Name: Dian Age: 33
Sign: Gemini (cusp of Cancer)
I grew up in: Southern CA (The Valley...North Hollywood, Canoga Park, Van Nuys, Tarzana)
I currently live in: Long Beach
Occupation: Writer
You can find me: in numerous wine and beer tasting rooms across the nation, come 2009
You will never find me: hurting an animal
Your website or Charity you are passionate about: HRC--the idea that we're all human and all equal is fascinating to me, and I surely can't wait until those ideas are fully realized...what a great idea to put forth the energy into making happen
1.)What (person, goal, dream) gets you out of bed each day? The idea that I get to choose the best parts of each of my parents and try to make the best of myself using those parts.
2.)What life experience has strengthened you the most? My mother's death when I was 16. I realized that if I could get through that, I could get through anything.
3.)What would you want to change about yourself? There are a lot of things I've worked through regretting, and it's all let me here--to a place where I no longer regret those things. I want to get better. Be a better person. Constantly
grow and change and learn. And who knows what that will be, who I'll be or where that will lead? So I don't know what I would change. I just know that I will.4.)Describe the landscape of the place you grew up. How did that landscape affect you? The house I grew up in was a 2-br house on a 5,000 square foot lot at the corner of a tiny street and an alley way in North Hollywood. My mother had spider plants and ivy and irises and creeping charlies, among hundreds of other plants in the back yard. We had a dog run that ran the length of the house just outside the back door, with a gated fence that one of the four dogs was constantly jumping over. 2 Dobermans, a German Shepherd, and a pint sized mutt with scruffy blond hair who I chose to name Shuzbutt. I lived there for 8 years and more than the landscape of the house and its surroundings (the open prickly-wheat-like stalk field behind the house; the potholed alley way between the field and our house; and the mis-matched residential front yards of green-grass-growers and car-in-the-front-lawners), what affected me the most was how we lived there. Mom had friends over often; we had dinner at the table most nights; we talked to our neighbors and sunbathed with them in the front yard during the summer; I walked to school every morning and home every afternoon by myself; I used the key around my neck to get in the house; I made my own dinner and sat at the table when my mother didn't make it home from work by the time I was hungry; I did my homework before I played; I joked and laughed when I thought it would make someone like me or notice me; my mother encouraged this behavior; my mother stayed home with me when I was sick and could always tell when I was faking; and my mother said "I love you" every night when she tucked me into bed. I remember wishing I had a tree for a tree-house when I was a kid, but that was just to have someplace to escape to when I was lonely. I didn't dwell on it much, but if anything, the lack of a big tree just for me in my landscape made me a little bit lonelier than I thought I might have been if I'd had it.
5.) What is your most prized possession? The flag I received from the Naval officer with tears in his eyes at my father's funeral. Until that moment I didn't understand what the military meant to my father. But I saw it in that 20-something officer's eyes when he handed me that flag.
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