SSG is on The View!

Just kidding!  But she IS being interVIEWed.

(Little known SSG fact:  She'd LIKE to be on The View, but as a host ... or a guest on Good Morning America.  SSG LOVES Diane Sawyer.) 

So I volunteered for an interview with Ms. Molly over at Molly Blogs.  One, because I love her and want to move into her neighborhood (it's so southern and colonial and charming ... and I imagine there are a lot of weeping willows and men in linen suits--please don't tell me any different) and two, because I never think it's too early to practice these things! SSG has a HARD time opening up and talking about herself.

What's so funny?

So thanks Molly!  Anyone who wants to help me hone my "View" interviewing skillz, there are some directions at the bottom of the post.  

(Edited to add:  You might want to get yourself a canteen of water.  This baby is LONG.  Or you can scroll to the end because the link alone is WORTH IT.)

Question #1

It's clear from your blog that you are a wonderful communicator and probably a perfect dinner guest.  So if you could invite 3 people from any time in history to a dinner at Chez SSG who would they be and why?

(SSG blushes.)  Why THANK YOU!  I do love a good dinner party and exercise my 'perfect dinner guest' muscles regularly.  I'm not a very good direction follower though, so I'm going to pick 6.  I started crying any time I had to hack one of these guys from my list of invites.

1)  My Gam - First and foremost, if I'm cooking for the next five people, I'm going to need someone to calm my ass down.  She was also great fun and gave the following toast at Every. Single. Family. Dinner.  Even when she was 96 and didn't have her short term memory, she managed to remember this beauty:  "Here's to Eve, the mother of our race.  Who always wore a fig leaf in the proper place.  And here's to Adam, the father of us all.  Who was johnny on the spot when the leaves began to fall."  (Now you see where SSG gets it.)  So our dinner party will FOR SURE start out with that GEM.

2)  Frances Mayes - Frances Mayes wrote Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany among others.  I have never had envy get in the way of my reading before, but many times I wanted to throw her books across the room I was so jealous of her life.  I read Under the Tuscan Sun six or seven times and could never bring myself to read the last chapter.  It felt too final.  I finally let myself read the last chapter only after I had purchased Bella Tuscany.  That way I could go immediately into her voice again.  She is, everything I want a writer to be.  Funny, poetic, complex and likes food and cooking as much as I do.  I still get chills whenever I crack open her books, though most I can recite from memory.

3)  Leonardo Da Vinci - I think this man had more talent than any other person in history.  I have seen his artwork and his sketches/journal thingy (known in some circles as the "Codex Licester") in person and I am pissed he lived so long ago.   His creativity, intelligence and sheer genius blows my mind.  He is more godlike to me than whoever the person was that invented coffee.  No doubt, it was probably him too.

4)  Alice Walker - I saw the movie The Color Purple when I was 12.  I have never been so riveted to a film.  It WRECKED me and still to this day I can cry if I think about certain scenes for longer than 3 seconds.  I immediately read the book and it remains in my top 5 books of all time.  I have been lucky enough to see Ms. Walker speak on a couple of different occasions.  I managed to hold it together long enough to introduce myself and have her sign my copy of The Color Purple.  She is an incredible person ... and she likes Netflix and staying in bed as much as possible.  A girl after SSG's very own heart.

5)  Jackie Robinson - In a word ... I admire his STRENGTH.  I get chills every time I see old footage of him on a baseball field.   He is a constant inspiration to me that following your talent levels any playing field, no matter how strong the opposition.  (Interesting side note:  Dig's dad has a baseball signed by all of the Brooklyn Dodgers the year they won the World Series.  It has one EXTRA signature though.  One so special, no one else's ball has it.  Digs dad signed that ball when he was 8.  I know any collectors are probably raising their fists to the heavens, but I find it adorable.)

6)  Doris Kearns Goodwin - I LOVE smart people and this lady is AWESOME.  Historian, former Harvard professor and lover of baseball.   If Bella Della's mom wasn't already adopting me, I'd ask Mrs. Goodwin if she could.

Question #2

As children, we often have favorite clothes we want to wear all the time.  Do you have any favorite garments as an adult and what are they?

