It’s a discipline and the kids groan when they’re making their value scales, but when they finally apply it to a drawing they have that invaluable “a-ha” moment that makes it all worth it.  And, of course, there’s clay.  As an art teacher, you can’t go wrong with clay.  The kids love it- It’s like glorified mud.

unlike my friend becky, who is an art teacher at a public school, you’ve been working for private schools. do you think you have more funding and opportunities for art in a private setting? or is it the opposite? are there stricter guidelines in terms of curriculum?

I did my student teaching a public junior high in Waco where our entire student body was comprised of kids who came from the surrounding government project housing and it was one of the most powerful teaching experiences of my life.  When I moved to Austin in 2005, there weren’t any openings in AISD for art teachers and so I ended up with a private school in Southwest Austin where I stayed for 3 years and taught 1st- 8th grade art.  Going from my school in Waco, where we only had number 2 pencils and printer paper for art supplies, to a school with a seemingly endless art budget, my head was spinning.  I struggled for a while with the guilt of working with a privileged culture of students who I didn’t feel needed me as much as my inner-city Waco kids.  However, after about a year at the private school, I realized that these students had their own needs.  One of the things I’m able to talk to my private school kids about is the care of their supplies, explaining to them how fortunate they are to have what they do.  Last year, when my students broke the electric pencil sharpener I made them use the cheap, plastic hand-held ones to teach them a lesson.

an erin davis watercolor, entitled, “there’s always another.”

This is my first year at my new school, also a private school in Southwest Austin, where I am the Fine Art Director in addition to the grammar school art teacher.  In this role, I oversee the curricula for all the fine arts disciplines (drama, art, music, etc.) and am passionate about having a strongly academic department where our kids become true masters of their discipline (and don’t just paint “pretty pictures” or sing “pretty songs”).  An additional challenge at this new school is our more limited funding.  Private schools get their money through grants, but mainly through tuition and, being at a school that charges significantly less than my previous one, our budget is far more modest and impacts what we’re able to purchase.  Determining our budget and apportioning it amongst our fine arts teachers (grades K-9) was another of my fun jobs at department head, but it has certainly taught me to be resourceful.

tell me about blowing glass, because THAT IS AMAZING!

I first became interested in glassblowing my freshman year of college when I took  Art Appreciation for Non-Majors (back in my telecommunications days) and my professor showed us the documentary “Chihuly Over Venice” which chronicled glass artist Dale Chihuly’s creation and installation of chandeliers around Europe.  When I turned 21, my dad and step-mother took me to Seattle for my birthday gift where I went to the Museum of Glass in Tacoma (home to Chihuly’s Bridge of Glass) and the open house at Pilchuck Glass School.  It was at this point that I determined I would return the next year to Pilchuck as a student.  My time at Pilchuck was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.  I lived on an artist commune in the middle of Washington state along with 100 other glass artists where there was constantly art being made.  I worked alongside some amazingly talented people and fortified my passion for glass.

I’ve been out of the “glass scene” for a few years now (having focused more on painting and music), but, after practically stalking the folks at Wimberley Glassworks with regular trips to their hot shop, I decided to enroll in glassblowing classes through Austin Art Glass.  Also, in switching to a school without a 401K, I cashed in what I’d accrued at my old school and put it aside for tuition at either Penland or Haystack- two craft schools in the Appalachians that offer glassblowing. My co-workers tease me that I  just like working in a well-heated environment, but it’s really the idea that you’re taking natural materials- sand, fire and air- and making something spectacular and beautiful.

i’ve heard that you are a future inhabitant of jessica’s sprawling old cat lady mansion. with that said, tell me about yr favorite kitty, stella.

My mother gets credit for making me a cat lady.  She has managed vet clinics for almost 20 years and has owned  about 10 cats now (not including the strays she feeds regularly and the ones she rescues from the sides of highways).  She is the original cat lady.  While I only have one cat, I must say that she is a great one- Miss Stella Artois, the fabulous tabby.  Stella is a Taurus who enjoys putting her toy mice in her water dish, licking herself in front of company and eating cheese.  Jessica dubbed her a Fancy Kitteh (a distinction that only Jessica can truly make) and I feel like she lives up to her title.  One of her quirks that I enjoy most is a certain meow she does when she’s in another room and desires your company.  It sounds like she’s saying “Hello?  Hello?” and will continue to do so until you find her so lonely and pitiful that you go into said other room and scratch her chin (which is what she ultimately wants).

hello? hello? i iz fancy kitteh. plz to scratch ma chin? kthx.

what is yr secret power?

The ability to attain a chill in even the most temperate climates.  I am perpetually cold and, as a result, frequently dress unseasonably (see below questions) and keep a space heater under my desk at work year-round (which has caused almost daily breaker shortages in my office).

do you sleep in jimjams? what kind?

In the summer, it’s nothing special- just a tank top and shorts, but in the cooler months (which for me includes any temperatures below 70 degrees) you would think I was going to be sleeping in an igloo.  This super-cozy, maximally heat trapping uniform involves: a pair of NBA sweatpants, a Beaver Valley Heating & Air Conditioning (my aunt & uncle’s business) sweatshirt, a pair of green wool socks and countless under layers for extra padding.  Like I said before, I get cold really easily.

what is yr #1 favorite food?

Like the lovely Posh, my heart belongs to macaroni and cheese.  My favorites can be found at Lambert’s BBQ on 2nd Street and Galaxy Cafe (where you also have to order a side of sweet potato french fries).  Oceanspray’s jellied cranberry sauce (yes, the kind that comes out shaped like the can) runs a close second, as I have been known to consume an entire can in one sitting.

what is yr top restaurant recommendation in austin? what’s the best thing on the menu?

Everybody should know about Buenos Aires Cafe on S. 1st.  If you still didn’t go after Trish recommended it in her interview, now you really have to make a trip because it is some bona-fide tasty business.  My former bandmates took me there after what was perhaps the worst show we ever played and ordered me the gnocchi, a.k.a. my favorite thing on the menu.  Also, their desserts are not to be missed.

tell me about yr top area of expertise.

That would be saw-playing.  A friend of mine played one at a show a few years ago and I was instantly enamored, insisting that he teach me.  I went out the following week and purchased my very own 26″ saw from Ace Hardware (for $9) and proceeded to torture the cat and anyone within a five-mile radius with the piercing shrieks.  The saw is one of those instruments that you have to practice at for quite a while before you can play in public without being stoned.  Eventually, I debuted the saw and have since played and recorded it with several groups.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71xAraYQbgI]

the cello AND the saw? erin’s like dick van dyke at the beginning of “mary poppins”!!!

what was yr favorite item of clothing as a child?

I had a gray Dallas Mavericks sweatshirt that my father had given me which I wore every single day (along with a pair of knee-length jean shorts) for nearly 4 straight months without fail.  And did I mention that it was during the summer?  Yeah, I was the weird girl with the chili-bowl haircut rocking a sweatshirt in 100-degree temperatures.  The sweatshirt met an untimely end when my father accidentally spilled coffee on it, staining it irreparably.

what erin failed to mention is that she started rocking hipster fashion at an early age. check that izod and those headphones!!

what was yr favorite toy as a child? (the moody bonus question)

I had, hands down, the best dollhouse of all my friends, which consumed countless hours of my childhood.  It had 12 rooms, working lights, took up a third of my bedroom, and was home to my dollhouse family, The McDonalds’.  My friends and I used to act out elaborate story lines with the dolls, which I’d then put into short stories (which were blatant Judy Blume rip-offs).  The dollhouse is still taking up space at my dad’s house in Arlington and every time I visit he petitions me to take it back to Austin with me.

what do you plan on doing when you’re 80?

Living in Washington state, where I get to make art, hang out in the local hot shops and play music.  Jessica has to come with me, of course, as we have a plan to live in a house filled with cats where we host regular fancy kitty tea parties (where the tea is actually gin and tonic).

if you could assemble yr own ocean’s 11, who would you pick and why?

Jessica would document the adventure in a best-selling novel; Sarah would keep us on schedule while providing snacks; Matt would smooth talk us out of (or into) almost any situation; Amber would create diversions with her dramatic flair; My brother Mike, the M.B.A., would funnel the spoils of our heist; Ben would make us the perfect iTunes mix of “Songs to Heist To”; My friend John from Pilchuck would be in charge of torches; Jenkies would be our make-up artist to keep us incognito; Coop would utilize her red-headed powers of seduction; Tyler (a professional copywriter) would compose our ransom notes and handle our PR; My friend Lauren would be our legal counsel; My mom would be our moral support (because my mom is the best).  And, as both the Marfa & Terlingua PD can attest, I would be our get-away driver.

erin and oceans 11 member jessica at prada marfa. don’t let their provocative poses fool you– they’re secretly casing the joint.

what is yr best karaoke song?

I’ve only done karaoke once and it was Elton John & KiKi Dee’s “Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart” at Pete & Joy’s wedding reception.  With adequate prompting and pressuring, I would do it again- but would most likely stick to other Elton classics like “Bennie & The Jets” and “Tiny Dancer.”

do people ever tell you that you look like someone famous? who?

I’ve gotten: Hilary Swank, Paige Davis (from ‘Trading Spaces’) and a young Carol Burnett, but the one I get most is Lacey Chabert (of “Party of Five” and “Mean Girls”).  In high school, the popular kids called me Claudia (Chabert’s character on “Party of Five”), as in: “Hey, ask Claudia what she got on number eight.”

tell me something scandalous!

When I was 15, a group of friends (both guys & girls) and I played Laser Tag in our underwear at Triangle Bowl in Arlington.  Sorry Mom.

don’t be sorry, erin, cos that story is awesome.

thanks for letting me interview you! it’s been such a treat! now let’s head over to barneys and get our camping gear…

LINKS

best news of the week: looks like there will be a GHOSTBUSTERS 3 MOVIE!!! HOLY SHIZZ!!!! “ray, if someone asks you if you want to make another ghostbusters movie, YOU SAY YES!”

OMGG3R!!

in light of our previous conversation on working moms, olivia sent me this article about a study concerning working moms, housework and maternity/paternity leave. and surprise, it’s depressing.

she also sent me this 1958 study of how children react when trapped in refrigerators, which made me think a) science doesn’t get away with this kind of AWESOME anymore b) two words: punky brewster.

this is brian. doesn’t he look like he’s ready to be interviewed?!

brian started commenting on le blog a while back, when the alamo blog linked to my write-up of the bbq tour. and he is one of the reasons that i originally decided to conduct these interviews, cos people were like, “who the heck is brian?” and, likewise, he didn’t know who any of you guys were, either!

and now you’re about to learn a whole lot more about him! and i am too! which is why this introduction is now ending, cos i don’t know any more than you do!

ok, brian, let’s start at the beginning, since this is where i always start, cos i’m not v. original. tell me about where you’re from, yr family, any siblings, etc.

I grew up in the suburbs of St. Paul, MN in a little town called Little Canada. Apparently at one point in the late 1800s it had a church steeple that was higher than anything in St. Paul but that’s about the only thing the town is known for. My parents were both teachers though my mom stayed home just after I was born. I thought it was annoying at the time but it was really great having them around during the summers. We’d end up taking long road trips and hang out swimming in the pool and watching videos. I’ve got two sisters that are each just a bit younger than I am.

My dad has been recycling cans well before it was ever cool to recycle. He might be (no, he IS) the only person I’ve ever known who paid for their master’s degree using recycled cans. One of my first jobs was going out with him after the softball games picking up beer cans at the local park. We’d take them home and crush them, counting out the number of cans it takes to get a pound (if you’re curious, it’s around 26). Then, he’d make a hash mark on a set of index cards he’d been keeping since he started out. A couple of years ago he recycled his one millionth can. He still cans and uses the money to golf with his teacher buddies but we used to use the money on baseball cards. To this day I still can’t walk past an empty can in a parking lot without looking at it and feeling the urge to pick it up. It’s kind of a curse.

I was really into building things. Legos, Construx (they were these girder like plastic pieces that connected to little plastic connector things which I thought were MUCH cooler then legos at one point in elementary school), wood. It didn’t really matter. I was mesmerized by my Grandpa’s jigsaw. It was the one thing I REALLY wanted when he and my grandma moved into a nursing home. I was also pretty into video games. We eventually got a NES but my dad had decided to invest during the Atari days in this system Sears was pushing called The Intellivision (it was the intelligent television!) and he had seven or eight of these machines stockpiled along with all sorts of games. (if there were going to be a video game apocalypse we were going to be prepared!). Anyway, a group of kids from school would get together almost every Friday night at one of our houses and we’d all bring our various systems. We’d play all night, eat pizza and goof off.

it’s obvious that brian had high hair standards when it came to picking out friends.

As for the Twins, you can’t NOT be a Twins/Vikings/North Stars/Gophers fan (pick one based on whoever happens to be doing the best at the time) (may they rest in peace and may Norm Green be punished eternally
for moving them to Dallas) if you live in the Twin Cities. I grew up in a baseball family though so the Twins never got given up on no matter how poorly they were playing. I don’t remember how it started but my dad and I used to go hang out next to the players entrance outside the Metrodome in the afternoons before games and if someone really famous was in town after the game where the other teams bus would park in the loading dock. We got the chance to meet all sorts of people that way, Jose Canseco, Ken Griffey Jr, Nolan Ryan, David Justice and all of the various Twins players. Once time when the Oakland A’s were in town Jose Canseco and his brother Ozzie showed up at the stadium wearing matching white leather jackets. My friend asked for their autograph and I don’t remember exactly how it happened but the next thing we knew there was accidentally blue sharpie on both of their leather jackets and they were PISSED. Not a lot you can do to a 12 year old kid though.

I was a geek. Not only was I a geek, I was a geek that didn’t fit in with the geeks. I had friends that were in a bunch of the different social circles but I didn’t totally fit in with any one group. The high school I went to was one of a few schools in the Twin Cities Metro area that had a fencing program. There was only one other club that was at a public high school (Minneapolis North). All of the others were private schools and fencing clubs. We started in junior high but the private schools and fencing clubs started when they were in elementary school. I started bowling in elementary school, I could compete with them in that but in Fencing we were the Bad News Bears.

