Does this mean I get to flirt with Spock?

Your result for Reincarnation Placement Exam...

Starfleet Crewperson

52% Intrigue, 80% Civilization, 63% Humanity, 69% Urbanization.

As Mister Spock would say: Fascinating. It seems you've managed to hit the edge of the curve on all metrics. An extraordinary life is almost certain.

According to your answers, you want it all, you want a lot of it, and you're willing to do what it takes to get it! Adventure! Romance! Technology! Challenge! You love civilization. You like people. You love the complications and joys of a big, weird crowd of humans plus lots of other beings wandering into dangerous and complicated corners of the galaxy.

There is an ideal place for you, and you are ideal for it: Welcome to the crew of the starship Enterprise. Captain Kirk would have welcomed you aboard himself, but his head was too big to fit in the landing bay.

Take Reincarnation Placement Exam at HelloQuizzy

I'm pretty sure I've posted this before, but...

Here are the snarky interpretations of the Myers-Briggs types

I may write more later today. But maybe not. I keep sneezing.

CC
and Egghead married to an Outside Contractor

- Post 3 things you've done in your lifetime that you don't think anybody else on your friends list has done.
- See if anybody else responds with "I've done that." If they have, you need to add another! (2.b., 2.c., etc...)
- Have your friends cut & paste this into their journal to see what unique things they've done in their life.

1. Spent the night a South Carolina jail cell*

2. Participated in a "truth or dare" game that got so wild that two housemates moved out almost immediately afterwards.

3. Taken a walking tour of Jack the Ripper's hunting ground with a criminologist.

CC

*I wasn't under arrest, though. They were opening a new prison and needed volunteers for the guards to practice marching around and handling.

Saturday Morning Silliness

Your result for The Fashion Style Test...

Fashionista

31% Flamboyance, 55% Originality, 63% Deliberateness, 48% Sexiness

[Tasteful Original Deliberate Prissy]



One is certain: you have great taste and plenty of ideas. You have clearly defined beliefs about what's good and what's bad in fashion but they are far from banal. Stylish and imaginative, you prefer to inspire admiration than to shock and you mostly succeed. Even if sometimes you'd like to have more courage to put on something absolutely outrageous you do great job in creating a unique look that others look up to. There is a possibility that you work in the fashion industry. If you don't, perhaps you should.


The opposite style from yours is Bar Cruiser [Flamboyant Conventional Random Sexy].




All the categories: Librarian Sporty Hottie Office Master Uptown Girl/ Boy Brainy Student Movie Star Fashionista Glamorous Soul Fashion Enemy Bar Cruiser Kid Next Door Sex Bomb Hippie Kid Fashion Rebel Fashion Artist Catwalk God(ess)

Take The Fashion Style Test at HelloQuizzy

I hope they have free coffee.

After you die... the Beetlejuice Waiting Room After death, you will end up in an overcrowded waiting room sitting beside Beetlejuice. You've been given the number 736 076 827 378 919 023, but they are currently serving number 3. Good Luck.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Wow, that IS my favorite donut flavor!

You Are a Powdered Devil's Food Donut

A total sweetheart on the outside, you love to fool people with your innocent image. On the inside you're a little darker, richer, and more complex. You're a hedonist who demands more than one pleasure at a time. Decadent and daring, you test the limits of human indulgence.

What Donut Are You?

CC
Pleased to be the Angelina Jolie of donuts

Happiness Meme

(From Fishy.)

Six things that have made me happy recently.

1. Landlord-tenant law. There are times I feel like I don't understand anything, can't write a memorandum to save my life, can't take notes, and will surely end up flunking out and dancing for change in front of Wal-Mart. Then, I read about landlord-tenant law. I don't know why, but I like it. It's straightforward, and reasonable, and it's related to what my mom does for a living so I have something to attach it to in my head. It's taught by my Property professor. He lays things out really thoughtfully and logically. I just get it.

And that gives me hope.

