50 Questions Here are my answers to the questions. Pass the list on to your friends with your own answers. Who knows what interesting things you could discover about someone you think you really know.

1. What's one thing you wish you could do but can't? Fly above the clouds and mountains or swim to the oceans depths and see just what sunken ships and odd fish are down there. Swimming almost feels like flying.
2. What is your ideal marriage location? A spring wedding in the forest, a summer wedding in a huge garden with tents for shade, an autumn wedding on the edge of a tall cliff on the ocean with lots of wind, or in winter right downtown with all the Christmas lights, carols and decorations. My wedding was a couple of weeks before Christmas and a few days before my birthday.
3. Which musical instrument do you wish you could play? The harp or the piano. …more

When you get one of those good book in a cozy nook with the perfect smooth coffee and a little bit of something sweet and decadent, what kind of coffee and decadence are you having? For me its a chocolate swirl cheesecake or in ice cream its vanilla storm, or gold medal ribbon or a DQ chocolate dipped cone. Coffee changes for me. When I was a young adult going to the Second Cup in the Scarborough Town Centre I would always get a mocha coffee. That was when they made it with a mocha bean, they don't seem to have that any more. Now I like the Ethiopian or French vanilla from the Timothy's coffee place in the Newmarket, Upper Canada Mall. When I'm in the US its hard to find a good coffee. Barnes and Nobles is the only mega bookstore near us so I drag my husband there every month or so. Coffee just hasn't fully caught on in the US. At least that's what I have come to conclude.

The best thing I like to do on a laid back weekend day is browse around one of those mega bookstores, take the odd bit of notes in my notebook and dawdle over a good coffee. In Canada, Chapters is my favourite store. In the US I like Borders best but they don't have an outlet close enough. I'm hoping one will suddenly spring up.

Oddly enough, one thing I have not done is get a piece of cheesecake or anything like that when I'm in the bookstore. Either I'm being figure conscious or I just want to spare the books getting anything messy on them. Probably some of each. Its such a nice way to spend an hour or two I'd hate for the stores to change their way of doing things and stop people from browsing with their coffee. I have seen some pretty messed up books in the sale racks. Not just a little crumb or a tiny spill of coffee. Some of the books have been very badly damaged. I bought one for 75% off, it was about making rustic furniture. It was a treat for me to be able to buy the book. I wouldn't have if it had been full price. But I doubt the book's writer or the bookstore would feel pleased about it. Its a shame people aren't more careful.

I'm not an angel or some perfect puritan type. I think I'm stretching the rules when I make notes of the odd URL from the books and magazines I skim. I don't usually walk out without buying something, I tend to know what I want to get when I go in there. But, its not exactly ethical to take the information from the books I'm not buying. Still, I reason that the URLs themselves are public knowledge and public property. I don't think the book's writer can copyright the URL, just their review of the site and the rest of the book or magazine article's content. So, I go ahead, feeling at least a little guilty.

Chances are I will be a book store employee in my next life. I'll spend eight hours a day putting books away and being pleasant to people who have just dumped a cup of coffee on the rustic furniture book, originally selling at $50. At least I'll have an employee discount, though I'll have spent my pay cheque before I leave the store.

This was while I was still married, before everything fell apart like a deer in the headlights. This was actually the column I wrote to start the column, it just got posted out of order. I called my column Bewitching Vagabond and I wrote it for a few years at the BackWash site. Nothing of it is left up there now. Someone took it all down though others have been up for ages, never updated.

A Real Live Alien Sunday August 05, 2001

Have you ever met a real alien? I don't have green skin, antennae, a ray gun or a flying saucer. I'm a legal alien. Entirely different from the little green men.

I'm actually Canadian. Seems odd to be an alien when I've only come from Canada. I was born in Toronto, Ontario not all that many years ago compared to the life span of the Great Lakes or the Canadian Shield. Of course, those are pretty damn old some would say ancient. I'm 36; it just feels pretty damn old. I'm not really sure how I got this old.

I met my husband, the reason I became an alien, when we were 14 and began as penpals. Over the years we wrote on and off, somehow keeping in touch. Eventually, sometime after college and a few years working here and there, we met in his hometown in southern Illinois. Its a pretty small place. Quite a change for a city woman, like myself. I miss public transportation almost as much as my family. It was very nice to take a day and go downtown, see the museum, have a (not too) expensive lunch and walk around the malls, have good coffee and browse in the bookstore then dash back to catch the bus back home.

We went the K1 fiance visa route, with immigration. Its a frustrating process. Makes it very hard to plan a wedding no matter how much your Mother wants you to. We did find a great Yahoo Club for K1'ers. Its called the CanAm Connection. I highly recommend it. I'm still a regular reader even though we are now past the K1 phase and waiting for the big interview, the AOS (adjustment of status). Likely only a select few will know what I'm talking about at this point.

I went to college in the suburbs of Toronto, the Warden Woods campus of Centennial College. The course was two years, Corporate Communications. It involved writing, publishing, copy editing and graphic arts with a general run of courses like philosophy. I did really great in philosophy, surprised myself. I've always heard Sagittarius people like philosophy; I guess its true. I was born in the year of the dragon. I'm a wood dragon by the Chinese zodiac.

I’m working my way into freelance writing. Ultimately, my goal is to be a columnist, well known and well paid. Syndication is the key but before that I have to write, a lot. I’m currently reading a book from the Writers Digest series about being a columnist. I can recommend that too.

Wicca is an Earth religion. I tell that to everyone who asks me what it is. I don’t feel I’m a Wiccan, but it does make things easier to just leave it at that. I like the Earth side of things. Some how I don’t like the idea of worshipping anything and I think my "gods" would be the kind who don’t want to be worshipped.

So, now you’ve met an alien. Scary, eh?

Ok, here is my confession... I was an IRC diva. Please don't hate me because I baited trolls and flirted way too shamelessly. I was a confused virgin, out to explore the world of sex and other adult situations. It was fun until I started wondering whether I was really the user or the usee. I'm still not sure. Its one of those snakey tail in mouth questions, it has no end and no beginning.

Think you recognize my nickname, SheDragon? I still think I was the first but I know of three others. If you check ICQ members for SheDragon there are way more than three. Still, I'm the first and I did just about everything naughty and promiscuous on IRC. What, you may ask.

It started with just chatting, nice girl, polite chat. I met a guy who was the channel hot stuff and I liked that. I now know I like the man in charge, the one with the power. Back then I was a nice girl without a clue. As I watched the standard flirting that goes on I began to want that kind of freedom. The ability to completely let go of all your restrictions while remaining faceless and unknown behind a computer screen. It was such a rush! I became a bad girl, surprised the heck out of all the people in that channel who thought they knew me.

From there I had my heart completely broken once. It never happened to me again. I wised up and understood the give and take a lot better. In general women on IRC are looking for a Prince Charming to sweep them off their feet and put them on a gilded pinnacle. The men are looking for someone with big boobs and a nice ass to meet them (anywhere close) for sex of any kind. They prefer younger meat but if she's really female, born that way they don't mind a few flaws. Not too many though! A guys got to have some standards.

Am I picking on men? No, I'm picking on men and women and feeling a little sorry for both. I don't feel self righteous about it, just a little wiser for my experiences. I'm not going to write about just how low down I sunk, it involved a certain IRC channel which no longer exists. I did play in a Truth or Dare channel and chat regularly in a BDSM channel but those aren't the best of the worst. Still, I wouldn't redo it or undo it. Experiences give life flavour, the good ones are wonderful but the less than good ones make you appreciate what you have and how you've earned it.