I'm actually not a clothes fiend AT ALL.  I CAN'T STAND shopping, so I'm usually in and out of the mall in an hour.  But I do like looking nice and semi stylish.  I LOVE Anthropologie, Banana Republic and Ann Taylor but I'm way too cheap to shop in any of those places.  I mostly wear dark jeans, fun flats with a cute shirt and some type of fitted jacket.   

Question #3

You went to France last year and did a series of fab blog posts (which is how I found you). What is it about travel that appeals most to you?

Ok, everyone is going to think I wrote these questions because they're way too complimentary.  Somehow I don't think Joy Behar is going to be as sweet.  But traveling!

1) I like to MOVE.  

Cars, boats, planes, trains ... I like going faster than our bodies can on their own and ending up somewhere different than where you originally started.  

2) I dig on details.

 I am intrigued by the small details that make up peoples daily lives.  What they eat, what they read.  Where they do their grocery shopping and how they spend their weekends.  I am always looking for ways to incorporate traditions into my daily life to make it richer and more fulfilling. 

3) "Found" moments.  

You can plan your entire trip (and SSG likes that), but most of the time the stories that get told over and over happened serendipitously like having a clarinet played for you by a famous New York musician in the middle of a rainy Provencal evening or getting pot handed to you by a New York City cab driver. 

4) It's a Small World After All

Traveling makes you realize that we're all in this together ... and that we're not all that different from each other.

Question #4

Tell us, if you will, about your most triumphant moment.

This is a hard one for me.  I have had amazing moments in my life.  Times where I've won something, or been recognized for something.  Where I've been swept off my feet and loved so deeply that I can hardly breathe.  Where I've met a milestone I had been striving for or everything came together far better than I could have planned.  The most triumphant part of my life however, is not a time but a feeling.  And it has been a shift that has happened fairly recently.  Without getting too deep into it ...  I have essentially been on my own since I was 13 years old.  As if that wasn't difficult enough, some pretty bad stuff happened along the way.  I boxed all of that up when I turned 18 and set off to college, determined to build a life for myself that was positive, free from pain and that was 100% mine.  Over the last few years, I've had to unpack that metaphorical box--take out all the pieces and look at each one again.  It has, in a way, been harder than originally going through those experiences.  Luckily I've had support but it's still a road I walked alone.  Though not quite at the end, I can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel.  To not only still be standing, but thriving?  Is the triumph of my life.

Question #5

People frequently will say that they hear an old song and are transported back in time to a specific moment.  What's on the soundtrack to SSG's life?

Man, A LOT.  Musicians are some of the most important artists of our time.  My tastes constantly change and are pretty diverse.  There isn't much I don't like.  As a kid I remember roller skating around and around the garage in circles with ABBA blasting in the background.  I rode horses the bulk of my adolescence, so country is in there for sure.  Forever and Ever, Amen by Randy Travis is still a favorite.  High school brought Bob Marley and Led Zeppelin and rap was just coming onto the scene.  You haven't SEEN pictures of Paris until your slideshow is playing in the middle of a party and Eazy-E comes on your I Tunes in the background.  Pearl Jam was THE soundtrack of my college years for sure ... along with Van Morrison, Bread and Cat Stevens.  I went to college in the 90's but apparently we had a thing for the 70's.  After college is when I started getting into Miles Davis and Chet Baker.  And now I can't get enough of Ray LaMontagne, The Waifs and EastMountainSouth.

Thanks so much Molly, I feel oddly cleansed ... like a colonic but way less gross!

If  YOU'D like to be interviewed by SSG:

• Leave me a comment saying "Interview Me."
  
• I will send you 5 questions (I get to pick.  Mwaaa haaa haaa.)
  
• Update your blog with answers to the questions.
  
• Include this explanation and offer to interview others.
  
• When others comment asking to be interviewed you will say "HELL NO."  Just kidding, you'll send them 5 questions !
  

And as a present to anyone who is still reading this (dude, THANK YOU) SSG fell of her couch watching this last night.  Patience through the commercial, lovlies.  It is WORTH it.

Click on this bad boy and have some toilet paper handy, you might find you have to pee a little:  The Today Show

(P.S. All day today SSG has been saying "and pulse it and pulse it ... and punch it out and punch it out.")