2. My YRUU padawans and their enthusiasm when I put together my sheet of stories they should know from Genesis. I'll draw up a similar sheet for Exodus soon.

3. When I was lying on Jana-who-creates' couch and ZombieKid walked up:
ZombieKid: Do you and theCSO sleep in the same bed?
CC: Ummm... Yeah?
ZombieKid: Does he use you for a pillow?
CC: Sometimes a little bit.
ZombieKid: Do you use him for a pillow?
CC: I like to go to sleep on his shoulder, but sometimes it gets tired and has to move it.
ZombieKid: Sometimes I use Skunkeriena for a pillow. I wonder if she minds.
(Holding up the toy skunk to whom he is married)
CC: I'm sure she doesn't mind. She's a very understanding skunk.

4. I got to talk to a chatty forensic toxicologist today who told me lots of things I didn't know about how difficult it is to determine the degree of impairment when marijuana is involved. It was cool. My job has ups and downs, but I basically like it.

5. I don't have anything planned for Saturday. Like, at all. I'm thinking about eating breakfast alone, then going in to the office to read and work on homework. No pressure. Just a restful day getting things done. Introvert nirvana.

6. TheCSO and I almost never like the same TV shows, but we both love "Chuck." We watch it together and laugh together the whole time. There literally hasn't been a show we've watched together like this since the X-files.

That's actually more Calvin than I was expecting

Your Score: Mostly Hobbes

You are 30% Calvin and 70% Hobbes

You've got elements of both Calvin and Hobbes, but over all, your sensible side wins out over your wild streak, and you tend toward the tiger. As the picture below indicates, the head is the first place that people usually turn to the darkside (i.e. Calvin): symptoms include irresponsible behavior and crazy ideas. You're liable to both. But beneath that you have a heart, a sensitive side, and this more often than not carries the day.

Link: The Calvin Or Hobbes Test written by gwendolynbooks on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

I have no idea how I have become the one who is usually pretty grounded in many of my friendships. But I have.

CC

TheCSO answers the interview meme

1) what do you want to learn more about, but haven't had the time?
Art, and how to create it. Also horseback riding, which I haven't had a chance to do since college.

2) would you rather jump off a building yourself or push someone else off?
Jump. I've tried, actually, but I don't have the guts.

3) when your computer auto-updates and asks you to restart, do you do it right away or do you click 'later' a couple times first?
I click Later, often until it MAKES me reboot.

4) if you could plant one idea in everybody's head, what would it be?
Be decent to each other.

5) if there were a zombie apocalypse tomorrow and you slept through it, where would you go?
If I was the ONLY survivor? I don't know. Probably go wander around a museum for a while, then completely fall apart mentally. If there were others, I'm sure we'd figure something out. I've thought this through pretty thoroughly, actually, and I'm certainly the right kind of tinkering fix-it person that a postapocalyptic society would have desperate need of. This does produce the occasional Walter Mitty-esque flight of fantasy. Well, maybe more than occasional.

Interview Meme!

1. Leave me a casual comment of no particular significance, like a lyric to your current favorite song, your favorite kind of sandwich, or maybe your favorite game. Any remark, meaningless or not.
2. I will respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. Include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in your own post.
5. When others respond with a desultory comment, you will ask them five questions.


Here's my response to the questions I was asked by Fishy


1) do you talk to objects that you work with (when other people might hear you)

Yes, most often my printer, who sometimes has to be coaxed to do his job.

2) what do you want to have done before you die?

My friend Katy-the-Wise says that the meaning of life is to figure out what’s important and work to preserve and promote those things. (Paraphrased)

That sounds good to me.

3) what do you do to keep your mind flexible?

Blog memes? Seriously, I read a lot and I find myself trying to figure things out. I have a pretty analytical approach to life anyway, so lack of thinking is rarely my problem. I’m always analyzing situations and trying to figure out why people think and feel the way they do.

