Becky Blades, author of Do Your Laundry or You’ll Die Alone, talks giving and receiving advice in The Pitch questionnaire

Name: Becky Blades

Occupation: stARTist (a word I’ve coined for a serial beginner)

Hometown: Kansas City

Current neighborhood: South Kansas City, Missouri

What I do: I start things — artworks, articles, social projects, businesses, trips and board meetings. If I can’t find someone else to do it, I’ll finish them, too.

What’s your addiction? Art. I love looking at it, listening to it, making it, learning about it, talking about it and collecting it. (My own art is available at the Leopold Gallery in Brookside.) And fair warning, I’m a pusher, too.

What’s your game? Bananagrams

What’s your drink? Black coffee

Where’s dinner? Aixois in Crestwood

What’s on your KC postcard? The latest street art. Seen something you think I haven’t? Please send it to me via Twitter @beckyblades2!

Finish this sentence: “Kansas City got it right when …” We classed up the World Series with the KC Symphony for Game 6 and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato at Game 7. I loved how fans made it happen with the #LetJoyceSing social-media campaign. #classy

“Kansas City screwed up when …” WE (we all have to own this) became divided, parochial and competitive across our state line and municipalities. Together, we make a very cool city. Any part on its own is incomplete.

“Kansas City needs …” To get the streetcar on the tracks and keep going. I know it’s messy right now, but this will transform our city. So let’s do this, KC: to the Plaza, to the airport and beyond!

“In five years, I’ll be …” Riding the streetcar from my downtown studio to Aixois in Brookside and ordering the avocado shrimp salad.

“I always laugh at …” My two daughters. They both perform improv comedy at their colleges, but what they do in front of audiences pales in comparison to my daily text feed. Yesterday, procrastinating on her thesis, my 21-year-old sent me a 200-character Harlequin romance in three installments. Hilarious. But … maybe a mom is better off not knowing what is running around in her kid’s imagination.

“I’ve been known to binge-watch …” West Wing. It’s Sorkin’s best dialogue, and, surprisingly, they hardly ever say POTUS.

“I can’t stop listening to …” My 16-year-old singer-songwriter friend, Gracie Schram. I’ve known her since she was a babe in arms and later writing songs in the shower at age 8. Her career is taking off, and it’s so fun to watch. Her first music video, “Yellow Shoes,” was created by KC’s Hint. I dare you not to smile.

“I just read …” Antifragile. Again. It’s required reading for leaders and parents. What doesn’t kill us really does make us stronger.

The best advice I ever got: Pick your battles.

The worst: “If it’s worth starting, it’s worth finishing.” No way! A failed start is not a failure. It’s innovation, a step forward. Starting and finishing don’t always go together. Starting one thing leads to starting another.

The best advice I ever gave: “Do your laundry or you’ll die alone.” That was the subject line of a 100-page e-mail I sent to my daughter her freshman year of college. At her challenge, I turned it into a snarky advice book, which I illustrated with my mixed-media art. Some favorite entries: No. 192 — Don’t promise a kidney to someone you met in a bar after 2 a.m.; No. 178 — When someone asks if you’re an artist, always say, “YES.”

The worst: Do your laundry or you’ll die alone. Turns out, it’s a great book title but ineffective advice. No one is dead yet, and both daughters still arrive from college with suitcases full of dirty laundry.

My sidekick: My husband of 30 years. He can’t shake me.

My dating triumph/tragedy: Speed dating works! I met my husband, then a young lawyer, when he offered to “fix” the speeding ticket I got on the way to meet friends at Kelly’s. (So yes, kids, we met in a bar.) The only tragedy: I always thought I’d end up with a guy with a fast boat.

My brush with fame: Working in public relations, I’m lucky to have had many. A highlight: flying right-seat in Christopher Reeve’s Cheyenne Turboprop while filming a PSA for Learn-to-Fly Month in 1987. Lois Lane, eat your heart out. You rode special effects, sister. I actually flew with Superman.

My soapbox: Polarity is the cancer of society. If you want to eat with me, pocket your #@!* phone. It’s not what you finish — it’s what you start. Buy art.

What is one of your greatest accomplishments? I’m proud of Blades & Associates, the award-winning public relations firm my partners and I built in the 1990s and 2000s. And I’m proud that when it was time to move on and stART the next thing, I merged the firm with Trozzolo Communications Group, a talent-packed, principled, marketing powerhouse.

My recent triumph: My book, Do Your Laundry or You’ll Die Alone: Advice Your Mom Would Give If She Thought You Were Listening, was just named to “Best Indie Books of 2014” by Kirkus Reviews, the leading literary reviewer. It was one of only 100 indie books selected. Woohoo! I’m on my way to my dream of saving the world from bad adult behavior and sock monsters.

Do Your Laundry or You’ll Die Alone is available at Rainy Day Books, Barnes & Noble and online.