The Great Portland Interview Experiment: Crystal Beasley

Weeks ago I excitedly signed on to participate in the Great Portland Interview Experiment, a meme from Portland, Oregon Web designer and all around geek Chris O'Rourke. The idea is to "discover untapped nuggets" about another person by asking them some questions. In return, you answer some questions.

And boy-oh-boy was I please to discover I would be crafting my questions for the Skinny White Girl herself: Ms. Crystal Beasley.

I've known Crystal for a few months, and it didn't take her long to get on the short-list of people who get my signature "kindred spirits" hug. (If you've gotten one...you'll know it.) She's good people, period.

I hope you enjoy reading her answers to the questions I so enjoyed asking!

The Great Portland Interview Experiment: Crystal Beasley

As a very tall girl, I know something about the challenges of being different than the "average" size. How has being a very small girl shaped your life?

I think it may be more socially acceptable to be extra short than extra tall as a girl, though no one ever wanted me to walk a runway or be on the basketball team. Aside from being able to stand up under the bulkheads in a plane, I always need pants tailored. I can live with that. I was expressing my desire to date men between 5'10" and 6'3" to my tall girlfriend and she asked, "how tall are you?!?" I can't see what that has to do with anything.

I noticed in the fucking unbelievably cute Dear Santa letter you wrote as a little girl (http://twitpic.com/s74g) you have a post script. Does it say "P.S. I hope you don't mind me keeping rats"? Details, please!

It says, "I hope you don't mind me saying 'rats'." I guess I've always had a potty mouth.

You have a kitty named Ruckus. What is up with his love of eating earwax? Under what circumstances (I confess I can't wait to hear this story) did this fact become discovered?

Firstly, Ruckus is a girl, a.k.a. "The RuckStar." She is a strange one. Not sure what accounts for her love of earwax, but I discovered her licking my earbuds on more than one occasion. I have to keep them hidden from her. ICK!

What are three tech gadgets you can't live without?

iphone, iphone, iphone - I demoed it to my Granny over Christmas and her comment was, "That phone can do everything but spit tobacco."

I know you're fond of southern-inspired meals, the stuff you grew up on. What's your favorite dish? Why?

My favorite meal is my Granny's chicken and dumplings, creamed corn, baked sweet potatoes, and banana cream pie for dessert. I can't remember *not* knowing how to cook. There's a picture of me with the first cake I baked where I colored half of the frosting pink and the other half purple and made a giant swirl on top. I was five.

Like me, you have a thing for shoes. Shoes, shoes, shoes! How many do you have, what's your current favorite, and *gasp!* do you ever get rid of them?

I haven't ever counted how many pairs I have. To give you a sense, though, I have six pairs of brown boots alone (camel knee high, brown mid-calf with strappy buckles, chocolate knee high, suede booties, hiking, and ridiculous pointy toe, snake skin, mid-calf). Asking me for my favorite is like asking which child is your favorite, but... I do have a soft spot in my heart for some absinthe-green satin peep-toe pumps with a bow on the toe. I went salsa dancing in them and thought I would die of pain, but it was worth it.

Tell us a bit about your relationship with your beloved Granny.

My Granny raised me, so I owe so very much to her. As I mentioned about about cooking, she taught me the fundamentals and gave me a love of good food. I believe there's something so basically human about feeding someone. A good meal, cooked with love, can cure both body and soul. She certainly prepared thousands of meals from scratch for me as a child and gave me a wonderful, stable home to grow up in.

You work at StepChange Group as Creative Marketing Manager. What kinds of projects have you been working on?

It's been a whirlwind since I started in October. We've had some brand new, big clients come in December like Toys-R-Us, Intercontinental Hotels, and Frito Lay. I also took on some existing clients like Gold's Gym. I've been wearing a lot of hats, as one does in a small company. I'm doing wireframing and design of widgets, blog posts, community management for SCG, and a bit of web production coding. I actually use Terminal and have Ruby running on my machine. Scary stuff!

I also started my first *first* first personal blog about (of course) cooking. It's called SkinnyCook and is available at skinnywhitegirl.com/skinnycook The world already has 17.7 million cooking blogs, but mine is focused on weeknight, super fast meals with a Portland spin. Most will take between 10 and 20 minutes.

I subscribe to Organics to You's box of lovely veggies, so if you're here in Portland and also subscribe, we'll have the same stuff in our fridges to work with. I give tips about where in town you can get any weird ingredients I might mention. Most recipes will have a minimum number of ingredients minimize fuss.

You're at the Beer and Blog. What's your drink-of-choice?

I'm a gin and tonic girl, Aviation please. Sometimes I'm reckless and venture out to Bombay Sapphire or Tanqueray.

Which social media tool do you use that has had the most impact on your professional life?

Far and away, Twitter is it. I'm such an addict. It's how if find out about all the best events, meet new folks, and keep up with tweeps I've already met. I start to wax philosophical whenever I try to explain it to someone who isn't familiar with it or who "doesn't get it." The brilliance of it is something that dawns on you little by little.

Let's go steady!