4) what do you like about working with the UU youth group?

One time, the kids were upstairs in the service and Jana-who-creates and I were preparing the room for youth group. An awkward teenager I don't know very well came in and was talking to us because he didn't feel like going to church.

I needed a folder from the RE office upstairs.

“Hey,” I said to the youth. “If you go get the YRUU folder from the RE Office, I’ll give you a dollar and Jana will give you advice on being cool.”

“Ok,” he said. When he brought me the folder, I handed him a dollar. I expected Jana to say something like “Watch Buffy, imitate Spike” or something else silly, but she regarded him seriously and said,

“What do you need to know?”

“Well, sometimes I want to talk to someone about something, but it’s not their thing and they are interested in something else. How do I talk to them about stuff I like, and how do I talk to them if they like totally different stuff?”

She started out explaining that sometimes the secret was to connect your interest to something they like, explaining that she reads comic books and can usually find a comic book about anything that might interest anybody else. Build a bridge between your interests and something they care about.

I then explained that people loved to talk about their interests, and if you get someone else talking about something they like, they will like you more and you will probably find that what they are talking about sounds pretty interesting just because the talker is enthusiastic.

I was just screwing around when I said my friend would give the guy advice on being cool, but I think we really helped him, and in a way that I wish somebody had helped me when I was 15 or so.

That's what I like.


5) if you had to grow all your own food, would you be a vegetarian rather than raise and slaughter your own meat?

Hmm… I’m awfully lazy. I might starve. More seriously, I find myself imagining some combination of eggs, fruit trees and fish. I suck at fishing, but I think I could learn.

Linguist Friend responds to Ms. Kitty's Meme

LINGUISTFRIEND TRIES TO SAVE HIS SOUL:
I understand from Ms. Kitty’s meme-assignment that I can save my soul if I write about eight defining moments in my life at which I might have lost my soul (on some points the jury is still out), or at least I learned something from the experience.

1. In the early and mid-20th century, American aeronautical engineering benefited from the immigration of German and other Central European applied scientists. When I was in the 3rd grade, the younger son of one of them was in the same class as I was. Richard (now a military historian) gave me academic competition such that I realized that whereas earlier I had done well enough, now I had to do better than I had known I could, which was a good habit to establish early.

2. In the same period, I was introduced to the elements of music theory and piano. I quit when I realized that I would never be a good pianist. I repeated this sequence with the recorder, the classical guitar, and singing. I learned a lot about music theory, and my father made sure that I learned about musical acoustics. But eventually I realized something: never let yourself or other people nudge you to do something because you or they think you should do it. Do what is fun and you are really good at, especially if other people are not good at it.

3. In my second year of college, I took an introductory course on linguistics from a great scholar on the history of languages. But, by that time, the historical approach he practiced no longer set the model of research in his field; it had been partly replaced by models drawn from mathematics. He himself had once had to choose whether he would accept a university scholarship in math or in linguistic studies, and had chosen the latter, which he now regretted. So, in late middle age, he tried to renew his mathematical studies, which of course led him nowhere; when he retired three years later in ill health and depression, he did not live long. One has only one life, and it needs some basic continuity and consistency.

4.. Early in college, I asked our family physician to refer me to one of his East European relatives to help me to improve my spoken Russian. He introduced me to his pharmacist aunt Shalumith Schneider, the daughter of a scholarly Vilna rabbi. She gave me years of friendship and tutorial in Russian language and literature. Since her native city was a great center of Jewish scholarship (the Vilna Gaon, the Vilna edition of the Talmud), she also gave me an implicit orientation in terms of her recognition of and devotion to the value of learning.

