Fourth of July. My birthday is July first, and my best friend's birthday is July fifth, so it's always been a favorite holiday. It's all about having a cooler full of sodas, hot dogs, and just hanging out and shooting off firecrackers, being low-key, watching the fireworks.

Gardening gloves are for sissies. I always have dirt under my nails.

I grew up at the base of a mountain in Virginia, so my comfort zone is that Appalachian area, where all the dudes wear Carhartt and all the women can put on a beautiful sweater with a snowman applique and nobody raises an eyebrow.

For me, I always wonder what's worse: an emotional betrayal or a physical betrayal? That's a really tough call.

I'm from northern Virginia, but I grew up next to the West Virginia border, so it was hills and farmland. We had that sense of adventure you get from growing up around old farmhouses and lazy, rolling hills, you know?

I've named a couple things after Edgar Allan Poe: the cat, and my garden upstate, where I only planted black flowers and purple flowers - and there's a raven statue.