Rebecca A. Foster

When people find out I was an English major, they often ask me what my favorite book is. I kinda hate this question. Would I be an English major if I had just one favorite book? No. I'm here reading 6 books a week because I love reading all kinds of books. So, in no particular order, five books I think are worth reading:  1. An American Childhood , by Annie Dillard.  Non-fiction, autobiographical. I had to read this book for AP English my senior year of high school and it is still one of my favorite comfort books. It's a memoir of her childhood in Pittsburg, and she writes about the way in which our views of life change and grow as we age. The best word I can think of to describe this book is 'charming.'  2. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers , by Mary Roach. Non-fiction. The title explains it well: it's a book about all the things dead bodies do, from medical school labs to car crash testing to forensic science. It's not creepy, I promise. It made me ap...

Logically, star gazing shouldn't be something I really enjoy. Not terribly climate controlled. It happens at weird hours. And because the first stars I saw were in D.C., 'normal' stars are 'painted or lit up on the wall.' (Planetariums? Awesome. Still the best date idea ever. Much more likely to get some, just because you had the good sense to choose the planetarium.) But there is something about being outside in nature, not quite warm enough, the quiet and solitude, the beautiful night sky seemingly engulfing you, that creates quite an ideal environment for keeping close to the person next to you. Love it. Love it even though (because?) it makes me fall unwittingly, unquestionably, for some of the more BS pickup moves. And like them. Just ask Jeff, whom I met in college summer school. (I was an over-achiever and wanted to graduate early.) We met in English and pretty soon were hanging out, going out dancing, but just as friends. Our finals in August coincided with...

This is Chris Cornell in the 1990's. When I was doing my undergrad I had a roommate from Seattle and we were very into the whole flannel shirt, wearing PJs to class, 'big clunky black shoes with sassy tights and short skirts for everyday wear' scene. Chris was pretty hot to us back then. I think we even had a pic of him taped to our living room 'Wall of Fame' (the low-tech incarnation of Stuff I Love). This is Chris Cornell today. Now I mostly wear high-heeled strappy sandals, cotton baby doll Ts, and although I do still wear sassy socks and clunky shoes on occasion, definitely not to work. The Wall of Fame is long gone, but Chris is even BETTER looking today than he was back then. Women say it's not fair men get hotter with age, but as long as I have eyes, who cares?? I'm just happy I still get to look at him! And the best thing about Chris? Not only does he look like that, he sounds like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4fJqz7Tn-4 Check out those lon...