I was never the type of child who loved playing organized outdoor games like tag or hide-and-seek, and my family wasn’t the sort to play card games or charades.  However, my brothers and I adored the board game “Guess Who?”  This is a simple game with two boards filled with cartoons of different characters and, by asking yes or no questions, you were able to eliminate characters until you could guess which person your partner had drawn.  It’s the kind of quick and easy game that was fun for different reasons as we grew up.  When we were very young it was satisfying just to guess correctly, but when we were older it was fun to ask sillier or more clever questions to guess the character.

When I was a child, my mother noticed that I liked to go to the library and read, and also that I liked to write poems in my spare time.  When I was eight years old, she got me copies Shel Silverstein’s “A Light in the Attic” and “Where the Sidewalk Ends,” books of illustrated children’s poetry, and wrote inside the covers that maybe someday I would write a book of my own poems.  I loved those books, and they were what started me on a path that included a college degree in creative writing and a career in publishing.

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• Favorite poems from Shel Silverstein (chimac.net)

I am a sucker for a police drama.  Thankfully there is no shortage of police procedurals on both network and cable television, and it seems that no matter what time of the day it is I can turn on the TV and find Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler of Law & Order: SVU investigating an assault, or Gil Grissom thinking about a criminal’s motivation on an old repeat of CSI.  There’s something so satisfying about the way a police drama unfolds; you are instantly drawn in by a crime, but you know you will have all the answers at the end of the hour.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

If I suddenly had an extra $500 so spend at the mall, I would make a beeline for the music store and purchase an electric guitar and a small amplifier.  I know that $500 might not buy me the best or coolest guitar and amplifier in the world, but my goal is not to become the next Jimi Hendrix.  I would just like to be able to play some cool music, build my guitar skills, and possibly play with friends on occasion.  An electric guitar is the kind of dream item that I would need a serendipitous $500 in order to purchase.

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• Jimi Hendrix: King Of The Electric Guitar (npr.org)
• Jimi Hendrix: King Of The Electric Guitar (npr.org)