In band, I played tenor sax. I guess I thought I was a much bigger deal than I probably actually was. I played in the jazz band and would get solos during most of the jazz concerts (where I would proceed to play basically the same improvised solo I had played at every other jazz concert) and I’d feel the scorn from a couple of the rocker/art kids in the back. I actually found one of them on facebook recently and tried to befriend her as a bit of a social experiment. I wanted to see if SHE’D changed and I wanted to do some research for a screenplay I’ve been tossing around. I sent her an e-mail basically asking “what the deal was?”

and the response…

Hey Brian–

As far as your question goes, you’re not a horrible person at all. I think that’s great that we share many things in common. I think the biggest problem in high school was attitude.

You seemed to carry yourself with an unusual confidence that made an easy target for teasing. You wore jester hats, did the splits during a Jazz Band concert, told people you were “going to go grunge”. A line
in your senior summary was “see you when I’m famous”. Confidence is great and important to have, but it’s just downright embarrassing when someone puts on a veil of confidence and puts themselves out there
without a whole lot to back it up. In high school especially, it’s kind of asking for it (“it” being criticism and ridicule).

I guess in my mind you kept putting on a persona that was completely forced. The thing that really sticks out in my mind was Jazz Band. The picture in the yearbook with your sunglasses pushed down and the
“cool” look on your face. The “attitude” during the solos. Attempting the splits when it looked like you almost broke your leg doing it. I’m sure you liked jazz but it just seemed so awkward that it was embarrassing. I always wanted to know why you tried to do the splits, by the way.

yeah, i can see what she’s talking about… er…

So to make a long story even longer, it wasn’t animosity towards you per se, but the attitude you projected.

* * *

bottom line? Still an asshole. Anyway, that was high school.

uh, dude. that is AMAZING, not only that you sent that email but that she was so honest in her response! i am totally doing this!! hello new blog series!! it’s like, high fidelity, but on an even bigger scale. seriously, wow.

how did you get into graphic design?

The high school I went to had a photography instructor who had a long family history in the printing business. Because of that, since he’d been there, he’d been building up a pretty large press shop and that
expanded to a t-shirt press as well. He ran a company called Raider Graphics that printed all of the t-shirts for the various sports teams in the high school (we REALLY wanted him to let the fencing team print our unofficial slogan on a t-shirt “Beat Thrust and Lunge with our Long Hard Rods” but he’d never budge) and did most of the school districts various print runs. You couldn’t get paid to work for the company but you could get school credit. It was basically an apprenticeship as one of your class periods. It was there that I first started getting into graphic design.

The other thing I was pretty involved with in high school was public access television. I mentioned above that I liked to build things, well, most of the things that I ended up building became space vehicles and stations and what do kids who’ve been exposed to too many Star Wars and Star Trek movies do? They want to make their own. I started shooting my masterpiece using my dads camcorder but I didn’t have any way to edit it. I remembered that we had visited the local public access station once when they were having an open house and that they offered classes in video production and editing. I took that first class and started hanging out at the station more and more. The people at the station mentioned that the school district needed volunteers to help shoot concerts and sporting events and I started spending a lot of time with that group. Now it was much, MUCH cooler to be in the production truck than it was to be on the camera. My friend Ryan though was getting ready to graduate and he was the guy who ran the character generator that put up the scores of the game. I thought that was kind of cool and started trying to learn what I could from him. Somewhere in the middle of those two things I got interested in graphic design but not before I decided that I was going to not go to a four year school and go to two year Radio Broadcasting program instead…

note the AV sign. awesome.

tell me about meeting yr wife, angela. i’ve heard it involved a silver metallic shirt.

Angela was actually still in high school when she first saw me. I was working on shooting a promotional video for a motivational speaker friend and the night that I taped this drug and alcohol lecture, Ang was in the audience. Anyway, that guy also happened to be the college youth director at the church I grew up at and he convinced both of us that we needed to check out the young adult group. We both started going but never really ran into each other. Someone in the group made up a list that had everyone’s instant messanger handle on it and we both added everyone to our buddy list.

That New Years Eve, the young adults had a dinner and dance. It was a costume party and while fellow M.C. and brother-in-law was wearing an Austin Power’s costume, I was wearing a silver lame short sleeved shirt, afro wig and plastic “2000″ sunglasses with lenses between the 2 and the last 0 that had a 1 taped over the end so that I could reuse them. Anyway, afterwards I heard her talking to some friends about some artist whose name I knew but whose music I hadn’t ever listened to and decided to impress her with the fact that I knew who she was talking about. We spent some time talking and realized that the other person was the person we saw online ALL THE TIME.  She’d leave her laptop logged on in her dorm room and I’d be logged in to my editing computer at work. We didn’t know each other at the time but like I said, we’d see each other online ALL THE TIME. That broke the ice and we started talking online almost every night.

Soon after we started hanging out, I sent this in an email to a friend:

“Angela’s really amazing. She’s smart and musical, and she’s got these eyes that you could get swallowed up by. She’s younger than I am (she’s 19, I’m 23) but we click really well. I’m not totally sure where we stand, I’m really cool with friendship, but I’m starting to feel more towards her. I guess we’ll see how it develops. She’s got a senior portrait up on her website, though I don’t think the backlighting on it does her justice…

so there you go, that’s what I haven’t had time to post about. She puts this grin on my face that I can’t get rid of, and I guess that’s a good thing…”

Anyway, we’ve been married for five years now. She still puts the grin on my face and I still guess that that’s a good thing.

awww, squee!

ang and brian after an impromptu parking lot dance party, circa 2001.

yeah, it’s our bad habit. Right now we keep our DVDs in the living room. They kind of wrap around all of the walls. We long ago ran out of space for normal cases so this is where the obsessive compulsive part of me comes in, I’ve downloaded the artwork, adjusted in photoshop and printed out a new cover that fits in a thin case for almost every movie we own. It took a few covers at a time over the period of a couple of years but I eventually made it through converting almost everything. We do watch movies more than once but not often. There’s always something new that we have to see! A lot of times though we’ll watch something again just so that we can introduce someone else to it. We’re not particularly picky about what we watch. I think that there’s something good that can be taken out of almost any movie. There are films that are just plain stupid but for the most part, I think that holds true… and yes, we do check out movies. No due date stamps but we’ve got everything inside this DVD database program and when we’re on top of it, we can check things out through that. If we had it set up right it would even send you an e-mail when it’s due.

whoah. that response exceeded my expectations.

you GUYS. these were brian and angela’s WEDDING INVITATIONS. OMGGGGGG. YOU’VE GOT MARRIAGE!!!!! obviously, we were destined to be friends.

Ang and I were really excited a few years ago when we found out that Tim and Karrie were taking the Roadshow around the west and that they were coming to this little town called Canon City outside of Colorado Springs to show Jane Fonda’s Cat Ballou. Being that the movie was showing on a Sunday night forty miles from any population center there weren’t many people there. So we had the chance to sit and watch the
movie in this cool old western town that the film had been shot at with maybe a dozen to two dozen other people? It was pretty amazing.

The next year we dragged three more people with us up to Estes Park and back the same night (100 miles each way) to see The Shining at the Stanley Hotel (They didn’t shoot the movie there but Stephen King had written the book while he was staying there). I think the best part of the night was watching Lisa Loeb trying to stammer her way through an introduction for the movie. I love you Netflix but I can think of much cooler and more appropriate people than Lisa Loeb to send out as a host/hostess.

I think the coolest Roadshow even though was seeing North by Northwest at Mt. Rushmore. For whatever reason, after the evening ceremony was over most of the people there for the lowering of the flag took off. So, a few dozen of us sat under the stars, staring up at Mt Rushmore in between starting at the screen. At one point the automatic timers that keep the lights pointed at Mt Rushmore on turned off and you heard the ranger rummaging around in the back room trying to turn the lights back on. It really felt like you were sitting in somebody’s gigantic backyard watching an outdoor movie.

GAH! i need to stow away in the rolling roadshow truck next summer!

The company I was working for at the time decided to relocate here in order to better pursue some business interests that never came to fruition. Before I moved here, my image of Colorado Springs was that of some town nestled in the mountains. A quaint precious downtown with old stone buildings and lots of snow. I didn’t realize that it was a really hilly piece of plains nestled NEXT to the mountains.  I think Colorado Springs gets a bad rap and I’ve tried to do what little I can in the five years I’ve lived here to try and dispel some of the notions. While there ARE a lot of Christian organizations based here (Focus on the Family, the Navigators, International Bible Society, Young Life, Compassion International, yadda yadda yadda) the town is just as influenced by the military (Fort Carson, the Air Force Academy, Peterson Air Force Base, NORAD) and even more than that, influenced by western “leave me alone” individualism.

angela and brian, dressed up as “mystery men” for halloween, i.e. making their own culture in colorado springs.

There’s not a LOT of culture and there could certainly be better barbecue, but if you’re ready to settle down and raise kids it’s a pretty nice, gigantic ‘suburb’ to raise your family in. That’s probably the key part of it. Colorado Springs is like a giant suburb. It’s close enough to Denver that it’s a bedroom community for a lot of people and because a lot of the larger employers are on the outskirts of town there’s not a lot of city center. If you really want to understand more about Colorado Springs read Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation. A good chunk of the research that he did was in Colorado Springs. If there weren’t things that we felt we needed to do that we CAN’T do in Colorado Springs, I’d imagine we’d stay. I tell people that if I could move Austin to here I’d never leave. It’s beautiful here. Every morning as I’m driving to work I can look up at Pike’s Peak. I’m always excited when the end of summer comes and the Peak gets it’s snow pack back. But I can’t bring Austin here (at least not yet. If I had the money I could fly in the culture) so we need to go to where we can do the things we want to do.

you mentioned that you guys are planning to move to austin and get involved with film. tell me more about yr plans!

we’re moving. we don’t have a firm date yet but we’ve decided that when the lease is up on the condo at the end of January we’re not getting another place here. We’ve been talking for a long time about wanting to get involved in film work and if we’re ever going to do it, we need to start making moves that will put us in position to actually be around it. If we wanted to stay here and move to Denver we could probably have more opportunities to get involved in various film related things but there’s still not a lot of production going on.
While a lot of the production has moved away from Austin (for the moment) because of tax incentives in Louisiana and New Mexico, there’s still more independent production going on than Colorado Springs,
Denver or Boulder combined. Plus, come on? We have the Telluride film fest (if we wanted to drive to the other side of the state and spend several hundred dollars) and the good but not particularly prestigious Denver International Film Festival but that doesn’t compare to SxSw, Austin Film Festival or Fantastic Fest, not to mention all of the various Alamo things and at UT.

dude, you guys look like you live in austin already! (photo taken circa 2002).

the name of yr blog is “confessions of a flabby ironman.” please explain.

I’ve always been a cyclist in some capacity. When I got out of high school I started doing century (100 mile) rides, mostly to see if I could do it. The first one was such a thrill that I decided to do a double century called the “Paul Bunyan”. I basically spent 14 hours on a bike (and about three hours of resting) biking north out of the Twin Cities and up and around this lake that’s so big you can’t see the other side of it. Finishing 204 miles was such a thrill that I wanted to do another century. I was at work one day and saw that they were going to be creating a new Ironman triathlon even in Madison, Wisconsin. For some strange reason something in the back of my head thought that it would be a fun thing to try. I remember telling my parents that I was going to do it. My dad (ever the supporter), looked at me and said “You’re going to drown!” about a year of training later, I was registered as a collegiate entrant to the inaugural Ironman Wisconsin. “Flabby Ironman” comes from the fact that I never really lost any weight amidst all the training. I was still over 200lbs when I finished that night. There are all sorts of stories about the race but I’m already being really long winded.

flabby ironman, in the flesh. dude, where are yr rocket boots?

My ability to be long winded. Umm, no, I think my superpower would have to be the fact that I’m interested in all sorts of things and at least do a decent job at the things that I try. .

At LEAST boxers. It really depends on the weather though. Our current place doesn’t have any air conditioning so it’s been WAY too hot to wear pajama bottoms. I’m a big fan of the pajama bottom though. When I discovered old navy and their plethora of pajama patterns, I was a changed man.

probably deep dish pizza, chicago style. On another midwest regional fencing trip we went to Chicago and while there hit this pizza place that I’ve never been able to find again. The pizza had this amazing buttery/garlicy crust and there wasn’t just sausage on the pie, it was a WHEEL of sausage. It was one of the most amazing things that I’ve ever seen and sadly, have never seen again.

uh, i guarantee you at least half of pants world is drooling right now. ok, two-thirds.

Of the 7-8 times we’ve been to Austin, we’ve mostly been dragged around to the stand-bys. Chuy’s, The Salt Lick, etc. Ordering family style at the Salt Lick is a pretty amazing thing, but I’d have to say one of the best things I’ve had in Austin was this queso my friends swear by at Enchilada Y Mas. I wish I had some right now.

yep, brian. definitely a nerd in high school. but you know, it takes one to know one.

umm.. top area of expertise. Like I mentioned in my superpower, it’s that I kind of don’t have one.

The aforementioned Construx

Hopefully still cycling, still making movies, enjoying everything I can out of life, enjoying my grandkids.

Angela would be there with her massage therapist hands making sure that everybody was ready to go. My friend Nate would be there running the numbers. For technical support I’d bring in my brother-in-law
Paul. His wife and my sister Bobbi would be distracting people with her singing voice. My friend Terry would be a strategist and some brawn. Alison my coworker would be there with her roller-derby skates of doom and while there are other people who’d probably be able to help out, I think that’d the core of who I’d want around.

