Tagged.
Meme time. I’ve been tagged by Amy J., a fellow Central Texas blogger and mother to the uber-cute Logan. I can’t resist a tagging.
The rules:
- Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog. Check.
- Share seven random or weird facts about yourself.
- Tag seven random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
- Let each person know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
Okay here goes:
Quirky fact #1: I have to take a deep breath and really think before I say the word “seminar,” otherwise it comes out “senimars.” This developed sometime during high school, when I would talk fast (and often without thinking) and would frequently switch the “m” and the “n” and never know the difference.
Quirky fact #2: I’m an organization junkie. I’m not very organized, but I love anything related to it. I could browse The Container Store for hours. (Ditto for office supply stores).
Quirky fact #3: I get attached to specific types of pens and go through phases were I will only buy that kind of pen. In college and grad school, it was the Papermate stick pens, but for the last few years I’ve ditched those and pledged my loyalty to the Uni-Ball Jetstream ball point pen. This obsession is so intense that when we wandered in to an Office Max in San Francisco during our two week trip and I discovered they had a sale on this particular brand, I bought four packs and hauled them all the way to Alaska and back.
Quirky fact #4: On a similar note, I will only use composition notebooks for writing notebooks and I’m obsessed with how flimsy the cover is. I hate flimsy covers. I will reject notebooks based on the flimsiness of the cover.
Quirky fact #5: Snakes don’t really scare me. Neither do spiders, roaches, or bugs. However, I am totally freaked out by uncurtained windows at night.
Quirky fact #6: Despite being terrified of public speaking, I taught public speaking to college students and culinary students for three years. I do great in the classroom, but I’m very self-conscious in conversation because I tend to mispronounce words and I’m afraid people will hear that and think that I’m stupid.
Quirky fact #7: I’ve had to write this post standing up as my back has been spasming all day. UGH. As a result, it took most of the day and I have yet to do any number of the things I was going to do. Including write. 
Whew!
But as I have so much stuff to get done, I’m not going to tag anyone. Plus, I think I’m the last person in the blogosphere to do this meme. So I’m tagging anyone who hasn’t posted today, or who hasn’t ever posted their seven quirky facts yet.
Have a good weekend
Some Fun: Answers
How about some answers to last week’s quiz?
- 1801 – I have just returned from a visit to my landlord – the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
- Sybil Davidson has a genius I.Q. and has been laid by at least six different guys. Forever – Judy Blume
- Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it “and what use is a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?” Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
- She hurries from the house, wearing a coat too heavy for the weather. The Hours – Michael Cunningham
- Noon. London: my flat. Ugh. Bridget Jones’ Diary – Helen Fielding
- This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it. The Princess Bride – William Goldman
- You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
- The sun sets in the west (just about everyone knows that), but Sunset Towers faced east. The Westing Game – Ellen Raskin
- When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
- Parsifal is dead. That is the end of the story. The Magician’s Assistant – Ann Patchett
- (Bonus) When he says, “Skins or blankets?” it will take you a moment to realize that he’s asking which you want to sleep under. “How To Talk To a Hunter” by Pam Houston, from the collection Cowboys Are My Weakness
Some Fun: A Reading Meme
Welcome to my procrastination. I feel like I’ve seen this meme somewhere before, as I’m definitely not original enough to make it up. Below are the first lines of 10 of my favorite books. See if you can figure out who wrote them and where they came from. Leave your answers in the comments.
- 1801 – I have just returned from a visit to my landlord – the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with.
- Sybil Davidson has a genius I.Q. and has been laid by at least six different guys.
- Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it “and what use is a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?”
- She hurries from the house, wearing a coat too heavy for the weather.
- Noon. London: my flat. Ugh.
- This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.
- You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.
- The sun sets in the west (just about everyone knows that), but Sunset Towers faced east.
- When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.
- Parsifal is dead. That is the end of the story.
- (Bonus) When he says, “Skins or blankets?” it will take you a moment to realize that he’s asking which you want to sleep under.
I’ll post the answers later this week. Enjoy!
Another Book Meme
I don’t have a lot of time to write actual content today. My mother and I are heading to the deep East Texas woods to take care of some unfinished business with my grandmother’s estate. But rather than have an entry-less Monday, I’ve stolen this list from a forum post and turned it into a meme. Because we all like to show off how well-read we are, right?
Okay, maybe that’s just me.
Below is the list of Entertainment Weekly’s 100 “new classics.” Bold the ones you have read. Place an asterisk next to the ones you have loved. Italicize the ones you want to read. Strike the ones you hated with a fiery passion. And always, if you are so inclined, post this meme on your own blog and leave a link to your answers in the comments.
