My dear witch,

I love chatty letters. Really, I do, and when I got yours on Tuesday it totally made my day. I've been trying to get caught up on the daily questions from Lioness' list, but it's been a busy week. Still, I'm going to keep working on getting caught up, and thank you for your patience. And thanks also for the copy of When Gravity Fails — I haven't read it before, but I can tell from the blurb on the back I'll probably love it. I'll let you know what I think when I'm done.

I don't mind used kitchen stuff at all — a few things in my kitchen I know have been around since I was a small child, and some stuff, like my food processor, is secondhand. It doesn't bother me much, since of course everything gets pretty thoroughly cleaned after you're done with it. My big, sky-is-the-limit wants right now … Well, you were spot-on with the KitchenAid mixer. I joke to my boyfriend all the time that it's going to be the first thing on the registry if and when we get married. (I like the candy-apple red color, even though that doesn't match a single thing in my kitchen right now.) I don't own a cast-iron skillet, either, and that's starting to feel like a big oversight. I've thought a lot about getting a mandoline slicer, a stick blender, an electric griddle, but ultimately I'm doing fine without all of the above right now. I guess for smaller stuff I'd like some non-stick silicone mats and I could probably use a new can opener. Not glamorous stuff, but there it is.

When I saw the exhibit at the MOMA this was in 2004 or 2005, so I think that was right around the time the Central library was being built. I did visit Seattle once while my father lived there, but that was in maybe 1999, so of course I've never seen it. I'd like to, and there are a lot of other places in Seattle I'd like to see (the Experience Music Project wasn't open yet when I visited, and I was disappointed since I wanted to go badly). Hopefully that's in my not-too-distant future.

By the way, if your next letter is three pages about why you love the Czech Republic and the people therein, I will not complain at all. My best friend is in grad school as a history major (and my plans are art history), so I kind of expect and invite these kinds of tangents from people. Plus, now you've piqued my interest.

Taking a hard left into color theory territory … I've had to give this a couple of days of thought, because clearly there's no pressure at all here, right? Plus I'm not sure I understand the question. Most of my favorite colors are cool colors and you might even term some of them "chromatic greys" because of how desaturated they appear to be, but color is a tricky thing. I actually got out my Pantone swatches to sort of give you a reference on what colors I like, and picked out a light, greyish sea green, a more saturated cerulean blue, and a dark blue-violet color. I hope that's helpful, if a little nerdy.

And yes, as I mentioned above, I love getting mail, I love reading letters. I do feel bad that I've fallen so far behind; "real life" seems to have leapt to the forefront with designs on eating my brain, but I've been trying to get caught up and think of good responses to your letter and to the forum questions. It's my first time doing Switch Witch, so I'm not too sure what my preferences for contact are. I'm not sure if I would like a ninja witch; I think I'd wonder if she hadn't forgotten about me, but other than that, I don't have any strong preferences yet.

So, I think the game you're talking about at the end of your letter might be Call of Cthulhu? My friend's husband offered to run that for a group a little while ago, if I'd agree to take up the GM reins and run a Shadowrun campaign for them at some point. We haven't started yet, which suits me alright because I've never read Lovecraft (plus, I'm foundering through Dark Heresy right now as it is. I feel sometimes like as much as I like Warhammer 40K, I know just enough to really get myself in trouble, since I haven't read even a fraction of all the books there are. Or read the comics. Or played the RTS games. Or …) You get the picture, I'm sure. Still, there are a lot of games I'd rather play than Call of Cthulhu myself, so i can sympathize there. If we start before the round is over, I'll let you know what my impressions are.