• I Thought it Was Just Me - Brene Brown
• The Hammer of Witches - Shanna Mlawski
• Karin Armstrong - A Short History of Myth (at Central and Plaza branches)
• Margaret Atwood - The Penelopiad (at Central and Plaza branches)
• Jeannette Winterson - Weight (at Central branch)
• Victor Pelevin - The Helmet of Horror
• David Grossman - Lion's Honey
• Alexander McCall Smith - Dream Angus (at Central and Plaza branches)
• Sally Vickers - Where Three Roads Meet
• Ali Smith - Girl Meets Boy (at Central branch)
• Su Tong - Binu and the Great Wall
• Michael Faber - The Fire Gospel (at Central branch)
• Dubravka Ugrešić - Baba Yaga Laid an Egg (at Westport branch)
• Klas Östergren - The Hurricane Party

• African Curried Coconut Soup with Chickp...
• Tacos with Mushrooms and Rajas-GF
• Quinoa cakes
• Curried Lentil Soup-GF
• Spinach and Chickpeas with Fried Eggs-GF...
• Sweet potato chili-GF
• Chipotle sweet potato, black bean, and q...
• Lentil, mushroom, and sweet potato sheph...
• Wild rice and mushroom soup

• Drive the route of Old Route 66 (Completed May 2015)
• Take the Pacific Coast Starlight Express
• Cruise up the Danube
• Gawk at architecture in Barcelona
• Stay at the Propeller Island City Lodge in Berlin (no longer possible, alas)
• Drive the US coast to coast
• Halloween in New Orleans

• Given that gay and bi men can't give blood in the US, what about transmen in relationships with men? At what point in transition does a person who could give blood become a person who can't give blood? Has the FDA even addressed this?
• Why is bird poop white instead of brown? What are birds doing, digestion-wise, that mammals aren't?
• Did Notary Public once mean something significant, or was it always just a guy with a stamp who would swear you were who you said you were, provided you paid him to do so?
• How do you make frozen yogurt?
• What's the difference in process between different types of cheese? What's the difference between, say, quark and yogurt?
• Why isn't there a key on the piano for E#?

• Who/what do they love?
• Who/what do they hate?
• Who/what are they afraid of?
• To what person, institution, or ideal are they loyal?
• To whom do they owe a favor, and why?
• What do they hope that nobody ever finds out about them?
• What questions are they looking for the answers to?
• What do they hope to attain in life? What do they want to be remembered for?
• What place is important to them? (Where do they hang out?)
• What is their job, and do they like it?
• Do they "fit in" with their family? Their town? Their culture?
• What about them is visibly remarkable? What are their habits of speech or gesture?
• What other characters are they like? Wha...

• Topkapi
• Big Trouble in Little China
• Raising Arizona
• Hamlet (Branagh)
• Sling Blade
• Chinatown
• A Fistful of Dollars
• In Bruges
• Willow
• Inglorious Basterds
• Good Night and Good Luck
• Kinsey
• The Usual Suspects
• True Grit
• Excalibur
• Dr. Strangelove

Perhaps someday I will host them.

• The 'Dracula' dinner party: chicken, cheese, and an excellent Tokay. Spooky lighting and alarming shadows. Scary story-telling after dinner. Wine.
• The 'Gods and Monsters' costume party: come as your favorite mythological figure. Ambrosia and golden apples, milk and honey. Chess, or perhaps dice, despite Einstein. Regret-worthy amounts of mead.

• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on Flow
• Susan Cain on "The Power of Introverts
• Wingham Rowan on "A New Kind of Job Mark...
• Edi Rama - Take Back Your City with Pain...
• How language influences behavior

• Calculus
• The Borgias
• Machiavelli
• Kansas City history
• Statistics
• Building electronic toys
• Vegetarian cooking
• Pre-colonial American history
• Mansa Musa
• Antoni Gaudi
• Growing fruits and veg
• WWI aviation
• Alan Turing
• Sewing and tailoring
• Making hats

• "Your mood disorder is not terribly uncommon, lots of people have similar experiences, and you are not alone." / "Your concern about your brain's behavior is legitimate, mental illness is thing, and your experience might be improved by therapy and/or medication."
• "You are a good person and there is no reason why you should not get to have a relationship/sex." / "Nobody owes you a relationship/sex, particularly not the specific person who is not interested in you and upon whom you are currently fixated."
• Similarly: "Feelings are legitimate things that happen, and you should pay attention to them and let them exist." / "Nobody (including you) is required to do anything or permit anything to be done simply because you have a feeling."
• "It's fine to like yourself the way you are." / "It's a good idea to strive to imp...

• Being asked for a phone number by someone who is not prepared to note the number down in some way, and waiting while that person finds pen and paper so that I can give them the number again.
• Being asked for computer help by someone who paid attention neither to what they were doing with the computer before everything went wrong, nor to the error messages the computer gave.
• Forgetting to eat, particularly forgetting to eat breakfast.
• Being lied to by someone who has put no effort into making the lie believable or interesting.
• Hearing the same story or joke for the tenth time.

This is a list of things that make life work better, if I can remember to do them.

• Making lists
• Throwing away junk mail/Deleting junk e-mail before reading it
• Not reading the comments
• Making things from scratch
• Asking the internet how to do a thing I don't know how to do
• Asking people if there is something they want me to do about the problem they are telling me about, or if they just want me to listen
• Writing down addresses and other important information
• Declining opportunities I don't actually want to take
• Agreeing to opportunities I do actually want to take
• Making connections between seemingly unre...

As a child:

• Astronaut
• Mickey Mouse (Disney)
• Spider-man (Marvel Comics)
• Spider-woman (Marvel Comics)
• A spider
• A black cat
• Cleopatra (bad historical)
• Dracula (very small) (eponymous)
• Rock star
• Tiger
• Juliet's mother (Romeo and Juliet)
• The Phantom of the Opera (eponymous)
• Dracula again (taller) (eponymous)

As an adult:

• Aes Sedai (two different ones) (Wheel of Time)
• Asha'man (Wheel of Time)
• Renaissance wench
• Pirate

• Colossal
• The Hawkeye Initiative
• Retronaut
• Physics Database - Free Science Books

• Britex
• Thai Silks
• Celtic Trims