Not this past Christmas but the one before that, I discovered that I happen to be able to put on a pretty killer Meatloaf voice. I brought the house down at a karaoke party with a rendition of “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)”.

not really. More often, I’m telling someone they look like someone when I see something show up temporarily in a facial expression.

speaking of facial expressions… sorry, i just CAN’T GET ENOUGH of these high school pictures!!

tell me something scandalous!

While I was working on my still-on-hold double major I was working for two different production companies doing editing work. One of them was in a run down warehouse/office building on one of the main strips
connecting Minneapolis and St. Paul. It was a depressing place to work and the owner of the company didn’t help matters much (he’s also the only person I’ve ever met who’s wife was a mail-order-bride from Russia. Surprisingly they were seemingly madly in love.) Anyway, working for two places (and putting in a few hours at a third at some points)  while carrying a full load of both regular and honors classes gave me a bad case of burnout. The last project I worked on with this production company was a direct-mail video called “Woman to Woman, a guide to helping your man pick impotence treatment”. It was this fake talk show where these elderly women sat around talking about how their husbands couldn’t get it up anymore. Then, the host showed everyone (with real live surgical video of senior citizen genitalia being cut open) how various balloon devices could be inserted in so that their guy could achieve an erection. I couldn’t take working there anymore and quit.

[silence, i.e. i am speechless]

brian, this was so fun! i feel like i actually kind of know you now, even though we’ve never met in person! thanks for reading my blog and joining pants world in the first place. i hope you make it to austin!

and seriously, you have totally inspired a new blog series…

p.s. as mentioned above, brian’s got a blog that you can check out if you want to learn more about him and angela and their crazy dvd cataloging, colorado springs living, ironmaning ways!

LINKS

have you guys seen this video of a panda giving birth? it’s actually not gross at all, but it IS super weird! like, why can’t human labor be this easy? the baby just, like, jumps out!

apparently, david duchovny took his californication character a leeetle too seriously…

josh d. posed this link on FB today… watch the mythbusters guys make an instant mona lisa with a robot thing! i think it’s supposed to demonstrate some kind of processing unit but whatever, it just looks like a giant paint ball gun to me.

oh cake wrecks. i love you “in pink” (the high “hill” one is my favorite, btw).

OMG!! glass cupcakes! thanks, erin d., for the link… and for making me one in the future! i win!

well, in today’s exclusive interview, HER IDENTITY IS REVEALED!

like, RIGHT NOW! in this picture!!!

hint: her name is on her t-shirt. except the queen part is a lie. unfortunately.

since msw’s name is so unique, she prefers using her initials so that when people google her, they won’t find anything potentially embarrassing. although in her case, the most embarrassing thing i can come up with is that she loans me vampire romantic fiction.

i met msw at wiess college, where we both lived while attending rice university. msw was actually two years ahead of me, but i got to know her a little bit through my orientation week advisor (we call them fellows), emily (also known as EK, which is an actual nickname versus an internet safety precaution).

our friendship didn’t *really* start to form until earlier this year, when msw got a job at UT, and we started Power Lunching (definitely one of my favorite parts about being a working girl). we quickly discovered that we had a lot of favorites in common, from buffy to cupcakes. in fact, if you like baked goods, i *highly* recommend that you make friends with msw. not only does she bake a lot, but she BRINGS TREATS TO MY OFFICE. WITHOUT ME ASKING. it’s actually one of her trademark qualities, as evidenced by the fact that she brought cupcakes to my birthday field day (pictured above).

of course, tasty business isn’t *actually* the main reason i like being friends with msw (but i’m not gonna lie, it’s a perk!). she’s just one of those “heart of gold” people… like, you can feel it the second you meet her. she really *embraces* life, aided by positive nature that is visible from miles away, even in foggy conditions. this girl is constantly finding new passions that she will then exhaustively research until moving on to the next one; moreover, she even loves helping her friends pursue their own interests (she made me a photocopy of an article about coffee makers after we had a discussion about them) and life goals (she reviewed my resume for me). seriously, the woman is a machine! but, like, the huggable kind.

ok, time to stop gushing and get down to business!

msw, let’s start at the beginning, a v. good place to start. tell me about yr family, where you grew up, etc.

My Georgia family is pretty small, with three generations of only children (me, my dad, my grandfather, all onlys). My parents divorced when I was 3, and my dad got custody, but I still saw my mom on weekends and holidays. I also spent a LOT of time with my dad’s parents, so I’m closer to my grandmother (“Grandmomma”, I’m a good Southern girl than anyone else in my family. I also have a pretty fantastic step-mom, two step-brothers, and some step-aunts/uncles/niece/nephew types. My mother’s side of the family is far more plentiful, but all in Thailand.

squee alert! tiny msw with her beautiful mother.

I grew up in a kinda small town about an hour outside of Atlanta, and I couldn’t wait to move to a big city! There wasn’t a whole lot of ethnic diversity there at the time, so I always felt like I stood out like a sore thumb. Gainesville isn’t without its charms, though. It was the “Poultry Capital of the World” when I was growing up (I think this was self-proclaimed, much like Austin’s claim of “Live Music Capital of the World”, only far more…um…niche), and there’s still a statue of a chicken near downtown. In the town square is a statue of a Confederate soldier, and he’s facing north (of course, it’s the Deep South . And some of the 1996 Olympic events were on the nearby lake.

So yeah, I’m a weird mix of Southerner, progressive Austinite, Southeast Asian…I love to defy expectations!

you, like me, are an only child. growing up, how did you feel about that? do you think you fit any of the only child stereotypes?

Being an only child and an only grandchild, I was pretty spoiled in some ways, but my dad (“Daddy”) and Grandmomma were also pretty strict with disciplining me and making sure I said “please”, “thank you”, “sir”, and “ma’am”. But as an only child I’m used to always being special and getting lots of attention (A rather large portion of Grandmomma’s apartment is dedicated to photos of me at all ages. ). I think I manage my only-childness pretty well. I’ve known some pretty over-the-top, selfish, spoiled only-child adults, but I don’t *think* I’m that way. (You might have to ask my husband about that!) Something that we have in common is naming our possessions, which I suspect is b/c of being only children!

I did hate being an only child growing up. At the time, I felt like my childhood was stressful (being teased for being different, moving between Momma and Daddy’s houses, etc), and remember wanting to have someone I could share my life with (That’s another way I’m not like a typical only child…I love to share!).

for only children, soaking up attention becomes an art form. especially when dads are involved.

i, too, have my own personal photo gallery at my parent’s house. but did yr grandmother make a xmas tree of ornaments with yr face on it? yeah…

you grew up in a town near atlanta– tell me about it! what do you do in georgia? if i went to visit, what would you recommend?

Hmmm….I’m trying to remember the places we went on field trips growing up, b/c I was never really a tourist in the area, and I couldn’t WAIT to move away! I’d recommend going in the fall, b/c fall is gorgeous in North Georgia. The leaves change color, the air is crisp, but it’s not TOO cold. Atlanta has some stuff that you’d probably enjoy, like the Coca-Cola museum and the Varsity, this crazy burger joint that’s been around for ages. Stone Mountain Park is fun (it’s like Enchanted Rock but more touristy), and I hear that the new aquarium is really cool. The botanical gardens are really nice, and the science museum is also pretty cool. Athens is also in the Atlanta area, and that’s a fun college town (home to REM and the B-52s!)

If you go to Gainesville, you have to check out the chicken statue and the town square (in addition to the Confederate soldier, there’s a scale model of the solar system in the square, and I think it still has Pluto!). Lake Lanier is also nice, but it’s kind of your typical lake. The dam that forms the lake, Buford Dam, is breathtaking as you drive over it (way more dramatic than Mansfield Dam).

whenever i (finally) go to georgia, i am TOTALLY going to check out the chicken statue and take a variety of humorous photographs with it. and then post them on this blog.

i just found out yesterday that you were a campfire girl. i’ve always been intrigued by the existence of this “other” version of girl scouts, esp. since my mother was a member and i thought her vest was a lot cooler than my green one. what sorts of things did you do as a campfire girl?

I was a Camp Fire girl b/c there weren’t any Girl Scouts in town. All the girls were Camp Fire, and that’s just how it was. (Maybe there are Girl Scouts now. I hear Gainesville has grown quite a bit. )The things that stand out in my mind are selling candy and wrapping paper instead of cookies, my dad helping another dad teach us all CPR at one of the meetings, and my dad also taking us on a sort of nature hike around the Camp Fire Cabin (this cabin in the middle of town that was surrounded by woods) to identify native trees and such. I also remember some sort of skit thing that we did to Lionel Richie’s “Hello”. And we all thought the Camp Fire Cabin was haunted. Ah, memories.

any memory with lionel richie is a good memory.

i really, really hope this picture was taken while you were trying to earn yr “cowboy patch.”

you know i loooove hearing about high school, mostly cos it’s fun to visualize us being friends back then. what sort of things did you do? were you a nerd like me?

I was a TOTAL nerd in high school, but unlike the me of today, I had no interest in socializing at all. I had a few friends, but I knew I wanted to go AWAY for college, and I didn’t feel like I had much in common with most of the other kids. I think my high school was weird b/c there was a LOT of overlap between the smart kids, the popular kids, the drama kids, etc. I didn’t really fit in with any of them, except that I was one of the “smart” ones (warning, brag alert: I graduated valedictorian). I spent most of my time watching TV, reading, playing violin, competing in debate tournaments (I have a really cool gavel that I won at one of them), and avoiding the crowds. I probably would’ve enjoyed high school much more if I’d been friends with you back then!

I was a totally angsty and moody teenager, but then, who’s not? I loved Guns ‘N Roses (Duff was my fave) and Skid Row (how excited was I when Sebastian Bach started showing up in Stars Hollow?), and also totally crushed on the popular guys in my class but never went on a date. I never, not once, ate lunch from the school cafeteria, and I ALWAYS got to school super-early to sit in the hall and read, and after I got my driver’s license, to get the best parking spot. My best friend was a cheerleader, but the cheerleaders weren’t necessarily the “in” crowd (the popular kids were too cool for such things), and a drama geek. And she was a bridesmaid in my wedding last year, the one person I’ve kept in touch with consistently (without the help of Facebook!) since high school.

laura and msw, 2 sweet 2 be 4 gotten.

And also, my high school mascot was the Big Red Elephant. Seriously. I went from being an Elephant to being an Owl. I’ve never had a normal mascot, like a Bulldog or a Tiger. And now, I’m a fan of Michigan football (Wolverines. Go Blue!) thanks to the hubster.

G&R = i knew we were friends for a reason. and the big red elephant? ok, that is the cutest mascot EVER!

what made you decide to go to rice?

I’d never heard of Rice before I got the brochure in the mail my senior year, and when my dad saw the brochure, he said “Rice? Oh, that’s a good school.” I applied on a whim and didn’t realize until after I was accepted that it was tough to get in! I actually decided to go without ever having visited the campus (or Houston for that matter). I got into four colleges and only visited one of them. Two of them were too close to home for my taste (have I mentioned that I couldn’t wait to leave Gainesville?), Georgia Tech and Furman. Oh, it was quite the argument with my dad when I decided not to go to Georgia Tech (lots of scholarship money for a female minority at an engineering school). But I knew I wanted to go somewhere else. The other choice was Yale, and I decided that I would be too cold in Connecticut, so Rice it was. One of the best decisions of my life!

tell me about yr favorite aspects of rice. any least favorites?

I loved Rice, from my college (TFW, baby!), to the friends I’ve made (both while I was there and since then!), to the Hutchinsons (the only moment I cried at my wedding was when I saw Emma! I thought she was sick in a hospital in Denver!), to the Acabowl, to Willy’s Statue, to the trees, to the Aca-Tramp, to the lingo, to Hello Hamlet, to Chem 101 with Hutch, to ubangee-ing Hutch in class on his birthday, to Old Wiess falling apart… I guess I didn’t particularly like the humidity (Girlfriend has some frizzy hair that Houston was not kind to!), and Houston was a bit overwhelming for me coming from a small town. Or the fact that my birthday was always either the week before or the week of O-Week, so my friends were mostly too occupied with freshmen to celebrate with me. That also reminds me of something I didn’t like, which was never being a freshman advisor/Wiess Fellow. It wasn’t for lack of trying! I applied every year, but never got picked. I would’ve made a great Fellow! <sigh> Ah well, it’s mostly great memories.

it’s a shame rice didn’t offer a ballet major, cos check out that form! not to mention the CUTENESS!!!

did you know what you wanted to do when you graduated? is that what you ended up doing?

I never had an answer to the “What do you want to be when you grow up?” question, and I certainly had no clue when I was at Rice. I wanted to have a job and live somewhere other than Houston or Atlanta, that was about it. And I got what I wished for! I got a job at National Instruments in Austin, moved here and fell in love (with the city, not the job. and Brian came later. I stuck with my job at NI longer than I’d ever intended b/c I didn’t know what else I wanted to do and I didn’t have the guts to quit without a plan in place. The great thing about working there was the people I got to meet and become friends with (including Brian!). And it gave me the experience necessary to be in the job I have now, which I LOVE.

ok, ok, now tell me the story of how you and brian (yr husband) met!!!

I don’t actually remember first meeting Brian, but I do remember the first time I realized he was The One. The Backstory: I used to chat with one of Brian’s roommates every Wednesday morning about the previous evening’s episode of Buffy (greatest show ever!), and later on I started getting invited to parties at their house. I couldn’t figure out why, b/c I wasn’t great friends with anyone in the house, just the Buffy connection with one of the roommates, and I never went. One day, a couple of years later, Brian was talking to the guy in the next cube, and I had this lightening bolt realization: all at once I knew why I was being invited to those parties, I knew that Brian was The One, and I knew that the timing was wrong. It was about a year later that we actually started flirting and hanging out, and we went on our first date on March 3, 2004.

brian and msw, just married! doesn’t she look gorgeous?!! (photo by beverly demafiles)

once, when i was visiting austin a while back, i got to see you play in a celtic band. what instrument did you play? how did you get into that?

