I know a lot about a few things - mostly useless things.

I love the excess of Christmas. The shopping season that begins in September, the bad pop star recordings of Christmas carols, the decorations that don't know when to come down.

A young imagination is bold, likes to make bigger leaps. It likes to, well, imagine that the dustbuster is a dinosaur; that the computer mouse is a hotrod; that the box is a cave; that the rawhide is a torch... or a baton... or something.

If I had a time machine I would go back 30 years and show up at my grandmother's apartment before the gargantuan meals she would serve and I would help her.

I was way too hyperactive to study for long. I would freak out, then crash, then be too tired to read or write. I really should have had less sugar.

I'm in fact a hair under six feet, but I'm very svelte. People would never see me if I turned sideways.

I have such respect for people who do non-fiction casting after settling on the grandparents we got for this. It is really hard to find people who are not fame-whores. We're lucky these people actually wanted to spend their time doing this. All of them would have much rather been cooking without the cameras, being with their families. That's why they're great characters.