It’s that time…Ask Jana (with its very own hashtag #askjana!) is at it again. What this means is that I run out of ideas for things to blog about and I turn to my mighty Facebook friend list for ideas, and they always come through because they are a clever bunch. (Friend me! Then you’re really friending about 1000 other people but without the birthday/holiday obligations!)

Off we go…

Why were mosquitoes created? Really what was the need? – Tammy
The good Lord knew that once Bill Gates had amassed a billion dollars with Microsoft, he’d need to turn his attention elsewhere…so God created the mosquito so Bill Gates could exercise his humanitarian side. Nets for all!

What was the first Mary Chapin Carpenter song you learned on guitar? – Lisa
He Thinks He’ll Keep Her. Which is weird for an 11 year old to be jamming to a popular country song about divorce, but it was by far the most interesting thing on the radio at the time and we HAD NO (USEFUL) INTERNET…so radio was it. Also the music video was awesome. I learned it in A on a nylon string guitar.

Why doesn’t Reese’s sell the peanut butter eggs year round? They have the perfect ratio of chocolate to peanut butter… – Erin
You are right, Erin. Once you go egg, you can’t go back to cup. I also recoil at those creme eggs…I just can’t do it because they’re too close in texture to real eggs. Anyway…I don’t know. I think the solution is to create more holidays throughout the year where an egg is the centerpiece symbol. National Egg Day. National Poultry Reproduction Day. National Spherical Plastic Container Day. In the meantime…start stockpiling.

What is your favorite stretch of road? – Ryan
Awesome question. I love the trip from the Texas Panhandle into New Mexico. We often drive from Amarillo to Taos, so you’re looking at plains and plains and plains (pretty in their own right)…and then you cross the state line into New Mexico and I SWEAR the sky gets bluer and the clouds get prettier. It’s flat and dry until you go through the mountain pass after Cimarron and suddenly you find a river alongside the road and even snow at the right time of year. It’s windy roads and green mountains all the way into Taos, and it is then that I start craving red and green chile and having the string urge to buy an adobe casita.

jet lag – Havilah
Havilah is my talented songwriter roommate who has spent so much time traveling these past few months that she can only type in short thought bursts. I have been there. I get jet lag when we have gig weekends that keep us awake until 3 or 4 in the morning (and I don’t even do the driving so I get off easy – yay Suz!) and then I try to get back into the “wake up early and do things” schedule. On the first day my re-acclimating trick is to sleep until noon at the extreme but NO LONGER! Drag that butt out of bed. 10 or 11 is better. Do not nap. Be lazy, but be awake. Go to a bookstore or Target and window shop or something…mental stimulation and walking outside. Then try to be in bed by midnight that evening…and boom. Usually I’m back on a schedule I can deal with because I can get 6 – 8 hours of sleep that night. Don’t stare at screens (this is the hardest for me)…read a real book before you try to sleep. Keep the temperature in your bedroom cool. This is more like a “sleep better” answer than a jet lag question, but the two are intertwined in my head.

I have so many questions that this post will continue tomorrow!  Now go eat a Reese’s egg, sleep well at night, and learn a Mary Chapin Carpenter song.