5. When I married at age 22, it was to someone who initially seemed well matched, an agnostic (read: no interest in religion) daughter of an American diplomatic family. Thirty-one years later, she moved back across the country from LA to her native Maine, and a year after that she filed for divorce. She had borne our children, typed my doctoral dissertation, and developed a private practice in counseling in an LA suburb. But the marriage had progressively turned emotionally sterile, starting halfway through. At times I say that I have never seen a bad divorce, on the principle that once either one of the parties has left in some sense, then the sooner the legal action is finished, the sooner both parties can get on with life. But divorce may bring terrible practical situations, including the freedom to commit appalling stupidities.

6. When I wrote my doctoral dissertation, I focussed on the grammar of an ancient language that was fundamental in East European studies. Since almost all of its early manuscripts were texts translated from Greek Christian sources, to write my dissertation I had to read thousands of pages of late Greek texts. This was effectively a total immersion course in Eastern Christianity. Although this material has never been central to how I earn my living, I have never entirely left it, and it has been a perennial background factor in how I think about the world and religion. Immersion leads to absorption.

7. When the Cold War and East European studies cooled, I shifted my orientation to the basic study of speech on a physiological level. This entailed learning much more physically-oriented biology and lab electronics, joining the 20th century after being (figuratively) educated in the 19th. This was a process of reacculturation so complete that my main research colleagues have been in medically- and engineering-related fields, and I belatedly came to understand the engineering research people who were around me in my childhood. But it cost time, money, and some of the personal input that my children should have had.

8. In my early teenage years, my parents helped start a small Unitarian fellowship in a tiny retired synagogue. I had no idea what they believed; my own religious ideas at that point mainly came from Julian Huxley. My Unitarian connection was weak when I went to college. Later, my devotion during free time was mainly to my family. It was not until the late 1980s that I really reconnected with UUism. That it did not attract my wife was not surprising, but I was grateful that the congregation was there when she left in late 1994, and the local UU congregation wherever I am has continued to be an important focus since then.

On some levels, my later years have made it possible for me to tie some things together better. I have lectured in Russia (in Russian) about my work on laryngeal physiology. My studies of Christian and Jewish sources give me a broader perspective on UUism, complementing the humanist perspective that I inherited from my father. Friends such as CC and Ms. Kitty have made me more aware of the importance of (different) aspects of progressive Christianity. At times I am still aware of the deeply destabilizing effects in myself of divorce after a long marriage, but I have survived so far, although I am entering the high-upkeep years of the human organism. An older physicist friend, once a student of Dirac and the younger Bragg, sent me a birthday card for last year, writing: "Life is precarious; be prepared for surprises." Indeed!

The CSO sometimes says I have no sense of humor.

Well, I do, it's just a very complex sort.

Your Score: the Wit

(76% dark, 23% spontaneous, 10% vulgar)

your humor style:
CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK

You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat.

I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer.

Your sense of humor takes the most thought to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion.

You probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais




The 3-Variable Funny Test!
- it rules -

If you're interested, try my best friend's best test: The Genghis Khan Genetic Fitness Masterpiece

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

CC and TheCSO's favorite Sesame Street Moments

TheCSO:



CC:

Five things you probably didn’t know about CC

I’m picking up this blog meme from Miss Kitty’s

1. I really wish Diane Keaton were my mom.
You know that Mom character Diane Keaton plays, the slightly neurotic and interfering, but endlessly well-meaning one? I’ve seen it in several movies and her next movie that comes out Friday seems like yet another example of the archetype. I have friends who have this sort of mother, one friend’s mom interferes to the point that she actually told the CSO “I can’t make people make the right decisions, but I can make the right decisions a lot more convenient.”
I get that this is sort of creepy, and I wouldn’t want the motherliness taken to un-Diane-Keaton-like extremes. Even Keaton herself goes too far sometimes. For example, I really think she is unduly mean to Sarah Jessica Parker in “the Family Stone” when she flips out because Parker says that she wouldn’t want to have a gay son because his life would be so much harder. But she behaves that way because she loves her gay son so darn much.

My own Mother has dedicated her life to working to help poor people and taking care of the more pathological people in my immediate family. It’s admirable and great.

