al, that is a lot of questions. when my editor comes calling this week asking where the h-ll i am, i'm going to give him kathy's email address.

dogs:

i've had dogs all my life, from birth to present, except for ten years after sam, my second mastiff, died. it took me that long to get over him enough to get another dog.

i've had cats, rabbits, canaries, turtles, fish, a squirrel, and a hermit crab!

adventure:

wow. that is a hard question to answer. both the general question about the various dogs i've had and my memorable adventures sound like great book ideas.

one certainly would be the five months i spent living alone in the wilderness. another would be the killer week mr. pique and i spent together bushwhacking through the northern canadian rockies. or the time i climbed to the top of a mountain in the middle of the night in march. there must have been ten feet of snow on the ground. when i built a campfire, it sank down through the snow about that far.

some of these have been written up in magazine articles, if you have access to old skiing magazines from the 80s and 90s, there are lots of stories in there about how i nearly killed myself.

being a writer is the best job, because if you ever tire of a subject, you can then choose to learn and write about something totally different.

i would have loved to have been a professional musician. i would have loved the travel, the teaching, and the collaboration with other musicians in performance. that was the calling i missed (see "grand obsession" )

quote:

Have you been in a situation where you feared for your life?

yes. more than once.

quote:

Originally posted by kluurs:
[quote]have you had any small dogs?

my first dog was a wire-haired fox terrier. then an airedale. a west highland white terrier. everybody after that has been a mastiff.

quote:

can you say within an order of magnitude how many of you last book were sold? 10,000 100,000?

still don't have the figures on that.

quote:

Why did you scrupulously avoid Chicago in your tours?

the publisher didn't put me on tour. i paid my own way to nyc for the book's launch, and to l.a. for the NAMM convention, but every other city i visited was only possible because someone invited me and paid my way.

i have a brother in chicago and i would love to come there. if any piano dealers want to do a book signing/reading/concert/piano party like we did in other place, i'm available! especially now with the paperback release, it's a good time.

i have been invited to guest lecture at OSU columbus next april, a joint event with the creative writing dept and the music school, so possibly something could happen in conjunction with that.

quote:

since you always type in lower case, did your book publisher lose his/her mind?

my editor DID nearly lose his mind having me for a writer . but my ms word program turns lc into caps.

quote:

If you were suddenly to become the darling of the religious right, are their incriminating photos out there that would suddenly appear?

ooh! very good question!

i like to think i've always been very conscientious about retrieving all incriminating photos before moving on from a relationship!

Why did you choose the avatar you did?

Can you tell us about your interest in Greta Garbo and what she means to you?

Can you tell us about your interest in jewelry? What are you most interested in?

(Now, I don't want short answers-- I want you to explore these questions in depth! )

Thanks.

there is something i'd like to share with you pique.

a while ago you were sharing some of your dog knowledge and you said that one of the benefits of the RAW diet you feed your dog (isn't it called something like BARK?), was that the fecal product of the dog was non smelly and blew away in the breeze.

it's really odd, but every time i see dogpoop in KS, i think of that post.. it suppose that aridity adversely contributes to the moisture content of the poop in Montana and probably enables it to blow away on the breeze. I've wanted to mention that for quite the while now.. but just haven't had the chance.

now for your question.. if mr. pique would follow you and you had plenty of money to live leisurely and well, what would you do and where would you settle?

quote:

(Now, I don't want short answers-- I want you to explore these questions in depth!

well, that puts you at the end of the line, bucko!

quote:

Originally posted by apple*:
there is something i'd like to share with you pique.

a while ago you were sharing some of your dog knowledge and you said that one of the benefits of the RAW diet you feed your dog (isn't it called something like BARK?), was that the fecal product of the dog was non smelly and blew away in the breeze.

it's really odd, but every time i see dogpoop in KS, i think of that post.. it suppose that aridity adversely contributes to the moisture content of the poop in Montana and probably enables it to blow away on the breeze. I've wanted to mention that for quite the while now.. but just haven't had the chance.

now for your question.. if mr. pique would follow you and you had plenty of money to live leisurely and well, what would you do and where would you settle?

well, have you ever seen wild carnivore scat? like from coyotes or lynx or wolves?

