Reading, shopping, writing, insulting my dogs ("I have no idea why I even love you, Dumbass"), watching my dogs interact politically, like when the largest dog gets fierce when the level in the dogfood bowl gets low, or like when Scruffy the yorkie-mix freaks out if I pet the medium-sized one, Meg. Being with my two boys, watching movies, buying odd/extremely cool junk at tourist traps, reading the New York Times every Sunday morning until about noon, if I can get away with it.
Mike Binder, Christopher Guest, Harper Lee, John Updike, Cathi Hanauer, Ricky Gervais. Oh yeah, and the guy who created the "Therapy Buddy" on "American Inventor."
I'm not sure who would really care about my musical tastes. In fact, this profile is beginning to feel like a Big Fat Ad for Nicole. Which I guess it is. But I will try hard to not be disingenuous. Joni Mitchell, Nick Cave (anyway his ballads); silly 70's songs, like "Cherokee Nation," "Spirit in the Sky." The Jackson Five; Tom Petty, Jet, the le nouns, the C'mon C'mons, Nico, and, lately, the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, which my husband dragged me to that trough kicking and screaming, and now I LOVE THEM. Peggy Lee, Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood, The Makers, one song by Caesar's Palace ("Of all the extras/ you're my favorite stand-in"). Roy Orbison, all of Billie Holiday's upbeat stuff, the Ramones, The Cars, Leonard Cohen, Elton John, Bambi Savage.
Christopher Guest, in any permutation. "R. Crumb," "Paradise Lost," "Brother's Keeper," Woody Allen when he's not being too much of a whiney womanizer, though if anyone can pull it off and redeem himself through beautiful and funny writing, it is surely him.
"30 Days," "Extras," "American Idol," "Antiques Roadshow," sometimes. Oh, the earliest Candid Camera episodes, the one from the sixties."Six Feet Under," oh yes.
Ahhhh. This is the fun part. Writers of the World: Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, William Maxwell, Dave Eggers, David Foster Wallace, Sara Zarr, Truman Capote, Dawn Houghton, Adam Gopnik, Raymond Carver of course; Caroline Knapp, the "New Yorker,"John Cheever, Aimee Bender, John Updike, Scott Fitzgerald, Tobias Woolf, the "True Romance" section in the Sunday New York Times.
My sister. One time she said she had kind of a subtle laugh, like a little NPR broadcaster chuckle, and that KILLED me because she has a huge laugh, and a contagious one (it starts, "AHHH ha ha ha,") and also when she does laugh or smile the sides of her mouth go back so you can see her canines. I read somewhere that showing your teeth, in mammal language, was an indication of friendship and trust though you would think it was the opposite. All of my closest friends' teeth show when they laugh. Also, and for what it's worth, I read somewhere that according to anthropologists if you make eye contact with a person for more than six seconds (try it, "one-banana, two-banana," it really is an unsettling amount of time), it means you are either going to kill each other or sleep together. Try this.