But I kind of wish she’d just once have set me up on a blind date with someone really inappropriate because she was worried I’d be an old maid.

2. Biscuit cans terrify me.
I have a weird little phobia of those Pillsbury biscuit cans that keep the dough under pressure. Rationally, I understand that they will not burst into flame in my hands, but I still hate them and am most comfortable holding them with tongs. At the same time, I think this is a stupid thing to be afraid of and have opened many biscuit cans in an attempt to rid myself of this fear.

I told a psychologist I know about this fear one time, hoping she could suggest a cure.

“Ugh!” she said, “Doesn’t everybody hate those things?”

3. I’m really good at a bunch of useless things. I can compose limericks in about five minutes and can write in verse or Iambic pentameter quickly, I speak Pig Latin as fast as I speak English and I frequently break the record on “Whack-a-mole” machines.


4. I taught myself to read when I was three and a half. My first books were Nancy Drew. My mom read me one chapter a night and Nancy Drew chapters always ended with a cliffhanger. It would drive me crazy to have to wait for the end.

So I taught myself to read. But I wouldn’t admit that I could read until I was seven because I believed my parents would stop reading to me if they knew. After Nancy Drew we started on Treasure Island and then all the classics my parents had read as kids, and then classics they’d always wanted to read. My mom read to me at night until I was 14 (it was mostly poetry by then), and after she stopped I didn’t sleep well for about a decade, though my sleeping has improved a lot in the last few years.

5. I can recite Yeats’ The Fiddler of Dooney from memory. It's my favorite poem.


CC

In my own defense, I WAS awake at 4:30am with nothing to do

CC answers Happy Feminist's Procrastination meme

Explain what ended your last relationship? A difficult choice that has turned out well for all concerned.
When was the last time you shaved? A couple of days ago. (What? It's winter…)
What were you doing this morning at 8 a.m.? Commuting
What were you doing 15 minutes ago? Eating one of my yummy homemade burritos while TheCSO showed me carpet samples.
Are you any good at math? I'm really good up through Algebra 2. Past that, it's a mystery.
Your prom night, what do you remember about it? We went to a nice restaurant, then the dance, then back to Mark's house to drink all night with a bunch of our friends. I drank a drinking glass full of Vodka, then he asked me to read these letters from his ex-girlfriend in Spain. Turns out I wasn't half drunk enough.
Do you have any famous ancestors? Him. And him.
Have you had to take a loan out for school? Yes, regrettably.
Last thing received in the mail? The aforementioned carpet samples and a thoughtfully-written solicitation letter from the editor of Poetry magazine asking me to subscribe. I did.
How many different beverages have you had today? Water and Skim milk.
Do you ever leave messages on people’s answering machine? Yes.
Who did you lose your CONCERT virginity to? Radiohead, before they were as popular as they became.
Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach? I don't like the beach.
What’s the most painful dental procedure you’ve had? I am due for some dental work, but I've been lucky so far.
What is out your back door? My car.
Any plans for Friday night? Call Linguist Friend and catch up. Watch Close to Home. Write blog post about evil. Digest Burrito. Not necessarily in that order.
Do you like what the ocean does to your hair? Not really.
Have you ever received one of those big tins of 3 different popcorns? Not personally, though my grandmother used to buy them.
Have you ever been to a planetarium? Yes. The fact that if you go out far enough, the super star clusters look like neurons wigged me out.
Do you re-use towels after you shower? Mostly I use a bathrobe or just climb back into bed soaking wet.
Some things you are excited about? Finishing my Law school applications. Sweet potato slices brushed with olive oil, dusted with curry powder and baked for half an hour. Writing.
What is your favorite flavor of JELL-O? None of the above.
Describe your keychain(s)? Don't have one right now.
Where do you keep your change? Often on the floor of the car.
When was the last time you spoke in front of a large group of people? Larger than a GRE class? Goodness, I'm not sure.
What kind of winter coat do you own? Camel-colored and conservative-looking
What was the weather like on your graduation day? Rainy for high school, sunny for college.
Do you sleep with the door to your room open or closed? Open, which means the cats frequently jump on us at night.

