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February 3, 2006
Five Things Meme
Yes, this is my very first meme (what the hell is the origin of that word, anyway?). Thanks to Frankengirl for tagging me.
Instructions: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so.
1. Kiss My Mike
2. Ultimate Writer
3. Golgotha_Tramp
4. FrankenGirl
5. Holly at Self-Portrait as
Next select five people to tag:
1. Major Steel at Out of the Mist
2. Jana at Pilgrimgirl
3. Heo Cwaeth
4. John at Mind on Fire.
5. Bored Dominatrix (yeah, OK, so that's just one of my personas--but she's got different answers--better answers, actually--and she's going to tag people who might not tag anyone else)
6. Mary Ellen at Rio Grande Valley Girl (Yes, I know, I'm cheating TWICE now, but I found out a day after tagging the first five bloggers that Mary Ellen has started a blog, and I want to support her)
What were you doing 20 years ago?
Riding a bike around Kaohsiung, the nasty port city in the south of Taiwan, trying to convert Buddhists to Christianity
What were you doing 10 years ago?
Finishing up my third year of course work in a PhD program in English lit
What were you doing 1 year ago?
Pretty much the same things I'm doing now
Five snacks you enjoy:
1. chocolate chocolate chip cookies
2. a bunch of Ben & Jerry's limited edition flavors that no longer exist, but every so often I check the frozen food section of my favorite grocery store, just in case
3. Carr's Ginger Lemon Creme English tea cookies
4. chips and salsa
5. extra sharp white cheddar
Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:
1. "My Favorite Things" (and every other song from The Sound of Music, as well as most of the Rodgers and Hammerstein oeuvre)
2. "There is a Light That Never Goes Out" from The Queen is Dead by (of course) the Smiths
3. The Soundtrack to "Once More With Feeling," the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (all right, I know MOST of the lyrics)
4. "Young Americans" from Young Americans by David Bowie
5. When I was in high school, someone at church taught us to sing all the books of the Old Testament, in order, to the tune of "Praise to the Man Who Communed with Jehovah" (i.e. Joseph Smith). I can still sing it, and I find it really useful when I want to remember if Psalms is before or after Proverbs.
Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
1. buy a house in Tucson
2. pay off all my debt
3. quit my day job and devote myself to writing
4. start doing yoga again regularly and become certified as a yoga instructor
5. give money more often and more generously to causes I support
Five bad habits:
1. not exercising as much as I should
2. buying candy almost every time I go to the grocery store
3. becoming so lost in my thoughts as I go for a walk that I start gesturing to myself, so that strangers sometimes ask me who I'm talking to
4. buying clothes I don't need when I already have more clothes than I can wear
5. not being more aggressive about submitting my work for publication
Five--no, six--things you like doing:
1. writing
2. reading
3. hanging out with old friends
4. meeting new people
5. visiting exotic places
6. staying home
Five things you would never wear again:
1. turtlenecks
2. a button-down shirt (not that I've worn many in my life--the preppy thing never worked for me)
3. anything with a sports mascot on it
4. Um, for over a decade, I almost never wore a bra, but then I got a job teaching high school, and it just seemed like a good idea to wear one some days
5. I don't really find jeans comfortable (denim is such a heavy fabric--who wants something made of it surrounding one's nether parts?) but it would be unrealistic to say I'll never wear them again
Five things that scare you: (yeah, I added this one)
1. Republicans (including my family)
2. religious extremism
3. environmental degradation, including but not limited to global warming, pollution, and destruction of rain forests
4. never being famous
5. deep water
Five favorite toys:
1. my own body. This is not an allusion to sex. This is mostly about the fact that I like yoga and dancing. I like lying in bed and listening to my toes. I like noticing sensations in my knees and my neck. I like having acupuncture and feeling energy gather and release. I like paying attention to what it feels like to be me, as I move through the world.
2. my cell phone
3. my computer
4. my sewing machine
5. the great ineffable mystery of the universe? I don't know. I just like to think about things. I want to get smarter as I age.
Posted by Holly at February 3, 2006 8:44 AM
Comments
[begin lecture]
'Meme' was coined by Richard Dawkins in "The Selfish Gene." It's a chunk of culture, a behavior, information, the spread of which has analogues in the the passing of genetic information within an Darwinistic conceptual framework. Urban legends, fashion trends, and chain letters are powerful memes, and I like to think of religions as 'memetic complexes.'
[end lecture]
Posted by: John at February 3, 2006 5:18 PM
Holly: "...meme (what the hell is the origin of that word, anyway?)"
It's from the Greek "mimeme," meaning "something imitated." The medical definition of the related word "memesis" is: "The appearance of symptoms of a disease not actually present, often caused by hysteria." Somehow, that seems more relevant.
I guess I have an assignment now, huh. Who knew blogging would be such hard work.
Posted by: majorsteel at February 4, 2006 12:52 AM
holly-
my carpal tunnels are aggravated right now. ouch!
i'm going to reply to the meme in a few days when i'm typing again...
:)
Posted by: Jana at February 4, 2006 12:06 PM
As far as the Five Things That Scare You (great question, btw), I’m totally with you on 1-3 (and 5 as well), but in respect to “never being famous,” I would ask you to qualify this. Because you can be famous any time you want by doing something really, really stupid. There are a lot of dumb, dodo-head idiots who are very famous, indeed. So what does “fame” really mean to you?
Many writers whom I deeply admire were not respected, appreciated or famous during their lifetime. Sorry. I know this sucks.
This question of fame also brings me back to your entry about your blog’s audience. And I want to ask this. If Emily Dickinson had a blog, would she stop blogging her poems if she had no readers?
Posted by: frankengirl at February 6, 2006 12:19 PM
These are excellent questions you pose, Frankengirl--so excellent that I think I will have to devote an entire entry to exploring them. However, since my attitude has always been "Slow and steady may or may not win the race, but it's how I'm going to do things anyway, damnit," it will probably be a few days before I post my answers. But thanks for asking.
Posted by: Holly at February 6, 2006 1:43 PM
My responses are here-- http://pilgrimgirl.blogspot.com/2006/02/five-things.html
Posted by: Jana at February 6, 2006 5:45 PM
Hi Holly,
My very laate responses are here: http://heocwaeth.blogspot.com/2006/02/return-of-recreant-blogger-meme.html
Thanks for tagging me.
Posted by: HeoCwaeth at February 18, 2006 3:53 AM