Jenn gifted me with these questions. If you want to be interviewed and sent questions of your own, follow the instructions at the end of this posting. Since most of my friends who read this don't have journals, however, I'm not expecting many responses!

QUESTIONS FOR CHRISTINE:

1. Name two things you learned from being a professional ballerina that have impacted the rest of your life.

Gosh. Only two? Okay. This one I learned much later, but it is that teenagers need something physical, such as ballet lessons, martial arts, gymnastics, etc. to do that takes them away from home for several hours each week, all year long. This not only provides a place for them to learn to be themselves, something that home doesn't always provide, but it also gives them something to strive for that isn't school-related, and provides mentors that aren't their parents, which gives them another adult to emulate.

The second thing would have to be how important regular exercise is, and how much hard work is really involved no matter what your sport is. Especially as you get older. Ballet is one of those disciplines that I will always be able to do; maybe not with the perfect technique I had when I was sixteen, but with the muscle memory of what that technique was. Also, I really miss sweating as much as I did when I was dancing eight to ten hours every day...hmmm...maybe it's time to get back into ballet class...
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2. Give me the five most important dates (days, not romantic meetings) that you celebrate or remember each year.
August 19th, 1977; the day Tom and I became a couple.
February 23, 1980; the day I got married.
September 14, 1990; the first time I gave birth.
March 25, 1993; the day my brother died.
March 29, 2001; the day I officially decided to become a writer; aka the day I heard I'd been laid off three days' earlier, while I was in London on vacation.
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3. Favorite movie to watch when you're sad? Favorite book to read when you're happy? Favorite song to sing when you feel like singing?

Titanic. It's a great movie to watch when you're sad, because then you are allowed to cry. Or any of the LOTR movies, because then you forget that you're sad.

Book: Bella Tuscany.
Song: It's Raining Men, by The Weather Girls.
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4. Are there any professions that you'd be disappointed to see your boys pursue?

Maitre d' in a fancy restaurant. Anything in the service industry that doesn't require at least a Bachelor's degree. Anything that they don't love whole-heartedly. Life's too short to do work you don't respect, work for people who don't respect you, or to do work that makes you see only the ugly underbelly of life.
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5. Your father and brother wrote a lot of books. What's it gonna take for you to carve out your own niche in the family ecosystem? :-)

Discipline. Determination. A shoulder to cry on. To "nevah, nevah, nevah give up".
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RULES:
1 - Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2 - I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
3 - You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4 - You'll include this explanation.
5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.