I’m glad you said “celtic band” b/c I’ve been in about four different bands in Austin, and two of them were Irish/Celtic. I’ve played violin since I was 6 (I wanted to play when I was 3 but my dad couldn’t find a teacher for me until I was 6), and I’ve always been drawn to the energy and history and tradition of Irish music. I learned a few tunes on my own in high school and college, and then in Austin I found my way to the Irish trad tune session on Sunday evenings. I met some cool folks, learned some great tunes, and got into performing (partly b/c I love performing, partly b/c everyone in the Celtic scene in Austin at the time wanted to be in a band). I played fiddle and sang back-up in the two Celtic bands that I was in.

is this picture classic or what? just a southern girl, playin’ the fiddle on the family truck!

speaking of celtic bands, ever heard of killian’s angels? eh… long story.

just like erica greenhouse, you are a total hoss, running marathons, doing triathlons, running around yr neighborhood with heavy water jugs tied around yr neck (ok, i made the last one up). when did you decide to start torturing yrself like this? are you training for anything right now?

It’s been coming on so gradually…when I was a kid, I hated any kind of physical exertion (the lowest grade I got in high school was in P.E.). My dad has been a Serious Runner as long as I can remember, and as a kid, it was one of the small ways I rebelled…gotta be different and do my own thing! Senior year at Rice I started going to step classes with EK and Hilary and decided to start running around the Outer Loop (don’t remember why, maybe some article in a magazine), but that didn’t last past graduation.

When I moved to Austin, I gained some weight from sitting all day long, eating a lot of crap, and drinking like I was still in college. I eventually decided to do something about that (a decision I repeated a few times before it stuck), and did the Turkey Trot one year so I could eat extra pie. I met a girl at the start line of the Turkey Trot, and we decided to meet weekly to walk/run and work towards a 10K in March. That 10K was MISERABLE. Pouring rain, kinda cold, just all-around icky. But every single race picture of me I had a big stupid grin on my face, even when I didn’t know there was a camera there (as an aside, I’ve always loved the camera and have that little-kid ability to just KNOW when a camera’s on me and SMILE), so I figured there must be something to this. Shortly thereafter, I started training for the Danskin women’s triathlon, but I missed it b/c I got sick a few days before. I did a different triathlon a few weeks later and had a blast. After triathlon season comes running season, so I decided to try my hand at a half-marathon, and enjoyed that too. The next year was the marathon, and I had a great time with my training group and completing the marathon (in just under 7 hours). That was just this past February!

like i said, girlfriend is a total hoss. you do NOT want to mess with #144.

I’m actually not training for anything right now. I sprained my ankle and foot while training for the Danskin triathlon, and I’ve spent the rest of the summer recovering from that. I’ve been in physical therapy for a few weeks now, and I’ve started working with my physical therapist to see if I can start training for the 3M or Austin half-marathons coming up at the beginning of next year. I really hope so, b/c I love training for races, the structure and accountability it gives me for my workouts and the energy of race day. I’ve become that weirdo Serious Runner that my dad has been (It’s like that episode of Friends where Rachel says “I spent so many years trying not to be my mother, I just did not see this coming!”).

i just visited yr office at UT, and it’s like, tom hanks’ office in “big” or something. how did you manage to find a place that cool amidst all of the bureaucracy at UT? and what do you actually do?

I guess I’m just lucky! Or maybe I spent some quality time with a fortune-telling machine at the fairgrounds one day…

I was just ready for a change from technical writing at NI, and I started applying for jobs that sounded like something I could do. I applied for my job at UT at the recommendation of a friend of mine who was also looking for tech writing jobs, and fortunately for us, they had two open positions. I’m so grateful they picked me! It really is a fun place to work, and my boss has put in a lot of effort to make our office a creative and fun (and productive, of course) environment. Since what we do is part marketing, part technical writing, it’s good to have that creative touch.

What I actually do from day-to-day is write content for the UT ITS Web site. I also recently got training in meeting facilitation, so I’ve been doing that as well. And just this morning I got to speak to about 2000 freshmen about the services ITS offers. I just LOVE my job and what I get to do and learn and who I get to meet…it’s great! I had no idea that I could ever love a job doing technical writing, but I do!

you forgot to mention one of the perks of yr job: having lunch with me!

actually, it’s way more of a perk for ME that msw works at UT, cos then i get services like Cupcake Delivery, which is an even greater benefit than, like, health insurance.

yr birthday was yesterday! yay!! in honor of that fact, tell me about yr favorite birthday so far.

I’ve had some pretty great birthdays. I’m terrible at picking just one favorite anything, so I’ll list three:

- my 18th birthday was the Monday of O-Week, and my Fellows made it really special. They put up a banner for me in the Commons, they made sure I got ubangeed, and I got to do the Moment of Silence.

- two years ago, Brian proposed to me two days before my birthday, while we were on vacation in San Francisco [see Brian's flickr for photos of the proposal].

- last year, we were on our honeymoon in Maui, and I got to play on a black sand beach, eat delicious Hawaiian shave ice, and eat dinner on the beach while watching a beautiful sunset

what is yr secret power?

Making friends with really amazing and wonderful people! We’re talking the kind of people that you say “that’s good people” about. May I present Exhibit A: Posh Deluxe?

This is actually something that my dad has commented on my whole life, and Brian has it too, I think. We both are truly blessed with the ability to draw fantastic friends to ourselves. (I just wish you and I had reconnected before the wedding, b/c I think you would’ve had so much fun!)

hey, i have that secret power too! it’s the best!! well, besides being able to fly.

do you sleep in jimjams? what kind?

Loves me some comfy jimjams. In the winter, flannel and long-sleeved, in the summer, lightweight cotton and sleeveless. I wanted sushi pajamas for the longest time (the ones Buffy wore once in an episode), but I never wanted to spend the money on them, and now I think they’ve been discontinued! <sniff>

this picture was taken right after brian proposed to msw. HOW SWEET IS THIS?!!

what is yr #1 favorite food?

How can I pick just one favorite? It would be unfair to the other foods if I showed preference for any one or the other, and I don’t want to hurt the other foods’ feelings! (sssshhhh…it’s chocolate cupcakes! and maybe all Thai food. or my step-mom’s lasagna. mmmm.)

what is yr top restaurant recommendation in austin? what’s the best thing on the menu?

I recently learned about Titaya, a Thai restaurant on Lamar near 2222, and it is v. tasty business indeed. I had a duck curry that was great, and the panaeng is delish, and I also tried a dish that I hadn’t had before (I think it was pad kee mao) that I loved, and their sticky rice with mango dessert is one of the few non-chocolate desserts that I’ve ever wanted to have again. Immediately, pleasethankyou.

I also love Tam’s Deli (did I mention I have trouble picking favorite anything?), a wonderful little mom-and-pop Vietnamese restaurant on Lamar just north of 183. They have the most divine cream puffs (we ordered 200 of the little puffs of deliciousness for our wedding), and they have my favorite non-chocolate dessert, banh tet chuoi (sticky rice made with coconut milk, with a banana in the center and wrapped in banana leaves).

i’d like to point out that msw went out and bought the frozen version of that dessert and brought me one yesterday. because she is an amazing friend.

tell me about yr top area of expertise.

This one’s gotta be twirling my pen. It’s a habit I picked up in high school debate, and the techniques have grown and morphed a few times since then. I can twirl my pen about 3 or 4 different ways with both hands (at the same time or separately). I’m also really good at typing. And editing. (And being modest, clearly. )

As for marketable skills, I’ve been paid as a writer and editor for more than 9 years now, but it’s all very technical stuff (hardware and software product documentation, IT service documentation). I’m great at interviewing and editing resumes and cover letters, too, so if my friends ever need help with those kinds of things, I’m always up for it. I’ve also recently started pursuing more meeting facilitation, and I’m digging being in front of a room and corralling the great ideas and great energy of a group to produce an awesome end result.

i suspect this is the camera face ability msw referred to earlier. i love this picture.

what was yr favorite item of clothing as a child?

I honestly don’t remember. I was never a very girly-girl, and I think my family was just glad they got clothes on me. I do vaguely remember a green vest. I also remember HATING to wear dresses or skirts. I don’t much like it now, come to think of it. So probably it was shorts and a t-shirt or something like that.

what was yr favorite toy as a child? (the moody bonus question)

My Animal (Muppet) hand puppet is a favorite still. I always loved my violin, but I don’t know if that counts (though one does *play* the violin ). I liked my Barbies, but I never had a favorite. Again, trouble with picking a favorite anything. I love everything!

what do you plan on doing when you’re 80?

Definitely want to live in Hawaii. Probably have some grandkids or something. Hanging out on the beach with Brian and some grandkids sounds great. Maybe running a marathon, too.

if you could assemble yr own ocean’s 11, who would you pick and why?

I’m surprised by how tough this question is for me! Can I please have 13?

Gotta start with the hubster, so Brian. He’s pretty handy to have around, anyway, and he’s v. smart. To cover the event planning aspect, EK. And to answer any and all trivia or detailed Wiess history questions that come our way, Joe Abraham. Dave Parker, b/c I always thought he’d make a good criminal mastermind if he just had the drive. My friend Lynn runs some pretty fantastic interference (she’s a Rice alum, too, but she was at Will Rice, your year, and we met at NI), which I put to good use during the wedding weekend. And she’s a tough negotiator. And Lynn’s fiance, Johann, is a Serious Driver, so he’d be perfect for the getaway car. Jonna Flores for her planning and get-it-done work ethic, and her husband Roland for his medical expertise. Christian Bale, b/c HELLO! Yum! And me (of course) and you, b/c it’s your game so you know the rules the best!

(Twelve and thirteen: Dave Tagge for his financial expertise, and Carter Brooking for his steadiness of temper and travel skillz)

msw and a few members of her oceans 13. sadly, christan bale is not pictured.

what is yr best karaoke song?

Again, gotta go with top 3. Or 4. I love singing 10,000 Maniac’s “Because the Night” and Garbage’s “I’m Only Happy When it Rains”. And I enjoy the Cardigans’ “Love Fool”. And then there was that magical karaoke moment when Henri and I sang Evanescence’s “Bring Me To Life”. We’ve gotta do that again, that was karaoke gold.

double true, msw. henri loves him some evanescence.

do people ever tell you that you look like someone famous? who?

I had a date tell me once that I looked like Salma Hayek or Tia Carrere. And there was once a guy at a bar who kept insisting I looked like this woman in “Pale Rider” (Clint Eastwood movie), so I had to look her up on IMDB. Her name is Sidney Penny, and I think she’s a better match for me than Salma Hayek or Tia Carrere.

tell me something scandalous!

So much to choose from! I’ll go with the Cultural Shame topic you discussed here a while back: I was an English major and I’ve never read Hamlet. <hangs head in shame> Also, I’ve never seen Pulp Fiction.

thanks for letting me reveal yr true identity to pants world, msw! it’s been a pleasure! i look forward to the next time i see you, especially because it will probably include tasty business.

LINKS

i meant to link to this earlier but forgot: clown cakes = quickest way to ruin yr child’s birthday for the rest of eternity.

even though i kind of forgot that jean-claude van damme exists, this upcoming mockumentary actually looks AWESOME.

speaking of celebrities i don’t really think about doing awesome things, check out pink’s new video. no really. it’s all sorts of meta.

]]> http://poshdeluxe.com/2008/08/22/a-day-in-her-pants-the-posh-deluxe-interview-with-msw/feed/ 14 http://poshdeluxe.com/2008/08/15/a-day-in-her-pants-the-posh-deluxe-interview-with-trish-benford/ http://poshdeluxe.com/2008/08/15/a-day-in-her-pants-the-posh-deluxe-interview-with-trish-benford/#comments Fri, 15 Aug 2008 23:29:12 +0000 Sarah http://poshdeluxe.com/?p=751 today’s interview is a little different than usual. why? (you and yr whys!). because i’m interviewing someone that I DON’T KNOW!!!

almost like a real reporter!

and ok, i do kind of know her. and i’ve seen her in person. for about five minutes total. but the bulk of our “time together” has been spent on the internet, which means that i have an idea of what she’s like, but i don’t know any of the facts.

obviously, this situation is exactly why cavemen invented the interview.

and so today, ladies and gentlemen, i present to you: trish benford!

see? you can tell she’s cool already.

trish and i were brought together by the universe via our mutual love of sing-alongs. which is, really, one of the best justifications for a friendship. she found my myspace through henri’s page, clicked on the link to my blog, and the rest is HISTORY. a double spaced, one page history. so far.

she left a comment every once in an while, which led to a few email exchanges. then i realized, i had TAKEN A PICTURE OF HER AND DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT. LOOK!!!!

it’s like, when people take a picture and then they get it developed and a ghost appears or a kid’s face is in the window or whatever. except, this was like, a prophecy of friendship rather than, say, doom.

anyway, i found out that trish had a blog of her own, and after one read, i was instantly a fan. esp. cos i realized that we are basically THE SAME PERSON. and who isn’t a fan of themselves? ok, joking. kind of.

it’s obvious, after reading her blog, that trish is totally someone that i need to actually *know* rather than internet stalk. i mean, watch this video and tell me that you don’t want to be her friend:

so let’s start this interview, cos i have nothing further to say in this introduction, cos i don’t know anything else about trish, which is why i’m interviewing her. ok!

hi trish. this is weird! but in a good way. i don’t know you! i don’t know what to ask! i didn’t even get a press release! but here it goes…

tell me about yr background– family, where you grew up, etc. what was yr childhood like?

My childhood was pretty interesting. Or course, I didn’t realize that until now. My mom is from Japan and my dad is from England. Also, they are both quite a bit older than the parents of most people my age. They both grew up during WW2 and I think that has had an effect on how they look at life. Neither of them were at all interested in making sure my older sister and I conformed to American culture so we never got to do things just because our friends did. They are also super health freaks and we rarely ate sugar, processed foods, or in restaurants. Even though these seem like small things, I think they made me feel a little exposed, esp. because we were in Buda, which was not exactly a hot spot of diversity.

