Nope. I was thinking about having cards made that just say "Jenn Frank" on them. Why would I ever need a business card?

Every day.

Mine? My best-ever was Ghost World "movie Enid," which is the nearest I've come to cosplaying. A year earlier I was Lola from Lola Rennt, and let's just say that my shoulder tattoo, composed in the mirror, was not my best work.

The weirdest: I was 14, I was supposed to go on a trick-or-treating date—I am pretty sure this was a date, anyway—and it didn't occur to me until I was literally, physically opening my front door that I probably should not have dressed up as The Wolfman. So I open the door, and I am bursting with crepe wool here, and my friend Brian is standing there in a straightjacket and we just stare at each other. It was a riot.

The worst was when a girl complimented me on my Velma costume ("I'm not wearing a costume").

pppizza.tumblr.com

Ugh, no.

I can do a pretty good impersonation of Ya Kid K

Did you know that most bakeries use cake mix? I was explaining this on Thanksgiving: we've gotten so snowed by cake mix, we're disgusted by cakes with lumpy or inconsistent textures. So most professional bakeries—and in a way this is fine, because you're really paying for someone to layer the cakes and ice them—use cake mix! (I learned this in an advice column where a professional baker felt guilty about Living a Lie, and the columnist clued her in.)

Our car stalled on some train tracks once, just as a train was coming. I remember it cutting close, although maybe it didn't. We were all screaming. There were four of us in the car—my mom, dad, Cassie, me. I think that would have been an outstanding way to go—it was a very Stand By Me moment. My mom reached for the gearshift to reverse, and in that instant it seemed like the exact opposite of the right thing to do, and I shouted for her to gun it, just gun it, just speed forward! And she did. So we'll never know, I guess.

JOE BIDEN

I'm thankful for people. I am really privileged. I feel like I don't communicate with any shitty people. (Actually, I barely communicate with people at all, if you can believe it, so by necessity my favorite people tend to let me go long stretches of time between I-love-yous.) I inherited a lot of people who care about my mom, and I'm grateful for those people too (usually).

I am thankful for everyone I met this year. My friend's ex-roommate Dan, that one really startled me. Some colleagues, some assholes on Twitter, my editors, whoever. I have more girl-friends than ever before, can you believe it? Cassie, Whitney, Conci, Cara, Dara, Robyn...! They have this preternatural understanding of when to emerge. I'm still close friends with a lot of dudes, too, but those dames are all tough, tough dames.

I spent Thanksgiving with another family and they dragged me out of the kitchen (where I was hiding) and into the family photo, and then the head of the family positioned me smack in the center, and I recently received an email with this photo as the attachment and it is just ludicrous. My dog is in it, too. I received this photograph and I laughed in horror, and then the horror faded and I just laughed raucously. What kind of family puts the only impostor right in the center? So yeah, I'm full of gratitude.

Oh, this is a toughie. I tend to skew toward documentaries that are critical of aspects of Evangelical Christianity ('Hell House', 'Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music'), but not overtly so ('Jesus Camp' is not my favorite by any stretch). I also really enjoy the documentary about Danielson, along with—ha, ha, okay—'The Devil and Daniel Johnston.'

So, uh, three of those were music documentaries, all tinged with comments on Evangelism. My DVD shelf looks really stupid; someone once asked me what was going on there and I was just humiliated, very "welcome to my medicine cabinet."

Let's see. 'Bells From the Deep' is really good, it's Herzog. I like documentaries by Rick Sebak, which are mostly light-hearted PBS documentaries about food; my ex-boyfriend's parents borrowed 'A Flea Market Documentary' and never returned it. I like documentaries about space and dinosaurs and technology. I like that one documentary, 'In the Realms of the Unreal', about Henry Darger. I guess I don't have a favorite. Maybe 'Hell House' is my favorite. I think it's very kind, it has a really emotional core. It should still be on Netflix Instant.

Dangerous minds.

I remember when this question first sprouted up in my inbox, I was, in fact, singing along to something. But I don't remember what! It was almost certainly Any Radio Hit from the 1990s, anything from "Sex and Candy" to "Everlong" to, er, a Jewel song. Oh! It might've been No Doubt, even. Basically I'm saying I'm obnoxious.

What were we at all talking about here

This question is from September; you'll have to pardon me for not answering right away. Unless I am in a professional setting, I almost always introduce myself as Jenny. My adoptive mom called me Jenny, and my best friends and ex-boyfriends all do.

Now, my birth-dad always spelled it "Jenny," while my birth-mom spelled it "Jennie," which led to some early-years identity confusion. A high school English teacher always insisted on spelling it "Jeni," and my first love spelled it "Jenni." That is all a big part of why I settled on "Jenn Frank" as a byline in my first year of college. Let's just abandon the stickiness of all those extra letters, okay? (I also chose this route because a friend liked its succinctness; he said it made me sound like "Frank Black.") Anyway, if you ever google for "Jenny Frank" you'll see that I made the right choice.

The name is actually "Jennifer"; don't call me that. Congratulations to me! I have the most boring name in the world.

They're actually too weak for me. I don't have real numbers for you at hand, but let's just say I couldn't see *anything* at my junior prom. Sometimes I read with them off, but I have to put the book right up to my face—I'm extremely nearsighted. (I think one eye is also just slightly behind the other, playing constant catch-up.)

Every once in awhile. I started a game with a text parser once, but I felt like I had some trouble moving a lamp onto a table. Then I realized I'd better go through this dense book of instructions. And then life happened, and I stalled somewhat.

I think about it a lot, though—not how, not what, not when, but just like a shadowy thing. If you ever visited my apartment, if you saw the shelves by my desk, you'd see there are as many books about game design as there are books about writing for children. At some point I might attempt to combine the two dreams, I don't know.

Oh, I remember the last three CDs, but not in what order: Kimya Dawson, "Hidden Vagenda," Mirah and Spectratone International, "Share This Place," and "I Killed the Monster," the Daniel Johnston cover album.

Wait, wait! There was a fourth, and it might well be the most recent disc I bought: you had to go to the Mission and buy a CD in order to complete one leg of an ARG called the "Game of Nonchalance."

The stars.

A couple years ago I packed my parents into the car, put them in Snuggies, and drove way out into the country so we could watch a meteor shower.

There are other great things. A couple months ago I listed all the great things, which is not something I would've been able to do twelve years ago when I first went screaming out of this place. I like my cowboy of a lawyer. People here are plain-spoken but not plain-thinking. They're shrewd. It's changed the work I do. People are patient. People loiter. Strangers really do befriend you. Two women taught me how to play shuffleboard last year; a third shared her fresh oysters with us.

We have really fresh oysters here.

I don't know if you've ever been to a bar where the drinks are cheap and you can smoke indoors and there's a pool table, but I have to recommend that.

I did know! I have a running mental list of every celebrity I'm taller than. I'm slightly taller than Lady Gaga, for instance.