Interviewed

Happy New Week, Y'all! Today we're playing a new interview game. I'm going to be answering some interview questions and then you have a chance to play along.

Here are the rules--
You must have your own blog. And I will be limiting my own interviews to the first three requests. You have to link back to the original post and also to your Interviewer’s post and include the following:
Want to be part of it? Follow these instructions:
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 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.

So, here are the questions that awesome blogger Freakgirl asked.

1. I am constantly impressed by the fact that you take in foster dogs -- moms and puppies. Kittens are a breeze compared to that! How did you get into fostering and shelter work?

oh, I don't think kittens are a breeze. I think kittens are kinda scary--puppies are dumb and happy and you always know where they are because either you can hear them or you can follow the path of destruction. Kittens are so quiet...and plotting-like. I think they might intimidate me...

I'm actually going to be taking a break from fostering for a while til we get the new (human) baby settled. That was very hard for me to wrap my head around--not being able to take in dogs that need my help just whenever I want... I've been involved with rescue for eight years now, six of those years full-time fostering (I didn't start taking regular fosters til we bought our house). I got into it originally because I adopted my first doggie love Georgia from rescue and I wanted to help them out as sort of a thank you. And then somehow after two-three months of volunteering, I was directing the group and it was a slippery slope from there (you can read more about it here). For me, working in Rescue is a little addictive--not in a, "I'll get the shakes if I don't get a new foster" kind of way but in the way that, once your eyes are opened up to what's really going on out there in the shelters and you have your first few really great successful adoptions, it's hard to stop because you know that you can make a difference. How could I possibly ignore that and just go on my merry way and not help out any way I can?? Now, having to step back, it's a real adjustment for me. I have it all worked out in my head, but my heart hasn't caught up yet. stupid heart.

2. You'll be having a baby soon. What are you most looking forward to? What are you most dreading?

Honestly right now sometimes I think the thing I am most looking forward to is NOT being pregnant anymore. I see interviews with women who say that pregnancy is the most wonderful, special feeling in the whole world and then acoustic guitars sprout up and start playing soft melodies and I just want to walk up behind them and smack them with the Snoogle. I haven't found it to be all that fun, really, and I've had a fairly easy go of it. This whole sharing a body thing just kinda sucks sometimes. I just want to be able to flop down on my belly and drink a beer and not have to worry about anyone else getting brain damage.

But aside from that, the thing I really look forward to baby-wise is just finding out what his personality is going to be like. Is he going to be like me? Or crazy like Sam? Or someone totally different? I want him to love to read. I want him to be funny and smart and self confident enough to be a really unique kid. But I'm really trying to just think those thoughts and then tuck them away because who needs that kind of pressure, huh?

The thing I dread most is being a paranoid mom because I'm almost sure I will be. I won't even leave our dogs in the backyard when we go to the grocery store because I'm afraid they'll get into something or someone will randomly come by and open up our gate and they'll get out and get lost or hit by a car--If I'm like that with our dogs, how bat-shit crazy am I going to be when the Nugget wants to go out with his friends?? Can I microchip him? No? See??? I'm insane. I'm going to be a certifiable nutjob who makes her child wear a protective helmet to go to Chuck E. Cheese. I'm so nervous that I'm going to smother the kid and he'll want to go off to college when he's nine just to get away from me. I say I'm ready to not be pregnant anymore, but the truth is, part of me loves the fact that at least right now, I always know where he is... So yeah, I think parental neuroses are what I dread the most.

3. Were you born and raised in Texas?

Ha! (sounds of my whole family collectively shouting NOOOOOOoooooooo!). I was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. I moved here in 1996 to go to graduate school at the University of Texas and fell in love with Austin. It was the right time and the right vibe for me when I really needed to get out in the world and start being more independent. Austin felt like home by about the second week I was here. I'm still working on my relationship with the rest of Texas, though.

4. What is your dream job?
If someone would pay me to rub dog bellies and give puppy noogies all day, I'd be happy. But somewhere along the line, you always end up having to pick up the poop... I didn't originally mean that metaphorically, but now that I think about it--any dream job I come up with there's always the poop, man. You know?

5. When and why did you start blogging?

I started this blog in October of 2004, but I didn't really start getting into regular posting and writing til 2005-2006 thereabouts. I'm not actually sure why I started one in the first place. I think I was just reading a lot of other blogs and began thinking it was something I should start doing because I love to write. But I didn't have a voice and didn't think I had much to say--I don't know why I approached it like I was going to be writing for the New Yorker or something. Then one day I was feeling a little lonely--Sam has always had an opposite work schedule so I usually don't have anyone to talk to when I get home at the end of the day. I'm a big talker-always have been-so I just starting writing blog posts instead. I just decided to not pay much attention to whether other people read it or not--it always surprises me to find out that someone besides my mom and sister would take an interest. So, ultimately, it evolved into something I use to just get things out of my head--even if it's something as banal as talking about Fergus' um, gastrointestinal difficulties. Y'all have no idea how much stuff I write that never gets posted. I wish I had that sort of button in real life: DO NOT PAY ATTENTION, PEOPLE, THIS IS JUST A DRAFT.