But, don’t get me wrong. I had the most fun as a little kid! I was always going roller skating and riding my bike and just being a kid. I also had to play soccer, by decree of my dad. Those Brits and their football. I think the cultural differences didn’t really start to show until jr. high, which as we all know is also called Hell for Kids.

trish and her dad. i think it’s pretty obvious that her childhood was happy.

did yr parents include their own cultures and backgrounds while raising you and yr sister? if you ate japanese food growing up, i’m going to be sooooo jealous.

My mom did more than my dad. She is an amazing cook and we ate a lot of Japanese food growing up. Not as much as I would have liked though, because my dad doesn’t like rice or miso (who doesn’t like rice?). But we still do some things like we always have this traditional soup with mochi on New Years that’s supposed to be good luck. It’s also delicious. I also always had a kimono as a child. But I really only wore it for halloween.

I was also really lucky that I learned how to cook from her. I like to have a curry night and make Japanese curry for all my friends.

you went to japan earlier this year with yr mom and sister. what was it like? did you see yr mom’s hometown? what kind of stuff did you eat?

We went to Tokyo for my cousin’s wedding. Mom is actually from the north island, Hokkaido, just near Sapporo. But I did get to see where my sister was born! It was just the most incredible trip. Tokyo is a big city like no other. Everyone rides their bikes to work and they never lock them up. Nobody steals them!

The wedding was so beautiful. They had a Shinto ceremony and it was full of ritual and tradition. I was a disappointed though because there’s no dancing at the reception. But there’s tons of fancy food, sake, beer and family and friends. The bride and groom had costume changes!

Oh god, what didn’t I eat in Japan? Every kind of noodles! My aunt, who we stayed with, has her degree in nutrition, which in Japan, is basically a degree in cooking. She made us gyoza, the most incredible miso soup (not the instant kind all the restaurants here serve), sukiyaki, tempura, everything! We also went to the Ramen Museum in Yokohama and ate different kinds of ramen from every region of Japan! My mom and I rode the bullet train to Kyoto, where they are known for their udon, which was incredible! We also went to the fish market in Tsukiji. There a bunch of tiny little sushi bars and you wait in line for 30 or more minutes to eat fish that is basically just out of the ocean. Like it’s been out of the sea for maybe a couple hours, tops. You don’t order there. You just tell them what you don’t like and they keep bringing you food until you can’t possibly eat anymore!

Also in Japan, the toilet seats are heated. Why is it so difficult to do that here?

trish has a whole flickr set from her trip here. she let me pick out the pictures, so of course i had to throw in this one as a bonus:

  

you seem like the kind of person i totally would have wanted to be friends with in high school. what were you like back then? what sort of activities did you do?

That’s so nice of you to say! Thanks!

By the time I got to high school, I decided to only do things that made me happy. So, I pretty much did everything except for sports. I was in speech and debate, theater, band, cheerleading and a few academic groups, too. Cheerleading was really fun (mostly because I like dancing and doing routines) but I totally did not fit in. Some girls actually tried to get me kicked off the squad before the year had even started! They weren’t too pleased that I was in band.

Band was really my big thing. Since I play oboe, I was in the color guard for marching band until my senior year when I was a drum major. But, I was never all that interested in marching band. I was in band to play the oboe. I think we get to that later, though.

Since I did all those random activities in high school, I don’t know if I was classified in any one group. But my reunion is this year, so maybe I’ll find out then.

  

in high school, trish defied all clique boundaries. she was like switzerland. but cooler.

drum major, huh? i can’t believe i know two former drum majors now. and cheerleader?!! dude. was it anything like “bring it on”?

No we didn’t compete. Our big thing was doing dances and routines for pep rallies. It was just for fun and the only competition was with each other.

trish was the poo. take a big whiff* (*if you don’t know, that’s from “bring it on.” and i feel sorry for you).  

what about yr college pants?

I went to college in San Marcos. It was Southwest Texas when I started, but Texas State when I graduated. College was ok. I majored in advertising which is what got me interested in graphic design (that’s what I do now). I minored in music though, so I could keep playing. I played in the orchestra and wind ensemble for four years and competed on this really hard-core (and in retrospect, kind of ridiculous) advertising team.

Also, prolly because of my healthy parents, when I got to college I binged on eating junk. Donuts, fast food, all that. I’ve def. calmed down on the fast food, but sugar just won’t release its iron grip on me. Luckily, I love to cook and bake so I can make my own damn fried chicken and cookies.

have you lived in austin yr whole life? (ok, seriously, are we on a blind date?)

heehee. I’ve been in the Austin area pretty much my whole life. I was born in San Francisco but we moved here when I was two. Well, actually we lived in Buda and Manchaca. I know it’s kinda lame to stay in the same place you grew up but, every few years I get the itch to move and then something cool happens which makes me want to stay (most recently was meeting my boyfriend, Chris. He’s totally cute and just all around great).

what are yr favorite places in austin? when people visit you, where do you take them?

My absolute top place in Austin is Barton Springs and the Zilker Botanical Gardens. I love it there. I had birthday parties at both of those places when I was little. And I absolutely take people there. I also love love love Hamilton Pool. It’s hard to take people there though because it closes so frequently because of the bacteria levels. But, it so amazingly beautiful. Book People has also been one of my favorite places since I was a little kid. It used to be in the Brodie Oaks shopping center next to where Sun Harvest is now (which was Whole Foods back then). That old Book People was so awesome. Half of it was a record shop and they had all these lazy boys where you could listen to albums before (or after) you bought it.

Speaking of Whole Foods, that is definitely a place of note for me. My mom is a massage therapist (I know. I’m so freakin lucky) and has been doing massages there on the weekends for 20 years or so. It’s really interesting to see how it has changed from being a super laid back neighborhood store to the monstrosity it is now. Did you know that employees there aren’t allowed to have fun colored hair anymore? I still can’t quite believe it.

if you’re lucky, at some point on the tour trish will force you, at gunpoint, to don a sombrero. p.s. this picture is actually from mexico. p.p.s. i love this picture.

he Trish Tour of Austin also often includes the Salt Lick or Uchi and brunch somewhere. I love brunch so much. Oh absolutely the Drafthouse. Chris and I totally love to show off our theater that serves drinks.

The final stop on the tour is generally my house. I love to entertain and cook for people. I’m big time into baking and you guys, I love Martha Stewart. Her chocolate chip cookies, her brownies and her mac n cheese CANNOT be beat.

One last Austin favorite of mine is Don’s Depot on Saturday nights. The owner, Don, was a Vegas lounge singer for like, a million years and retired, bought an old train car in Austin and turned it into a saloon. He sings on Saturday nights and covers pretty much any song you request. Also, it has the BEST ladies’ room in all of Austin.

double true on the the don’s depot bathroom. in a city full of sixth street restrooms, don’s is like, the promised land.

i read on yr facebook page (yes, i’ve been stalking you for information) that you work as a graphic designer. is that as cool as it sounds or what?

well, yes and no. I work for a biotech company and have little to no idea of what we exactly do. It’s very dry work. However, I have a totally awesome boss and freaking hilarious coworkers. We recently had to go visit our company’s headquarters in the Bay Area together and for real you guys, we had entirely too much fun hanging out together. For real, you think your boss is cool? Call me when he comes in your office to watch downloaded episodes of So You Think You Can Dance and Madonna concerts for an hour.

But honestly, I think I’d rather bake all day. Maybe one day. . .

you have a puppy! tell me about him!

Oh that’s Gary. He’s the most precious little friend. He’s half min-pin/half chihuahua and I rescued him about a year and a half ago. He’s only 5 lbs and has chocolate fur, green eyes and BLOND EYEBROWS. He is a total snuggler and likes to sleep under the covers next to my hip. He likes to play fetch and can poop on command.

trish commissioned this portrait of gary from cakespy, because she appreciates the value of baked goods. and yes, we are the same person.

BUT, I also claimed Chris’ dog, Sidney, as my own. She’s so sweet. She’s a mix of Australian Shepherd and Blue Heeler. The few people I know who say they aren’t dog people say they would only want a dog like Sid. She super smart and just wants to be your best friend. Oh, and she has orange eyebrows. I love when pups have eyebrows.

Sidney and Gary are total besties. They like to take naps together and Gary sleeps on top of Sid. It makes me melt.

i think you just made all of us melt. like, see that jessica puddle over there?

and you play the oboe! i just found out on facebook!

Yes! I started in the 6th grade, when everyone in Texas public schools starts. Now I play regularly in the Austin Civic Orchestra and sometimes in the Austin New Music Co-op, which is a contemporary group. The next new music show features pieces based on games, most of which is written by local composers. One of the pieces is like musical Uno! It’s a really awesome group.

My orchestra is totally traditional. I think our upcoming season includes Beethoven and Dvorak. And I think we are playing the Nutcracker in a Christmas concert. I also play English Horn in the orchestra, which is a bigger version of the oboe. And a couple seasons ago I got to play bass oboe and that was sooo awesome. I had to sit on a booster seat because it’s so huge!

I often feel so lucky that I play the oboe. In addition to just the sheer happiness I get from it, I’ve also been able to do some really rad stuff because of it. I’ve made so many friends because of it and been able to travel and play abroad. I’ve also been able to play in the pit of a couple operas, which is so awesome.

trish with not one but TWO kinds of oboe. because she is a professional.

do you ever write music? also, i noticed that chris plays guitar. do you guys have a guitar & oboe band going on?!!

Yeah, no. I had to write little tiny pieces for music theory in college but that’s the extent of my career in composition. Chris actually has a degree in classical guitar and once I suggested we play at weddings for fun and extra moolah but it never came into fruition. Which is prolly for the better. In college I played a lot with a composer/bassoon boyfriend (now ex, of course) and it just made us bicker most of the time. The only band Chris and I have is our Rock Band band, Wild Puppiez (named after a fictional Keanu Reeves band of course).

when did you first start attending sing-alongs? which ones are yr favorite?

My friend Hur-shiu (sounds like Hershey) and I started going to singalongs about 2 years ago. The boy band one was my first and I was so hooked! It’s like a giant slumber party! We’ve been to over 20 of them. I really liked the mixtape ones because there’s some variety. Same with the pop music ones. I think the Beastie Boys might be my top one. I love me some hip hop and I really like to rap along (even though I have little to no flow). I’m really excited for Madonna’s birthday though! yay!!

trish and chris caroling on sixth street after the xmas pops sing-along. trish wants everyone to note the perez hilton impersonator behind her.

i see that you enjoy dance parties. what, in yr opinion, are the most important factors for dance party success?

The number one important factor is the music. I almost said friends but, as important as they are (hella important), I can totally have an awesome dance party all by myself with a really good itunes playlist. No my friends, it’s all about the beats.

Having great people with you, however, can def. make the difference between a meh dance party and THE BEST FREAKIN TIME OF YOUR LIFE. Also, cocktails and/or champers can help.

One last thing about the dance party success. You cannot have a great dance party if your shoes hurt your feet. I’m sorry, but no amount of dope beats, best friends or cocktails will make your night anything other than agony. I speak from experience.

ok, i just saw a picture of you (on facebook, obvs, since it is my only journalistic source) drinking a sofia and calling it “champers.” uh, why are we the same person?

heehee I know! Why do you think I thought your blog was so awesome when I found it on the myspace!

Seriously though, I love champagne. My mom and I sometimes have champagne nights where we just drink some and hang out. And now, my friends and I do it. I’d say Chris and I spend at least a part of 3 out of 4 weekends playing rock band and drinking champers with friends. Well, Chris and the other guys normally stick to beer after the first glass of champers (because we like to toast). But I’m ok with that. More champers for me and my girls.

And while we are talking about the bubbly, I will let you in on a secret. Go to Specs and get Veuve de Verney. It’s like $7 but is made from fancy grapes. It’s tastes yummy and won’t make you feel gross, like SOME cheap champers (I’m talking to you Cristalino).

that is an EXCELLENT piece of information. i will act on it immediately.

the standard response to pictures taken in japan: i have no idea. but it’s awesome.

what is yr secret power?

planning parties and get-togethers. I am generally not an organized person but I love hosting a good time. Making snacks and treats, playlists, planning themes, etc. I throw a pretty mean celebration.

I like girly nighties. It makes me happy to sleep in what is basically a little dress.

Noodles. I love a lot of different foods. There is really only one thing I will not eat. But when it comes down to it, I heart noodles. My favorite are def. Japanese noodles – udon, ramen, yakisoba, somen, etc, but I also love noodles in other forms, like spaghetti.

well, I def. love Uchi, but it’s gotten a lot of blog time here, so I’ll try to stray. I love Buenos Aires on S. 1st. Have you been there? no? Please go immediately. It reminds me of eating at someone’s house and they are an incredible cook. It’s so delicious and everything tastes so fresh. It’s a little pricey for dinner so we have lunch there often. The spicy beef empanadas rock my face off. And if they have the tuna ones (they are just a special) you will not be disappointed. Unless you don’t order them. Then you will definitely be disappointed. They also have amazing soups. Everyday is a different soup. The asparagus is my favorite so far.

And for dessert, they have a most moist and yummy Quatros Leches cake. Three milks were not enough, you guys. They added a fourth and it is so worth it.

I think it must be movies about dancing, esp those made since 2000. It is my absolute favorite genre. I think it started when I was in 8th or 9th grade. Everyday when I’d get home from school, I put in our video tape of Singing in the Rain. Now I can’t get enough movies with dancing. And I saw that you took hip hop lessons. If you do that again, I’ll totally go with you. For real.

I had the best handmedown Hello Kitty dress and shoes from my sister. She always had the best Hello Kitty stuff because she spent her childhood in Japan.

for the first time EVER, someone actually has a picture of their favorite outfit! I HAVE BEEN DYING FOR THIS TO HAPPEN! and yeah, those shoes are fabulous.

