in the middle of everyone I still find myself with my thoughts alone

1. What do you consider your hometown to be?
   258 miles away—give or take
2. What’s the hardest part of your average day?
   getting out of bed. No question. The second hardest is easy to tell, too: going to bed. It's a little odd; I've always been what my parents would call "a good sleeper" but I've also never been good at doing it according to anyone else's schedule.
3. The easiest? Why?
   reading, I suppose, in any form. Or locating pointless minutia online. If there was a job that entailed nothing but making mix CDs and being quick to search out trivia, that's how I'd make my millions.
4. What beverage do you reach for to quench your thirst?
   water or (fruit-flavored but unsweet) tea
5. What is one not-so-secret goal you have for your life? I’ll let you keep your secret ones to yourself.
   being published
6. What physical pain do you fear most? For example, I’m trying to decide how bad my jaw pain needs to get before I risk a potential needle from my dentist. So, for me, throbbing is preferable to jabbing.
   cutting, I suppose. Maybe shooting. Throbbing is nothing anymore.
7. Where do you find solace?
   in writing, sometimes in reading, in my friends (the things they do and the people they are), and in some rare flashes of true kindness from someone much admired, who may not know it
8. What makes you the saddest when you read/see the news?
   all of it. It's why I never watch or read the news.
9. What do you eat for a favorite snack?
   salty. Chips (thank you, Mumblito, for bringing back JJs for me!), olives, pretzels, crackers. Yum.
10. What movie could you/would you watch more than two or three times and still enjoy just as much as the first time?
    has someone been giving away my secret life? I watch all my favorites over again, fairly regularly, and get something new and good out of them each time. I've probably seen Léon (The Professional) a half dozen times, and Top Secret! maybe twice that. It's not that I don't watch new stuff; I do. But watching those old familiar movies again reinforces what I liked about them originally and probably makes me more receptive to the good things about movies in general.
11. What boy/girl first made you cry?
    my sister, for sure.
    Oh, you mean romantically? Probably Scott—and under the circumstances it really wasn't him so much as it was me, piling heaps of overblown drama and nonsense onto what could have been an easy, carefree, loving teenage romance. He was a doll, I strangled the life out of what we shared, and he was enough of a gentleman to remember only the good parts. Is it any wonder that I recall him with a heroic glow?
12. What brand of coffee/tea do you drink most often?
    Republic of Tea
13. Dig in the dirt with or without garden gloves?
    I don't garden per se, but when I repot plants I usually use rubber gloves. My fingernails are so short that when I get anything under them it can actually hurt (as well as look terrible).
14. James Taylor or Carly Simon?
    James Taylor, for sure. He reminds me of my dad, only with lots more enthusiasm. (My dad's sort of a super mellow James Taylor/Alan Alda mashup.) And I preferred the Carole King duets, too; "You've Got a Friend" is one of my all-time faves. (Her song with Semisonic, "One True Love", is awesome, too. The title quotation is from this.)

[from the standard location, originally from here]