Bumpy Q&A!!!

I love these BUMP Launch-Week Questions! I love Maureen's Voice! And I just know I'm going to LOVE this book! (Which I'm still waiting on... up here in this far-distant land known as Canada...)

So without further ado.... Here we go!

Question One: In A BUMP IN THE ROAD, Clare loves to watch and order products from infomercials. Have you ever ordered anything off of an infomercial? (Being tempted counts!)

Okay. Yes. But I was a child. A CHILD! That's my excuse. My excuse for begging the folks one Christmas for a... (how appropriate)... a Bedazzler. *Hangs head in shame*

Back in my day, we called it the "Ronco Rinestone and Stud Setter" but it is functionally the same doo-dad. And I'm sure I turned out a whack of couture that had me looking just like Disco Stu on The Simpsons. I don't know. I've blocked out the memory.

Question Two: The book opens with Clare and her husband Jake being tortured on an airplane by a toddler sitting behind them. If you have kids, any funny stories about traveling with them? If not, who is the strangest person you've ever sat next to on an airplane?

Well... I don't have kids. And, strangely enough, my Airplane Fu is strong. I'm usually blessed with the non-talkative seat-mate (could have something to do with the iPod ear-buds jammed into my head coming off as discouraging of social discourse). But I usually get by with little weirdness on planes. Friends of mine may read that statement and find it odd -- because in other modes of transportation, I am a nut-magnet. I am the person that will somehow mystically cause all the utter whack-jobs to travel the entire length of a crowded subway car, just so they can stand next to me and have conversations with their fingers or do bad Elvis impersonations or holler at people, asking if they've ever given BLOOD!!?? or drop to the floor to do push-ups while wearing a light-up Santa hat and no shirt and the words VOTE FOR ME painted on their chest in bright red tempra paint (gawd, I hope it was paint!). Yeah. Airplanes? fine. But you do not want to take public transit with me. Jus' sayin'.

Question Three: As a famous blogger, Clare is often recognized in the public, usually right after she's spilled something on herself or the like. As an author, have you ever been recognized by a reader? Or have you ever seen a famous author in public?

Not really as an author, no. Not unless I'm at a convention and that's a little different. Of course, in my other life, I'm an actor. And there was a time, a couple of years back, after I shot a commercial for Becel margarine, when I spent a couple of months getting really really strange looks from people everytime I got on a escalator at the mall. Because of this:





Question Four: Clare's sister Sam, who's in high school, throws a party while their parents are out of town. Would you ever have dared to throw a party when your parents were gone? (No need to actually fess up...unless you want to!)

Oh dear. My mom reads this blog, y'know... ah heck. I think she already knows the answer to this one. And - frankly - I blame my brother, who is three years older than me. And the fact that, on one occasion, it simply didn't occur to me to check inside the piano for the beer somebody hid there and then forgot.

Question Five: One of Clare's guilty pleasures is watching really bad (and thus awesome), cheesy Lifetime movies--especially ones starring Tori Spelling. What is your guilty pleasure movie?

Being a medievalist, and an Arthurian scholar, my guilty pleasure is... a little different. It is... EXCALIBUR. I watch it often. Oh, how I love that O.T.T. John Boorman-directed fantasy cheese-fest, featuring a put-upon Nigel Terry, Helen Mirren hissing like a pissed-off kitten, more limb-hacking and blood-spurting than the Monty Python Black Knight scene, and Nicol Williamson chewing every available bit of scenery while the entire camera crew is reflected in his shiny chrome skull-cap. I am odd.

So there you have it. My Bump-a-thon Q&A! Thanks for the fun, Maureen! And may BUMP go on to make you and Clare so famous, you can't walk out the door for fear of tripping over the paparazzi!! Congratulations!