Definitely the light bright. Except that was also a handmedown from my sister and I didn’t know that there were patterns included. So I just made up my own amazing designs of magical shining light.

I want to be near the water. I hope to live by a coast with my friends and puppies. I want to have parties and enjoy the people in my life. And this is prolly way cheesy and romantic, because I’m way cheesy and romantic, but I want to be with Chris when I’m 80. Because he’s amazing and I love him.

So this list is prolly irrelevant to all the readers of your blog, because nobody knows me or my friends but here goes:

I want Hur-shiu and Casey because they are amazing at math and puzzles. They’re logistics. Josh, who happens to be Hur-shiu’s husband, and Jeff Frelack are the most calm people I know, so they have to be there to tell lies and not freak out. Chris is good at everything (except bowling) so he’ll def. come in handy. Andy is the most industrious, problem-solving person in all of Austin. They’re def in. Mick, Jeni and Julie are the eye-candy distractions. Also, Mick is really good at finding good deals on electronics, which might help. And Katie went to theater camp with Natalie Portman, so she’s the acting coach. And my boss Heath. He has to be in because he devious and a really good liar.

trish made this handy guide for her oceans 11. although now we all know what they look like, trish. gah! i hope you’ve got a good disguise person.

Debbie Gibson’s Lost in Your Eyes.

And as a sidenote, Debbie Gibson was my first concert. It was at the Frank Erwin Center and I was in the 4th grade. It was rad.

no, it’s not a tiny room. trish got on a table, for emphasis.

not really. Once at band camp (I know, I know, but it’s true) someone told me I looked like James Iha from the Smashing Pumpkins. I didn’t know how to react that and even now, I suspect I kinda look like a boy. And in the CVS the other day, someone told me I “look like that girl from Bones” but I don’t watch that show, so I have no idea. But there’s no celebrity face that I’m constantly compared to.

tell me something scandalous!

I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom. No not really. That was Humpty, not me.

I owe the UT Music Library $75 for scores forgot to return for a really long time. I don’t really intend on paying.

trish, this was so fun! thanks for letting a somewhat-total stranger ask you tons of questions about yr life.

and now maybe we can hang out! and be real friends! yay! rainbows!

LINKS

WORST NEWS EVER: the harry potter 6 movie isn’t coming out until next summer!! WAHHHH!! if i could put a curse on warner brothers, i so would. i mean, how am i supposed to drink butterbeer in the dead heat of summer? boo boo BOOO.

you guys, i totally teared up while watching the clips of nastia liukin’s gold medal-winning performance. she’s so graceful and amazing and GAH my eyes are leaking again already.

some of you may remember that rice student that went missing last december… well, he’s been found! which is fortunate for him mom but apparently unfortunate for him. really fascinating, actually.

dude. even the NYT is covering the bigfoot discovery!! i’m serious, this could be real!!!!!

so i couldn’t care less about miley cyrus BUT i just found out that she might be dating my favorite person in step up 2: the streets!! and so now i hate her.

john, incredibly eager to read my blog (who isn’t?), accidentally pulled up www.poshd.com. which is a kind of real estate site. i think? but there are no cupcakes, so no one cares.

not that you need any further introduction after that picture, which basically says everything you need to know about jessica, also known as “red” and “fancy kitty.”

i met jessica in the summer of 2002 via our small group, part of ecclesia (the church we both attended). it still amazes me that jessica actually wanted to be my friend, since she was, at the time, best friends with the boy i’d recently broken up with. heaven knows what kind of images she had of me, but i *can* tell you the image i had of her– a beautiful, poetic girl with waterhouse tresses of red hair. see, i’d sort of stalked her online via a site called make-out club, the totally ridiculous precursor to myspace (was that just a houston thing?). jessica had these pictures up that she’d created by laying her face on the scanner, resulting in gorgeous images where she appeared suspended in light, her floating hair framing an angelic face, caught in a dream.

as i got to know jessica, i realized that she WAS that dreamy, beautiful girl i imagined… and yet she could also be tough as nails. one minute, she was squeeing over a kitten, and the next, she was smoking outside with the boys. we referred to her as “punk rock penecostal,” derived from her propensity for long skirts, her flowing hair and a massive cigarette habit.

it didn’t take me long to realize how lucky i was to share a friendship with jessica– finally, i’d found someone as cheesy as i was (am)!!!! in fact, perhaps even HOKIER! this was an AMAZING discovery. like me, jessica is famous for saying incredibly cheesy, emotional things usually reserved for, you know, episodes of “full house.” whereas i have my trademark, “I LOVE YOU GUYS!”, jessica is renowned for the night on sixth street when she (having consumed a few rounds of her favorite drink, malibu & diet coke, known as “cake in a cup”) said, after a discussion about the group’s next move, “let’s go some place where we can all be friends!!”

seriously, she really said that.

me and jessica, doing what we do best: BEING CHEESY AND LOVING IT.

when i moved to austin, i was sad to leave quite possibly my most girlie friend behind. fortunately, jessica decided to move to austin in the summer of 2006, and, since then, she’s given me a run for my money in the “cheesiest person on earth” competition.

with that said, you have to understand that underneath all of that hokeyness, jessica is a warrior. she’s a fighter. she’s got amazing reservoirs of strength. and she needs them, because she’s a teacher. in fact, over the past few years, she has dedicated her life to helping students achieve their potential. teaching has become her passion, and rarely have i seen such dedication and endurance, such courage and creativity, such love.

to be honest, there have been moments where i haven’t liked sharing jessica with the school district (and girlfriend DOES need to take a break now and then, ahem). but i’ve slowly realized that she has found a way to use the gifts i so admire about her– her compassion, her intelligence, her humor, her incredible way with words– to inspire and empower and educate, really educate, kids that need it the most.

now, before i get even CHEESIER, let’s get started!

so, jessica, let’s start at the beginning. tell me about yr family and yr childhood in ohio. what are some of yr favorite memories from growing up?

i grew up on lake erie in a small town. i feel connected to ohio in the way that you might feel connected to louisiana, because my roots are there. until recently, most of my family lived there, and i would spend weeks every summer at my grandparents’ house.

i have a TON of favorite memories, mostly because i loved being around my family. i would spend weekends with my grandparents, running around their huge backyard and swinging. they had this huge swing hanging from a tree. i’d also play dress-up and dishwashing… which didn’t strike me as weird until just now, but i’d basically fill a whole bin with water and “wash” plastic dishes for hours. my grandparents also had a ton of vintage instruments, like an accordion and bongos, and i’d have parades with those. tea parties on their porch, making cookies, blowing bubbles with this HUGE bubble wand–all things i did at my grandparents’ house.

my great-grandmother’s house was a free-for-all. i’d sneak to the attic and look around sometimes. she taught me how to play rummy and checkers. she also smoked, and sometimes i’d sneak after her and smoke the butts. and i dialed the operator from her house just to talk. other times, i snuck down to my great-grandpa’s bar and chugged root beer from the mini-fridge. aah, grandma’s house.

little jessica, chillaxin’ at grandma’s.

on weekdays, after my father had gone to work, even when she was pregnant, my mother and i would go to the beach in the mornings and build sand castles and collect beach glass. we used to go to a private beach with a raspberry bush at the top of the hill, and we’d sneak raspberries on the way down. i would play in the water until it got too sunny for my mega-fair skin, and then we’d go home, where i’d eat lunch and watch sesame street before my nap. some afternoons, i didn’t want to nap, so i’d have sleepovers with all of my stuffed animals.

at school, we had a lot of fun on snow days pretending that big sheets of ice were actually crystals. but we could only play at recess if we wore our boots and snow pants. that’s a fun, uniquely northern memory. i was good friends with the milk lady, and i talked to her every day at lunch. and i am still in touch with my kindergarten teacher, who took me out to lunch every time i visited town. she had all of the girls over for a tea party after the school year was over, and i loved her gumball machine.

mostly, i was a quiet girl with not many friends. i read lots and lots of books, and i got along better with adults. i had one-person dance parties in my bedroom. there was a boyfriend named darryl in the first grade. his girlfriend didn’t like him anymore, so she gave him to me.

you and jay are incredibly close– in fact, we used to refer to you guys as the “v.c. andrews twins” (JOKING, of course). did you guys ever have a period where you bickered? how has yr relationship changed over time?

i HATED my brother when he was born and wouldn’t talk to my mom when we visited her in the hospital. eventually, my mother had to have a talk with me about how “we have to love the baby, or the baby will die.” so i started doing things like sharing my smarties (he had no teeth) and throwing cold bottles of formula at him in the playpen when my mom was getting dressed.

jay and i both didn’t really have any friends when we moved to texas, so for awhile we just had each other. but after the adjustment period, jay and i began our intense sibling rivalry, which may have involved chasing him around the house with scissors and knives and locking him in closets. i remember being so annoyed by him. but jay has always been really sensitive, so i would mother him a lot, too. my family called me his second mom.

the beck siblings, taking a brief break from their rivalry to look just plain adorable.

when i got to high school, jay and i rebelled a lot together. i smoked my first cigarette with jay. he was a skater, so he had more access to things–whereas i was the Good Kid, so i was our cover, and i had a driver’s license. eventually we started going to the local coffee shop to hang out with the other bad kids to smoke. we had the same group of friends, so we ended up doing a lot of the same things together, like going to the same parties. he took one of my friends to prom, and she came back from college to take him to his prom. for several years, we shared the same adolescent world.

we still spent a lot of time together when i left for college. we both went to the same church, so we had the same friends again. he was having some trouble at home, so he’d come spend the weekends with me. when he moved to austin, i would bring friends to visit him, and we’d have homework weekends at his apartment.

things changed–a lot–when he became diabetic. he had to learn how to manage his illness. he’s the baby of the family, and i’m the independent firstborn, so i’m always pushing him to do things for himself. a few years later, he started dating the girl he’d crushed on for almost ten years and moved to chicago to be with her.

his move was really hard on both of us. i remember coming to see you, sarah, at trudy’s that afternoon, and i’d been crying for hours. but really, what’s changed our relationship the most is his transformation into a man. i know that sounds really cheesy, but he’s trying to make it on his own without his parents and big sister hovering over him. he wants to marry christina eventually, and he wants to work successfully in film, and to do these things, he’s having to carve his own way for awhile.

brother and sister, as close and as cute as ever.

today, i visit jay in chicago about twice a year and talk to him on the phone. i got him to join facebook, which was a major feat. christina and i are friends; we shop together and stay up talking sometimes. i have a dream that one day we’ll all live in the same city, and our kids will grow up together, close and supportive like jay and i were.

you made a pilgrimage to ashtabula (sp?) a few years ago. how has it changed? how would yr life had been different if you had stayed there?

the most startling change is that my old house is now abandoned, and the garage my father spent years trying to fix up is condemned by the city. in fact, a lot of old buildings i loved growing up are condemned.

we lived in the harbor when i was growing up, and i had a strange realization several years ago that we lived in the bad part of town. i was only allowed to stay within a one-house radius in the front yard because the neighbors on one side had a dangerous pit bull–he was eventually put down by the city. but i realized that not everyone has a childhood story of the local pit bull taking off the head of the neighbor’s chihuahua. gross, right? that was how it went on my block.

ashtabula is deteriorating, like most small towns in the midwest. people don’t have jobs, so they leave. my grandparents can’t sell their house anymore, because no one is moving there. recently they consolidated all of the high schools into one and tore down the old ones, like my mom’s. all of the stores i frequented during summer vacations have closed down, and they are about to shut down the mall they built right after we moved away.

if we’d stayed, my parents would have really struggled. we didn’t have any money there, and we would have continued to try making ends meet. i wouldn’t have had the education i received in texas, and my urban experiences would have been different. cleveland and erie, the closest big towns, are over an hour away from ashtabula. on the other hand, if i’d stayed in the hood, maybe i’d be more gangsta. or maybe i’d be living in a trailer with three children and a meth-addict husband. who knows?

papa beck, jay and mama beck.

one of the first things people notice about you is yr gorgeous red hair. did you have any redheaded heroines growing up, like anne of green gables?

anne of green gables WAS my heroine. i felt like she was me if i’d been born 100 years earlier. she got teased because of her hair, and she was really dreamy and just ADORED diana, like i adored my friends. i kept waiting for gilbert to show up…

in some ways, i still feel like anne. i became a teacher, and i’m a writer too. and i’m still all dreamy and idealistic about things.

when you grow up as a redhead, you automatically notice the other redheads. my mom would always point out the other redheaded kids to me, and my midge barbie doll was my favorite. i’m sure everyone has something like that, even if it isn’t so visible like mine.

ginger twins: kc & jessica, ready for the ladies of the 80s sing-along in 2006.

tell me about spending yr teenage years in kingwood, the suburb of all suburbs. what was that like?

firstly, my family has never had money. i feel like i always have to qualify myself when i tell people “what part of houston” i’m from. i’m 27 and still driving my first car, which i bought for myself. my dad, for a long time, worked two jobs to put my brother and me through college.

there is definitely a sense of the haves and have-nots. some kids owned some really nice cars, and certain brands of clothes were “required” to be cool until we got to high school. remember z. cavarrici?! moreso, there was definitely a sense of privilege. it was clear that the middle schools were zoned so that the rich kids went to one, the poor kids to another, etc. so many kids went on cruises during breaks, and so many parents invested thousands of dollars into their kids’ extracurriculars. instead of a huge group of kids, there were lots of smaller cliques, and i didn’t fit into any of them.

we spent enough time growing up there that i can’t really separate my adolescence from where it took place; it just was what it was. but i do see, in retrospect, what a shock it was, coming from the bad side of the tracks to kingwood. back home, my childhood friends were getting pregnant at 14, which didn’t happen much in kingwood. the kids in kingwood knew more than i knew, like how to carry and borrow numbers. i picked up everything pretty quickly, but i think it took a long time to adjust socially, and i didn’t get everything about being in the suburbs until 6th or 7th grade. additionally, my dad was unemployed for six months as i transitioned into high school, which was hard. that was the beginning of $200 choir dresses with the bridal slips to boot, and i remember what a strain it was to keep up with the joneses at that time.

