Misha Day

rhi gave me: Knitting, libraries, otters, tech support, Austin (TX, of course)

1) Knitting: I like to say I've learned to knit three times. Once, as a child, which I then promptly forgot, though that was the Kaffe Fassett phase for my mother. Then in college, mom taught me, and somewhere along the line I realized I was knitting backwards (English style that is) and Mom was left-handed, so I was all turned around. Then I finally sorted it out myself, and got plugged into the amazing and vibrant online knitting community. Now I'm even teaching!

Knitting satisfies a very creative, tactile side of me. I love the colors and feel of yarn, and the sense of making something useful at the end of the day. (Well, mostly useful. The Flying Spaghetti Monster Hat... well... yeah.)

2) Libraries: I have had a long and varied series of affairs with libraries. From coming to the end of a book on the floor of my grade school library and realizing I was a good 1/2 hour late to my next class, to the basement of Tutt Library and orgies of reading Austen over and over, to my genuine awe at the beauty of Suzallo's Reading Room. Library school broke me out of Kansas and brought me to Seattle, and then the computers in libraries initiative at the Gates Foundation kept me out of it. (Though it did give me a good sense of where else a library degree could take me that wasn't a library.) Every 6 months I plan out vacation days just to schlep books and sell them (ok, and build up my own collection) for the Friends of the Library.

3) Otters: Hands down my favorite animal. They're graceful and playful and social and made of pure awesome.

4) Tech Support: I make computers go. They pay me for this. It's not so much vast technical skills, so much as a good base of tech, the ability to look things up ('I'm not sure, give me 5 minutes and the internet and I'll let you know') and the ability to translate geek/tech for normal people.

5) Austin, Texas: Ok, what? Hee! I tried to get a job there, lo these many (2? 3?) years ago, and um, didn't. I've never actually stepped foot in Austin, but I hear it's 'weird' and it sounds a lot like a place I'd like to live. (They have sun. In the winter. What's up with that?)

One book that changed my life:
DragonSong by Anne McCaffery - it opened up my eyes to possibilities. Could have been Ursula LeGuin, but DragonSong had a prettier cover.
One book that you've read more than once:
Well, shit. The books I *haven't* read more than once make a shorter list. Most reads would probably be the Harper Hall trilogy, but the Belisarius series and the Discworld series are inching up there in repeats.
One book you'd want on a desert island:
If it's not a survival manual, I'd go with the Collected Works of Jane Austen
One book that made you laugh:
Chicks in Chainmail edited by Esther Friesner
One book that made you cry:
Where the Red Fern Grows by... someone. Rawlings? Found it in my pre-teen dog and pony phase, and it never fails to have me in tears at the end. Good tears, though, which is why I read it when I need a good cry.
One book you wish you had written:
There's a fallen paladin in the back of my head, who rides a red stallion and deals death as easily as she used to give life, but she's a reticent sort and I don't think her story will ever be told.
One book you wish had never been written:
These days? The Koran
One book you're currently reading:
Hunters of Dune by Kevin J Anderson and Brian Herbert
Not nearly as good as the originals which I expected, but I can see the sparks of genius.
One book you've been meaning to read:
Heir of Autumn by Giles Carwyn and Todd Fahnestock - I knew these guys in college, a few years ahead of me, and Mike told me about it when I came out, and it's been sitting in my reading pile...