AJ Brower

Let’s forgo the torture and use this list to tell you about me:

• After two plus decades in public relations, I still can’t remember anyone’s name on the first introduction. I once couldn’t remember a guy’s name that I had dated. However, I can remember the street I lived on in seventh grade, the only test I ever cheated on, and how to find the maiden name of a nineteenth-century woman.
• I was delighted to go back to work after eight weeks of maternity leave, yet I love to sit and talk with my 17-year-old daughter (the same one I escaped from years earlier) or see what crazy invention my son has made out of duct tape today.
• For twenty minutes on Sept. 11, 2001, I panicked. That was the time between when the Pentagon exploded after being hit by a terrorist-hijacked plane and when my Pentagon-based husband called me to say he was fine. The next day, I volunteered to work in the Pentagon as a reservist, just another testament that Americans will get beaten up, but return to win the fight every time.
• I get to make jokes about getting breast reduction surgery while everyone else wants theirs pumped up.
• I’m okay if you ask me to reach the groceries on the top shelf. It happens all the time.
• I hate looking at other people’s baby pictures, and I won’t show you mine unless you ask. (Not surprisingly, no one’s ever asked.)
• I’ve been to Siberia in February, the Great Wall of China, Kalaikunda Air Base, India, and every state in the U.S. I’ve met people all over the world by living in fourteen states and two other countries. But when I got to choose where to move after all those places, I choose the Midwest, passing up Las Vegas and Virginia Beach, among others.
• My first published work was about buying diamond rings. My boyfriend then bought me one and I’ve been wearing it for a quarter century. So I must have written a pretty good story.
• There are two things I need to be happy: food and sleep. But I will give both of those up to write my next story.