jessica and friends at the freshmen dance. what is UP with those signs? i mean, i get the fish reference, but…

when did you first discover yr passion for writing? what sorts of things would you write?

my mom says i’ve been writing since before i could write. i was the only four year old telling people that i planned to be a playwright. i loved telling stories when i was a little kid, and i told them non-stop. seriously, every word out of my mouth was a story.

so, i guess in that sense, i never really discovered my passion for writing. writing is just something i have always done and didn’t start taking seriously until middle school, when i started winning competitions. i would show up to sleepovers late, because i’d have to finish a story first, and then i’d bring it to the sleepover for my friends to read.

high school jessica, her mind overflowing with stories and angsty poetry.

when i got to school, i started focusing more on poetry and won some district thing with that. but once i got to college, i stopped trying to get published or win contests. i got published in some internet literary mag in college by accident. i’ve started writing again recently, partially with the intent to publish a teacher memoir thing, at the encouragement of someone who worked in publishing for awhile. but it hasn’t gotten very far.

you and i both spent significant portions of our lives in houston. tell me some of yr favorite things about the city.

my favorite part of houston is the area where i used to live. i could walk to the menil and cafe artiste (rip) in less than five minutes. my favorite day included brunch at artiste, a little bit of looking at art, then laying in the park and reading. i miss chapultapec (late night mexican food), brasil & agora (coffee shops), and the angelika (movie theatre). i like the diverse neighborhoods, too, and i loved hanging out on my huge porch and watching people walk by.

what made you decide to become a teacher?

okay, i’ll give you the honest answer–the lack of writing jobs. it took me four months just to score a position at pier 1 (yay, crappy job market!), so it was completely fortuitous when i got a call from alta, where erica campbell was working at the time. i’d sent my resume, and they were really impressed with my work at UH. during my time at UH, i’d worked in the writing center and taught some sections of freshman composition. i’d also advised on some of the freshmen writing portfolios, so it looked really awesome and professional to them. they offered me a grown-up salary, so i took the job. i figured if erica could do it, i could.

i STAYED with teaching because it’s the most amazing job ever. i get to give my gift, writing and language, as a gift to others. and they get to use it to change their own lives. and then i get to watch them do it! and sometimes they say thank you.

ms. beck means business! (in her classroom at alta)

you spent yr first two years teaching at alta, a houston charter school. tell me about yr time there… the highs, the lows, the everyday experience of working with inner city kids.

alta was officially shut down this year after three years of not meeting Academic Yearly Progress (AYP). they primarily served kids who weren’t being served at their home schools. maybe they’d been suspended? maybe they dropped out or went to jail. maybe they took a year off, because they had babies. i taught those kids.

i really loved my kids, even when i didn’t like them, and i hated when they’d disappear because i didn’t know what happened. did they drop out again? did they get arrested? sometimes i found out, sometimes i didn’t. and then sometimes, i helped them get jobs, like when i taught M. or i got invited to their baby showers, like J’s. or their going-away parties when they went back to mexico.

the lows happen for two different reasons. either one of your kids is in trouble–trouble bigger than you can control, like they had a gun in the car when the drug dog came to visit–or the administration is being difficult. i had some great and not-so-great admins in my first few years. my first principal was AMAZING. she really encouraged my energy and my creativity, and she was honest. (plus, we got drunk and went dancing together when we were at a conference.)

i walked away with my most favorite thing, and i carry it in my purse: a note from one of my girls. she told me i’d inspired her to be a teacher, and that i really made her like school again. i still get all nerdy and teary when i think about it, and i read it on crap days.

i’m still so amazed that you not only survived that job but managed to flourish. truly, truly amazing.

proud teacher with her alta graduate

teaching seems like one of the hardest, most challenging jobs in the world. how do you sustain yrself?

i don’t! hahaha. well, i drink a lot of margaritas. in the summer i run away from home by traveling a lot. and my first year of teaching, i learned to “leave it at school.” that doesn’t mean grading. that means, when your favorite kid goes to jail on two counts of attempted murder, like my favorite student/poet did, you don’t carry it home in your heart like an open wound. you take it for what it is, and then you go home and decompress. with whiskey.

what sort of goals do you have for yr students? for yrself?

my ultimate goal for my students is to make them good communicators. i want them to be articulate, vital parts of their communities. it sounds cheesy, but i want them to have opportunities! some of them don’t know that, as children of immigrants, they can even go to college. others think they HAVE to join certain gangs and go to jail like their uncles. i want to show them something else, something better.

MY goal… i haven’t really thought about it in awhile, ha! quite frankly, my most immediate goal is to travel a LOT and AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. i’ve been thinking about teaching abroad in two years. i guess i want to start working toward getting published again. i have no aspirations to climb the educational ladder to become an admin, but maybe i’ll go back to grad school soon. i have been considering it. i know that i’ll always work in some capacity with kids.

since you moved to austin, you’ve been working with junior high students. how does that compare to yr alta experience? what about to yr own junior high experience?

uh, junior high is WAY harder than recovered drop-outs. these kids have HORMONES. they cry and throw tantrums, but then they act like tiny adults. i don’t have the same rapport with middle school kids, but i can do more fun things with them, like vocabulary games, and they don’t roll their eyes over it.

MY junior high experience was much more sheltered. i didn’t stop playing barbies until the end of 6th grade (albeit secretly). and we didn’t have “cyber bullying.” today, a lot more kids take their conflicts to school and confront each other. we had fights when i was in school, but not so frequent, and not over the internet. and the gang thing was so nonexistent that i convinced myself that they were an invention to control kids.

no, these kids aren’t in junior high… this picture is from a camp where jessica worked one summer.

how do you structure yr curriculum to keep students interested and keep the material relevant?

lots and lots of projects and hands-on things. we do choose-your-own projects, and we make life-sized drawings of the characters we read, and we write/read about real things, like parents leaving home and having hard-to-pronounce names. grammar is a speed game, where they compete for points.

i have an incentive program set up in my classroom, too, which motivates them, even though they snort in september. by may, they’re dying to get that last point for the grab bag. and i have kids who save up their free homework passes until the last report card cycle.

most importantly, i connect with them. i force them to know that i care, even when they’re sick of hearing it.

in yr opinion, what are the main issues facing american education? how do you think they should be solved?

education is such a mess that it’s hard to pinpoint one thing. for that, you may thank No Child Left Behind.

ultimately, we need to get rid of high-stakes testing, and we need to assess our kids differently. people talk about the financial angle of testing differently, but it’s not like we’ve received adequate funding to implement NCLB, either. we need to recognize that kids learn with a rich environment instead of trying to sterilize education. our kids have multiple intelligences, but we continue to test them with a pencil and scantron, which doesn’t meet their needs at all.

and high-stakes testing is why we’re afraid to take risks with education. we’re afraid to take field trips, to do interesting projects, to try something new and fail at it and have it reflect in test scores. then kids don’t pass to the next grade, and teachers lose their jobs.

i’ve heard yr future plans include becoming a cat lady. please explain this.

i feel like i need to say IT’S A JOKE, because it mostly is, and i find that people get creeped out by my cat lady-ness, which is kind of dumb.

BECAUSE IT’S AWESOME.

we’re getting a big mansion, right? all my girls, like in the ashlee simpson song. except we’ll be 40 or 50, and we’ll have a lot of cats and wear crazy big hats. we’ll drink martinis all day and dress up our cats in monocles and top hats and fancy gowns. i think there’s a plan to make jewelry, and i will also write to sustain us.

we’re not going to be like creepy emily dickinsons (i love you, emily, no offense). we’re going to be like the dark and mysterious brontes, but we’re going to have more fun and have way more cats. and drink more.

the early signs of jessica’s cat ladyness– mia and annie.

you are one of the squee-est people i know. give us yr top squee list.

in no particular order:

1. puppy taxis! where little dogs ride around on big dogs
2. when my kitten gives her toys a bath!
3. little animals all alone in the big, scary world, and they just want a hug!!
4. pet picnics and pet parades
5. little kids who talk and act like tiny adults! because they have SERIOUS BUSINESS to do (see: naomi)
6. any pet with serious business to accomplish, like hunting a ball of tape or chasing a shoelace
7. baby and pet bellies

this list alone made me tired from freaking out.

that list exceeded my expectations. you are amazing.

speaking of squee, BABY JESSICA!!!

ok, on to the poshdeluxe questions!

what is yr secret power?

my memory. i have the ability to remember really obscure things from a long time ago, like whose hair i braided during a movie in the first grade (leslie).

do you sleep in jimjams? what kind?

i have a vast collection of jimjams–flannel pants, cotton pants, t-shirts, tank tops. during a phase in college, i wore ONLY jimjams during the school day. this summer, i’ve been all about tank tops to bed.

what is yr #1 favorite food?

i’m a big fan of mac and cheese, but my favorite food is my mom’s apple pie. i have my own version, but i only bake it at my parents’ house because i need her guidance. my secret is that i chop up my apples into smaller pieces…

what is yr top restaurant recommendation in austin? what’s the best thing on the menu?

since i’m the resident vegetarian, i recommend mother’s. they have amazing butternut squash ravioli, even though it isn’t listed on the menu. for dessert, i recommend going across the street to asti, although they no longer carry their amazing white chocolate rice pudding. the former chef took the recipe with her.

tell me about yr top area of expertise.

writing and editing. teaching has refined my ability to help people craft their own writing. i’m pretty intensely critical, which i think makes me a good writing teacher. i don’t like to give my friends writing advice until they understand that about me–and even then, sometimes i think they’re a little surprised by how much i tear up their writing. but i’m a hypocrite, because i rarely share my writing unless i’m pretty confident that it’s good.

uh, i can’t believe you didn’t mention kitties. but ok.

jessica is also an expert at looking FIERCE (with tim on my birthday, 2007).

what was yr favorite item of clothing as a child?

when i was five, i had a pair of pink pinstriped jeans. i loved them so much that my mother had to get rid of them when i wasn’t at home. oh, but i noticed.

what was yr favorite toy as a child? (the moody bonus question)

well, when we moved to texas, i actually had a Barbie Closet (the utility closet upstairs). think buckets of barbie dolls and accessories. my sock drawer was a barbie apartment.

what do you plan on doing when you’re 80?

my life is so different than what i’d plan that i have NO IDEA anymore. but i like the idea of having a garden, making cookies for my grandkids, doing things with them that their parents would hate–like taking them on motorcycle rides or something. i would like to travel enough to write about it.

if you could assemble yr own ocean’s 11, who would you pick and why?

this is a hard question to me. okay, sarah, you would definitely be our time keeper. you’d keep us on schedule. my teacher friend melissa would be my co-strategist, because we always lesson plan together. i’d pick my friend kate to tell it to me straight when something isn’t going to work, like taking a certain getaway car or whatever. my friend erica would advise our fashion choices. i think my friends trey and cheska have probably seen enough heist movies to have good ideas. plus, cheska speaks french, and trey is good comedy relief. jay would film the documentary, and henri could narrate. josh katz needs to get us out of jail. my friends krista and blake will come along for moral support.

jessica, erica and i dressed up as josie & the pussycats for halloween, 2002. we could totally pull off a bank heist together.

what is yr best karaoke song?

i’ve gotten away with never singing a song at karaoke, but i guess i would be best at journey, foreigner, or new kids on the block. because i’m good at these songs!

do people ever tell you that you look like someone famous? who?

anyone famous with red hair, from pippi longstocking to molly ringwald. for awhile, people kept telling me i look like lauren ambrose. i’ve gotten liv tyler before because of my face shape. i used to babysit for a girl who thought i was the little mermaid; she always told me to bring sebastian next time.

tell me something scandalous!

sometimes, your teachers don’t grade your work. sometimes, even if you spent an hour on that worksheet, it will go straight from inbox to recycle bin. it’s called the circular file, or file 13. that doesn’t mean your teacher loves you any less, just that he/she is really stressed out! maybe they’ll glance and give you a handwriting grade, or maybe you’ll get a participation grade for the day. or, no grade at all. and i certainly do not do that… on the last day of school, i spent hours grading each of the 160 final exams sitting on my desk. yes, ma’am.

i KNEW it. i KNEW IT.

jessica, thanks for this wonderful interview. it was just as sweet and honest and touching as i’d hoped it would be. now, LET’S GO SOME PLACE WHERE WE CAN ALL BE FRIENDS!

today, you will understand even better why he is an amazing father.

before i let his responses speak for themselves, i’d like to mention a few of my favorite things about my dad. just in the name of full disclosure. like, if i was that “in step” dude that interviews people on the last page of “parade” magazine, this is what i’d put in the sidebar.

1. Friendliest Guy In The Entire Universe

my dad has never, ever met a stranger. everyone he meets suddenly becomes his new friend, whether it be the grocery store cashier, the kerbey lane waiter or the lady working a booth at the street fair. a few months ago, while waiting in line for the shuttle in georgetown, he gave out his sunscreen to every single person in line. the other day, he got so involved in a conversation with a sales guy at the domain that my mom and i had to literally drag him out of the store. it’s actually a quality i have *always* admired about my dad– even in the hair-trigger embarrassment days of adolescence, i was never ashamed of my dad’s ability to reach out to people.

2. Everyone’s Second Dad

my dad (as well as my mom, who, yes, i will be interviewing later!) is basically like a second dad to all of my friends. my parents have always taken an active interest in everyone i care about, which makes me feel even more loved as their daughter. oh, talena needs a coat? dad’s got one. josh needs his bike fixed? mr. al will drive right over! henri’s moving? mr. pitre can help him pack! yesterday’s military photo of my dad sitting at his desk, ready to serve you, really says it all.

me and my super-dad, celebrating my new master’s degree.

