Meme

The Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who've influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.

Alice Walker
Georgette Heyer
Terry Pratchett
e. e. cummings
Oscar Wilde
Emma Donoghue
Keri Hulme
Lois McMaster Bujold
Margaret Atwood
John Holt
Anne Enright
Gabrielle Palmer
Lauren Childs
Roald Dahl
Betty McDonald

... what a strange list.

AAAAAAND another thing...

While we were waiting in the hospital for our taxi home, a woman stopped and admired Linnea and Emer and then spotted Astrid and admired her and said "It's a baby brother, right?" and I said "No, another girl," and she said "All girls?" and I said "All girls!" and she very sympathetically said "Every time a disappointment."

I said "I LIKE girls. I AM one."

The receptionist, about 4 metres away, concealed a huge smile, and whispered to the man beside her "You can never get it right, some people think you need some of each."

---

Linnea said "Maybe that's why your body makes girls, because it knows what you like, so that's what you get."

I said no, some people did want a boy and got a girl or the other way around, but I like babies, and I got babies.

She seemed to like that, so I was able to go on explaining the double-helix hanging from the ceiling to Emer. I didn't succeed, particularly.