I can't. But I can condense it into a top ten list.
Top Ten Things You Need To Know About Me
(But Didn't Want to Read The Whole Blog To Find Out)
10. My name is Emily Simmons. That's about the shortest one you're going to get from me.
9. I am a stay-at-home mom to four kids - three boys (ages, currently: 14, 10, and 7) and one girl (age 4). The girl took a long time to get here, and she's a novelty, so you'll hear a lot about her. Plus, she's too young to say, "Mo-o-m! Don't put that on your blog!" whenever she does something funny/interesting/embarrassing.
8. I am also a part-time student at Utah Valley University. I've been going to school there for the last seven years; I'm on the ten year (at least) plan. I finished my Associates Degree in Business a couple years ago, and promptly switched my major to English with a creative writing emphasis.
7. I have been happily married to my best friend, Ryan, for 15 years. (No, I'm not that old. If I had told you in #10 above how old I am, you'd say, "Fifteen years! Oh my gosh, you got married when you were still a baby!" But I didn't tell you, so we didn't just have this discussion.)
6. In 2005 I won two business planning competitions. I took first place in my college's competition and third place at the state level (Utah Entrepreneurial Challenge) with the business plan I wrote for my husband's company, www.CartoonSolutions.com. If I can't make it as an essayist or fiction writer, I could probably write business plans for a living. But nobody wants a funny business plan, so really, let's make sure that doesn't happen, okay?
5. I live in Utah, home to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Being a Mormon in Mormon-land is a completely unique experience. Although, to be fair, being a Mormon in Non-Mormon-land (i.e., the rest of the world) is also a unique experience. I like it. It works for me.
4. I love to make people laugh. In fact, it is probably my second favorite thing in the world. Not all of my blogs are funny, but if I'm being serious, it's just because I couldn't find a way to make it funny.
3. Reading is my favorite, favorite thing in the world. In fact, I'd consider myself a reader first, and then a writer. But you can't make a living from sitting on your couch with the latest bestseller, unless you're the one writing it. So here I am.
2. I have a list of authors that inspire me - I love Ruth Reichl, Haven Kimmel, A.J. Jacobs, Barbara Kingsolver, and most especially Mary Roach, among others. But probably the author that has influenced my writing most is Dave Barry. My dad would pilfer reams of Dave Barry's articles from whatever the Internet was called way back in 1987, print them off on our dot-matrix printer, and pay me money to read them onto cassette tapes for his commuting enjoyment. I considered this easy money, besides the fact that there weren't too many other jobs available to an eleven-year old, and cranked those tapes out as fast as I could. Granted, this wasn't professional-quality reading; my dad had to put up with mispronunciations, a crying baby in the background (my brother Tim), and frequent laughing breaks. So when I say "I grew up reading Dave Barry," what I mean is "I grew up repeating out loud every word Dave Barry ever wrote and as a consequence I still have to stop myself from saying things like 'I am not making this up.'" Which, by the way, I'm not.
1. I'm long-winded. The correct reply to the phrase "To make a long story short..." is "Too late!" I'll leave brevity to the poets.
See? Now that wasn't so hard after all.