3. Mr. Safety Pants

there is NO ONE who cares about safety more than my dad. i have heard MANY a lecture from him about what NOT to do, including our infamous discussion about the dangers of wearing flip flops on a plane. his precautions have been so ingrained in me that i constantly wear sunscreen and never forget my bike helmet, even though it looks incredibly dorky. i just have this fear that i’ll get hit by a car and die and the cops will have to tell my dad, “no sir, she wasn’t wearing a helmet.” that might be harder on my dad than my actual death.

4. The Man Who Reads Everything

both of my parents gave me a passion for reading, but my dad is the Ultimate Fan of the historical marker (and really, educational signs in general). there have been many days where my mom and i have left my dad miles behind us at the museum and then spent an hour in the gift shop, waiting for him to finish reading every single word on every single sign. don’t even get me started on what it was like to drive through Civil War battlefields with him. this may sound like a complaint, but i actually love this about my dad. he stores up everything and then always has a new fact or piece of history to share with me.

5. Engineer Extraordinaire

given his engineering profession, my dad is a v. methodical planner pants, a trait he passed on to me (although he designs platforms and i design winery tours, etc.). when i was small, he built me an AMAZING bed with cabinets and drawers underneath. before i moved into my room at wiess college, he created a blueprint of the space, complete with to-scale paper cut-outs of my furniture, so we could determine the perfect and most efficient layout. i have constantly benefited from his practicality and precision, except for the time he tried to help me with my math homework in elementary school. “sarah, let’s just say that this number equals x…” “DAD, i’m in the fourth grade. i have NO idea what you’re talking about.”

anyway, enough from me. let’s get back to the interview, esp. cos there are some juicy parts coming up!

so dad, after the military, you eventually enrolled at LSU. what made you decide to go there, and what inspired you to pursue civil engineering?

During the final year of my enlistment, my dad retired and moved back to Pineville, Louisiana purchasing the house his mother moved after he went in the Army. LSU had an extension there and since the G.I. bill at the time only provided a monthly stipend $130 I had to find a cheap school. At time I still thought highly of Louisiana. So I filed the necessary paperwork to get an early release from the service to attend the 1968 fall semester at LSUA (one benefit in being an administrative specialist as long as I was, is that you know all the regulations that you can benefit from plus good contacts with other administrative specialist higher up who can help grease the wheels).

Why I became a Civil Engineer… some where I got this idea of working for the Bureau of Reclamation, building dams. Of course later, working for Conoco during summer vacations, I discovered that one could make a lot of money doing some pretty interesting projects in the oil business.

Four of my college buddies. We were attending a wedding of a classmate in Victoria, Texas. Starting on the left is Frank, Dennis, Leon and Me. Frank and Dennis were my roommates. Sad to say we lost contact with each other after we graduated.

how did you and mom meet?!!!! tell me about some of yr early dates!

I met your mom during my senior year at LSU’s main campus in Baton Rouge. We lived in an apartment complex that was between the Mississippi levee and a rail road track. She lived by the rail track and I lived near the levee. On the way to school on my bike I noticed her and her friend Alice walking to school. She was so cute, with big blue eyes. One day, having sinus problems on a cold morning I drove my car. When I saw them I stopped and asked if I could give them a ride, which they accepted. First impressions were not good as she thought I was about 4 years younger and a hippie (long hair and bike) and since she lived in the end where most married couples lived I thought she was married. Fortunately for you, we cleared that up and started dating. Our first date was a Halloween party.

Not having much money (some things don’t change in college life), our dates consisted of LSU foot ball games (students got in free), movies, parties in our apartments, during warmer weather pool parties, eating in cheap places (some just had white butcher paper for tablecloths), hang outs in the student union and once a trip to New Orleans for Mari Gras. We used to write each other letters and cards (we had P.O. boxes at the student union). Like you, your mom was involved an organization similar to Big Brothers and Sisters.

ha ha, that is awesome that mom thought you were a hippie, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Sue not long after we were married. Isn’t she cute?

give me the sequence of events between when you and mom got married and when i was born. where did you guys live? what did you do as wild twentysomethings?

Upon graduation, we found out that Conoco had reassigned me from the New Orleans office to Lake Charles. We were disappointed as we were looking forward to life in the “Big Easy.” You mother got a job as a high school library in a mostly African American high school (Louisiana was still resisting the changing times). Since we had to start work in Lake Charles a month or so before our wedding, your mother moved in to the apartment and I moved in to a room house (an experience). After the wedding we befriended the two other newlyweds in the apartments on either side. Lake Charles wasn’t much, but there were parties, theater, fishing and sailing (I had a sail boat at the time). There were many trips to Houston (Astro World), New Orleans for fun with classmates, weddings of classmates, and an occasion return to LSU for football games. We got tired of the long absences that my job required and I was able to get transferred to Houston. After a few months I decided to leave the industry and work for Lockwood, Andrews and Newnam, a Civil Engineering firm.

Sue and I in front of our first apartment (actually we had the unit upstairs)

Your mom and I lived in a two story townhome in the San Felipe area where all the young married and singles lived. She initially worked for the Harris Country Public Library system followed by a position with the Houston Public Library. We were justly classified as “DINKS” (Dual Income, No Kids). Most complexes had a party room where they held a function during week. One favorite was in a complex called Woodway Square called “75 cent spaghetti dinner night” where for 75 cents you got a spaghetti dinner plus drinks (extra cost) and you could party afterwards. They had a great New Year’s party. Not long after moving to Houston, we went to England, Scotland and Holland for two weeks. Then there were the skiing trips to New Mexico and Colorado. Vacation to California (we went twice).

i am totally starting a 75 cent spaghetti night, cos that sounds awesome.

On vacation in California.

dude. dad. you guys were TOTAL HIPSTERS.

We also participated in many activities with my co-workers at the civil engineering firm such as weekend camping in New Braunfels, to canoe and tube the river, Star Trek conventions (where we saw Gene Roddenberry present his proposal for the next Star Trek series), clubbing (House of Pies was a favorite late night stop afterwards) and movies. Houston is where we purchased our first home. During this time I brought a yellow MGB sport car for your mom and we both enjoyed it. Deciding to return the oil industry, I accepted a position with Marathon Oil Company, which after a short time in Houston was transferred to Lafayette, Louisiana where you entered our lives.

star trek conventions = why i was born a nerd.

Sue and I during our “DINK” period.

ok, now let’s put me, yr fabulous only child, in the picture. how did it feel to become a dad?! at the risk of sounding narcissistic, what was it like to raise me as yr daughter?

I remember clearly the night of your birth. I couldn’t be with your mother during the delivery but as the doctor was bringing you to the nursery he stopped by with you and slowly uncovered you to, I guess, ensure me that you had arrived healthy with all your parts. A little baby girl with red hair, that took my heart away. In the nursery, you really stood out with that red hair among all those Cajun babies. When my dad was looking at you through the glass he turned and said, “Now you will worry about her all your life”. It was the beginning of “Mr. Safety Pants”. You were and are a wonderful daughter and we had so much fun raising you. Being your dad has been and still is the most wonderful joy of my life.

tell me about some of yr favorite “dad” activities and memories.

I have many favorite “Dad” activities and memories. Reading to you at night, teaching you corny jokes (How do you fix a broken tomato? With tomato paste!), you riding on my back, swinging, watching you and your friends play.

When you started to school, dinner time became very special as your mom and I would listen to your adventures of the day. It was a high point of the day until you left for college.

In your younger years there were the brownie camp outs, family reunions where we played for hours in the pool or rode horse, school plays and activities, Halloween, camping trips with our church friends, trips to the Schlitterbahn, playing with our dog Biscuit and of course the many birthday parties, Christmas and the numerous sleepovers.

Dad and Sarah, ready to trick or treat!

Going to Disneyworld for the first time when you were five brings back so many warm memories. You hugged every Disney character you saw. You had no fear for any of the rides, like Space Mountain, which I found very scary. After you learned to read (at an early age I might add), when we would travel, we would just stock up on books from the library and you would read them on the way.

Sharing adventures with Sarah in Williamsburg.

Memories from your junior high and high school years include the many family vacations we took from D.C., to Alaska (remember the float plane trip over the Glaciers to the fishing lodge), taking you and friends to the movies, to eat, the mall, Astroworld and my office for your yearly downtown bus trips(before you could drive), sending Biscuit upstairs to wake you up for school, watching all the Alien movies in one day before we went to see the last one, the many sleepovers, the video movies you and your friends would make, your expression when I surprised you with your first car, your writings and your many scholastic achievements.

One of the numerous parties and sleepovers.

yeah, we really knew how to do slumber parties, didn’t we?

Our Alaska Adventure.

When you left for college, for the first two weeks every time I would walk by your room I would get this lump in my throat and my eyes would swell up. It is always tough for a parent to let go, but that is the way is supposed to be. I am so proud of you and your accomplishments and how you continue to develop and maintain friendships.

Proud day in the Pitre family, Sarah’s graduation from Rice.

As foot note, I am always pleased to read or hear the achievements and activities of your high school and college friends as they are truly some special young people. Our lives have been blessed and enriched from knowing them.

how would you compare yr childhood to mine? when i was growing up, did i ever remind you of yrself?

As you read above, you can see that your childhood was very different than mine. Your mother and I strived to ensure that you had a normal childhood. You were very different from the child I was.

what sort of ideal did you strive for as a father? what were the values you sought to instill in me?

I wanted to be a different father than my Dad’s generation. When you were a baby I helped your mother by also changed your diapers, bathing you, rocking you sleep, reading to you and playing with you.

Card by Sarah

We wanted Christ to be a part of your life. His values are timeless. By going to church as a family and participating in its activities as a family, we hoped that you would continue once you left home and started your own life.

When you started school we wanted to provide you the best education and the opportunity to participate in all the activities you were interested in. This provision included our encouragement, support and time, in other words being there for you.

We tried not to be too strict, giving you freedom to do things as you matured.

We wanted you have confidence that comes from knowing that we loved you no matter what and would always be there to support and encourage you.

Drinking beer in Germany during our Europe trip (after your Rice graduation).

since everyone knows that you are mr. safety pants, why don’t you give me yr top list of safety tips.

I guess being in an industry where I have witnessed some pretty spectacular and serious accidents, safety has been ingrained in me.

• Before doing any task, check to that you have the proper tools, you know how to use them , any required safety equipment, and think through the task if any think could go wrong and try to address it.
• Driving – maintain your car and check your tires frequently. Keep a good distance from 18 wheelers, remember that everyone else thinks they are the only ones on the road, you never have the right-a-away, just because the light is green doesn’t mean the other guy will stop, the most dangerous driver is the person driving the big SUV, drinking coffee, talking on the phone, putting on make-up or shaving, or even reading the paper (they are out there).

in the last five years or so, you’ve really gotten into cycling. what drew you to bikes? how often (and for how long) do you ride? and when will you work in a bike shop as “friendly mr. al,” the guy who fixes all of the kids’ bikes for free?

As noted above I started riding in college and always had a bike. During our time in Lafayette I got interested in running and used run about 6 miles day 4 or 5 times a week. Just as we moved to Houston I developed bursitis in my hip. After it healed I tried to run again but it would flare up plus I was traveling so much that I stopped running. Later reading about the MS 150 (the two day ride from Houston to Austin) I decided that biking would provide me the exercise running use to. So I brought a bike and started riding. I have done numerous charity rides plus two MS 150s. Since I retired I ride about 60 to 80 miles a week (20 – 30 miles 3 times a week). I must say I love living north of Austin for all the great places to ride.

No “Mr. Al’s” bike shop yet but maybe in the future.

My two special people welcome me at the end of my first MS 150.

so, you’ve recently (sort of) retired for the 30th time. what are you gonna DO with yrself, dad?!!

I have to catch up on all the things we need to do to house and complete our move in. But your mom and I have joined senior university in Georgetown and are looking forward to attending some of the classes. We plan to get into some sort of volunteer work and do some traveling. Biking will still be one of my major activities.

what is yr secret power?

Don’t a have any.

dad, that is SO not true. i’ll tell you what yr secret power is: yr amazing ability to befriend ANYONE. no matter who they are, or what their state of mind is, within one minute of talking with you, they will want to be yr life-long friend.

do you sleep in jimjams? what kind?

I sleep in box shorts (not the white kind) and a tee shirt.

what is yr #1 favorite food?

Apple pie.

what is yr top restaurant recommendation in austin? what’s the best thing on the menu?

I have enjoyed all the restaurants we have been to with you and couldn’t just recommend just one. Now around here we recommend the Monument Cafe in Georgetown. All the food is good.

tell me about yr top area of expertise.

My area of expertise is the design, installation and construction of offshore oil and gas processing facilities and structures.

Me, multi-tasking offshore

what was yr favorite item of clothing as a child?

When I was about 13 or 14 my mom brought me some white buck skin loafers, which was the in thing of the time. I loved and wore them till I finally out grew them.

what was yr favorite toy as a child? (the moody bonus question)

I don’t remember (too many years ago).

what do you plan on doing when you’re 80?

I hope I am still riding my bikes (with my grandkids (hint, hint,)), and living someplace where I can walk, ride a bike or public transportation to stores, restaurants, etc.

what is yr best karaoke song?

Never done karaoke and would not subject any one to my singing.

dad, that is not true. i think yr favorite song begins, “beans, beans, the magical fruit…”

do people ever tell you that you look like someone famous? who?

No one ever has.

tell me something scandalous!

In the 9^th grade I and several of my classmates got kicked out of school for a day for making a disturbance in class. If it hadn’t been for my 8^th grade teacher who came home with me to calm my dad down, he would have killed me.

The Pitres walk Abbey Road in the summer of 2001.

dad, this has been an absolutely wonderful experience for me (and for the rest of pants world, i bet). i am so proud to call you my father, not to mention utterly thankful for the example you’ve given me. i only hope i can follow in yr footsteps and love people as selflessly and sweetly as you have loved me.

i love you!!