Questions...

Blogger Laural Dawn offered to include me in her Questions, questions, game and sent me these questions. If you wanna get in on the game, here are the super official rules, copied from Laural Dawn's page.

Interview rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with a post containing your the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Now, on to Laural's lovely questions!

1) It seems like you read a ton of books - how do you decide what books to read and what is your favourite book of all time.

I never feel like I can read books fast enough! I'm always envious of others who read books so quickly, where as I tend to plod over every sentence. Why can't I do the same with ice cream? I must've gotten those two genes mixed up at birth. This year my goal is to FINISH reading books that I pick up, which really just means that I'm choosing the books I start reading more carefully and saying no when someone lends me a book I think looks just terrible (I mean, just NOT for me). I'm also trying to read more non-fiction and books I wouldn't normally pick up, which I think is counterproductive of my goal to FINISH books. But we'll see.

Finding a new book to read is one of my favourite pastimes, so I tend to spend a lot of time in bookstores. I always judge a book by its cover, read the first page and a random page from the middle before considering buying the book. I also ask friends (who tend to like the same books as I do) for recommendations and read other bloggers' book recommendations. The latest book I read was Lost & Found, which I discovered by reading a blog post by Jennifer Weiner. My favourite book of all time is Good Grief by Lolly Winston. It took her five years to write it, which seems about as impossible to me as eating ice cream slowly, but it was so worth it, because the story is so good.

2) Did you always know you wanted to be a writer or be in the field of writing/editing, etc or did you have another career plan when you were younger?

I always new I wanted to be a writer. It's my favourite pastime. I'd rather write than do anything else - go to the movies, watch TV, shop. When people told me being an author wasn't a real job, I decided that being a magazine writer was the next best thing. Thankfully I figured out I didn't care what those naysayers thought and now I'm both, which makes me very happy on a daily basis.

3) You write a lot about your cat - do you think you'll get more cats or stick with just one?

Is that a hint? But I don't have babies, so it's okay, right? Anyway, I always think my cat needs a friend to play with, but I'd hate for him to think he wasn't good enough. Cats have feelings, too. Besides, I doubt any other cat could be as cool as Mr. Baz. (And now, I have a complex about writing about my cat so much.)

4) If you could pick anywhere to vacation and money was no object where would you go - and who would you bring with you?

My ideal vacation is one that mixes culture with relaxation. The Hubs is my favourite travel partner because he likes the same thing, so he's never trying to drag me to a campsite or to watch some sort of sporting event (but I might drag him to watch synchronized swimming if we found a mysterious competition on our travels!). If money were no object, I'd stop having a day job and spend a year travelling around the world. No itinerary, just figuring out the next place as I went. I'd mix warm and cold climates, big cities and beaches, adventure with relaxation.

5) What is your favourite food and/or restaurant?

My favourite food is pizza - I'm so classy! While I love more decadent items such as escargot, I choose pizza as the one item I could eat all the time without getting sick of it. So many toppings! Types of crust! Warm! Cold! My favourite restaurant for pizza and panzerotto is Olympic 76 in Toronto, which is this retro-style pizza restaurant that feels like you're in your Italian grandparents '70s-style basement. For the escargot and a slightly higher-class meal, I love Bistro 990, also in Toronto.