it turns hard and white, very quickly, but it doesn't blow away. so, it's like that. makes sense, since the dog is eating like a wolf would.

what actually makes it turn to dust and blow away is when you run the lawnmower over it. and i'm sure you are right that the aridity of montana makes that more likely.

in answer to your question, we'd probably pick up and move to another country to live for a while. any number of countries might be of interest, but we'd just pick one.

actually, we probably will do that when mr. pique retires, since i can work from anywhere.

and, if that won't be for a while, he may be developing his work in such a way that he can work remotely, so we can live wherever we want.

mr. pique would enjoy the life of leisure, and doing nothing all day. i need a project, and to work, or i get depressed. i don't do what i do to make money, so i'm sure i'd do it even if i had lots of money.

i'd probably do even more of it, since i wouldn't have to worry about money.

quote:

Originally posted by piqué:

quote:

(Now, I don't want short answers-- I want you to explore these questions in depth!

well, that puts you at the end of the line, bucko!

Just kidding. I'll wait.

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel:
Why did you choose the avatar you did?

for wtf's first halloween we all dressed up as movie stars. i liked mine, so i kept it.

quote:

Can you tell us about your interest in Greta Garbo and what she means to you?

my mom was a huge vintage film buff, and we watched old movies together all the time on tv when i was growing up. i thought garbo epitomized hollywood glamour, and i thought her incredibly beautiful. i used to dream when i was a little girl of growing up to be as beautiful and glamorous. i had a movie star streak in me a mile wide when i was a kid.

quote:

Can you tell us about your interest in jewelry? What are you most interested in?

actually i would never have thought of myself as being interested in jewelry. i rarely wear it, and i own very few things, most of it cheap costume jewelry.

i guess i got more interested when mr. pique and i got engaged, and i didn't see anything i liked in the stores, so i designed my own engagement ring and had it made.

i'm very interested in jewelry design, for the sake of good design, and i enjoy designing and creating pieces, but more for the sake of making and appreciating a work of art, rather than self-adornment. i've given most of the things i've made away to friends.

maybe if i get brave i'll take some pictures of some of my pieces and post them.

Well, I'd love to see your pieces. Thanks for answering my questions. If I think of more, I will let you know.

quote:

Originally posted by piqué:

quote:

Have you been in a situation where you feared for your life?

yes. more than once.

Well, that answer is just enough to tantalize. Tell more, please. I do love a good damsel in distress story. At least I know that the situations didn't end too badly, because you're here with us.

Big Al

Pique,

Do you ever partake of whole unpasteurized milk up there in the far reaches of Montana?

BC

Another question - I know that there is a lot of seismic activity in Western MT - (father used to do a lot of fishing in the West Yellowstone area)

Do you have a lot of small earthquakes in your area?

BC

al, i once had a rifle at my back while i was camped alone at a remote alpine lake. the trail crew got me out of that one.

i once set out in the middle of january in northern quebec, on skis, to reach a mountain hut that was supposed to be only a three-hour ski from the trailhead. began skiing at about 2 pm with assurances from the ranger that i would get there before dark, no problem.

at 1 am the next morning, i was still skiing, it was so cold my lungs felt like they were freezing on impact with the air (later found out it was 25 below), i was soaking wet with perspiration, and i kept falling down into deep drifts, because i was too exhausted to keep skiing uphill, in deep snow, with a 40 lb pack on my back.

i knew i was on the trail because of the blazes, but there was no sign of the cabin. i didn't know if i'd passed it in the dark, or wtf had happened, but i was very lucky i did not die that night from hypothermia and exhaustion.

chris,
we used to be able to get whole unpasteurized milk and cream here, and we were addicted to it.

but the store that carried it had to stop because i guess there is a law against selling unpasteurized milk. either they didn't know that, or they didn't realized the milk they were selling was unpasteurized.

it came from california.

i have had goat's milk right from the goat. delicious!

if we do have many small earthquakes here, they are too small to feel. i think i have felt one once, maybe.

if you take a tour of yellowstone n.p., the rangers there love to tell visitors that the caldera blows about once every 30 million years (or something like that), and the last eruption was longer ago than that, and that it therefore could blow any minute.

a cousin of mine in michigan heard about that and called me with great concern and urgency one day, asking if i knew this, and wondering if i hadn't better get out of here.