1. The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006)
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)
3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)
4. The Liars’ Club, Mary Karr (1995)
5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997)
6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001)
7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991) *
8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996)
9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997)
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)
11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997)
12. Blindness, José Saramago
13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87)
14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates (1992)
15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (2000)
16. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986)
17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1990)
19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith (2005)
20. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding *
21. On Writing, Stephen King (2000)
22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (2007)
23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1996)
24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (1985)
25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989)
26. Neuromancer, William Gibson (1984)
27. Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990)
28. Naked, David Sedaris (1997)
29. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett (2001) Note: not strike-worthy, but I didn’t love it
30. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (2004)
31. The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien (1990)
32. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch
33. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (2005) *
34. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (2002)
35. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2004)
36. Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996)
37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (2003)
38. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore *
39. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)*
40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)
41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984)
42. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard (1983)
43. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette
44. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene (1991)
45. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende
46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman (1988-1996)
47. World’s Fair, E.L. Doctorow (1985)
48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
49. Clockers, Richard Price (1992)
50. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (2001)
51. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom (1990)
52. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan (1992)
53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (2000)*
54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (2000)
55. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls (2006)
56. The Night Manager, John le Carré (1993)
57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987)
58. Drop City, TC Boyle (2003)
59. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat (1995)
60. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (2001)
61. Money, Martin Amis (1985)
62. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick (1994)
63. Pastoralia, George Saunders (2000)
64. Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997)
65. The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993)
66. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace (1997)
67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003)
68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2006)*
69. Secret History, Donna Tartt (1992)
70. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004)
71. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman (1997)
72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (2003)
73. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (1989)
74. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger (1990)*
75. Cathedral, Raymond Carver (1983)*
76. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell
77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)
79. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2000)
80. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney (1984)
81. Backlash, Susan Faludi (1991)
82. Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002)
83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994)
84. Holes, Louis Sachar
85. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004)
86. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987)
87. The Ruins, Scott Smith (2006)
88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (1995)
89. Close Range, Annie Proulx (1999)
90. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl (2001)
91. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2003)
92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (1987)
93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (1991)
94. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (2001)
95. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman
96. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003) Note: there are not enough strikes in the world.
97. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson (1992)
98. The Predators’ Ball, Connie Bruck
99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (1995)
100. America (the Book), Jon Stewart/Daily Show (2004)
Memeage: The Magic MASH Machine
I am so thankful for my wonderful friends who find glorious online time wasters and share them with me. Today’s find: The Magic MASH Machine.
For those of you who were not blessed with playing MASH in junior high (i.e. boys), it’s a wonderfully silly game where you list all your crushes (plus one or two duds), all your dream jobs (plus one or two duds), all your car choices, kid choices, dream city choices, etc. and then wait for the hands of fate to determine your future. And by hands of fate, I mean, the girl that sits in front of you in Social Studies who counts out the answers and who may or may not be cheating thereby making you end up married to the class clown, Sammy Melcheck, instead of to Alan Peterson, for whom you KNOW you are truly destined.
Ahem. . . No hard feelings, Laura.
Anyway, there is now an online version of the hands of fate. I believe it only slightly less biased than Laura Dyer. My results:
You will marry Freddy Rodriguez. [1]
After a wild honeymoon, you will settle down in Deluth in you fabulous Apartment.
You will have 0 kid(s) together.
Your family will zoom around in a Seafoam Green Chevy Nova.
You will spend your days as an Acclaimed Air Guitar Champion, and live happily ever after.
If you are so inclined, leave your fate in the comments.
________________
[1] It totally came down to either Freddy or Meatloaf. Whew!
My Meme
It’s been an absolutely crazy week and it will likely get crazier still. Of course, the best way to deal with a to-do list that is miles long is to . . . blog. Right? Last week, Deborah of the Rhythm of Write blog tagged me for a meme.
You’ve probably heard this song before, it goes a little something like this:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.
6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.
So here they are, six “interesting” things about me:
1. I stepped over a rattlesnake when I was nine. I almost stepped on the rattlesnake but at the last moment I felt like something was “off” about the perfectly coiled rock and skipped over it. Only when I turned and looked back did I realize the rock was a rattler.
2. I’ve been bitten by a tiger cub and hugged by a chimpanzee in a dress.
3. When I was young, I participated in roller skating competitions, complete with the sparkley costumes. I still have my “professional” skates sitting around.
4. My new favorite easy breakfast is a cup of vanilla light yogurt mixed with some Kashi Go Lean! Crunch cereal. That’s not really interesting, is it? Ah well, try it and we’ll call it even.
5. I am very distantly related to the following people: William Penn, Jim White (discoverer of New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns), John Henry Tunstall (the shooting of whom started the Lincoln County War, he was also the employer of Billy the Kid), and Reba McEntire.
6. I’ve never had the chicken pox (knock wood). My mother used to arrange chicken pox play dates because she wanted me to get it when I was young. Never took. I was vaccinated against it when I was a teenager.
Deborah challenged her taggees to tag people that they had never met. I’m shy and honestly, this week is so busy I’m not sure I’m going to have time to blogstalk and force you all to complete your memeage. So I’d totally copping out on rule number four. But hey, if you want to be tagged, consider yourself tagged. Leave a comment here with the link to your meme and I’ll even go back and edit this entry to make it look like I tagged you.