CC (finally) Answers PG's book meme

PG over at her lovely blog Half the Sins of Mankind tagged me with a book meme awhile ago, but I wasn't paying attention and forgot to answer it. I sometimes do that with blog memes, but I really enjoy answering them, so please feel free to tag me with them.

1. One book that changed your life?
I've peeked around at how other people have answered this question and they seem apologetic about giving a kid's book as an answer, but for most of us, our thinking changes the most obviously in childhood. One of the formative books of my childhood was Mr. Revere and I, a story about Paul Revere from the perspective of his horse. The horse starts out a loyalist, but by the end of the book has become a patriot. I recall still having a basic little kid black and white mindset when I started the book and genuinely seeing the world as a more complex place when I finished it.

2. One book you have read more than once?
Well, I go through Roberton Davies' novels about once a year. (OK, not Murther and the Walking Spirits, but everything else.)

3. One book you would want on a desert island?
My wedding album, though it would depress me somewhat. Failing that, the Beekeeper's Apprentice because Sherlock reminds me of theCSO.

4. One book that made you laugh? Richard Russo's Straight Man though I have leant it to many people and never found anyone who liked it as much as I did. It's a novel about academia that very much matches my perception of what academic departments are like.

5. One book that made you cry?
Y'all know this is hard for me to admit, but Anne Lamott has a book called Operating Instructions that made me bawl when I was about seventeen. If Lamott wasn't basically a talented writer, she wouldn't piss me off so much. Operating Instructions is a journal of her pregnancy and thr birth and babyhood of her son Sam. The twist is that her best friend is dying of cancer. As the baby becomes more independent and more a person, the friend is becoming less so. Trust me, you'd cry.

6. One book you wish had been written?
I was working on a combination spy novel/coming of age story when I was in college that wasn't half bad. Never finished it, though.


7. One book you wish had never been written?
That's a hard question. Nora Ephron's Heartburn, a thinly disguised tell-all about the breakup of her marriage to Karl Bernstein, really shouldn't have been written. Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird gave me some writing advice that really was the worst advice in the world to give me as a writer and derailed my fiction writing hobby completely for about ten years. Pretty much everything Stephen King has written since Carrie is crap.
The Bell Curve would be a contender if anybody took it seriously.

But I have to agree with PG that all of that pretty much pales in comparision to the actual damange caused by by The Protocols Of The Meetings of the Learned Elders Of Zion. So ultimately, I have to go with that.

8. One book you are currently reading?

Poisons: From Hemlock to Botox and the Killer Bean of Calabar PG's fault for asking. (My next novel is a mystery.)

9. One book you have been meaning to read?
Zadie Smith's White Teeth has been on my shelf forever.


OK, five people to pass this on to?

Clyde at A People So Bold

Miss Kitty at Ms. Kitty's Saloon and Road Show

Laurie R. King at at Mutterings

Fausto at The Socinian

Jason at The Wild Hunt

My own beloved blogmates TheCSO and Linguistfriend have this meme by association and are invited to answer.

CC

Everyone loves a purity test

So a friend of mine sends me this myspace message that is essentially a purity test:


ADD UP YOUR FINE!!

Smoked pot -- $10
Did acid -- $5
Ever had sex at church -- $25
Woke up in the morning and did not know the person who was next to you -- $40
Had sex with someone on MySpace -- $25
Had sex for money -- $100
Vandalized something -- $20
Had sex on your parents' bed -- $10
Beat up someone -- $20
Been jumped -- $10
Crossed dressed -- $10
Given money to stripper -- $25
Been in love with a stripper -- $20
Kissed some one who's name you didn't know -- $0.10
Hit on some one of the same sex while at work -- $15
Ever drive drunk -- $20
Ever got drunk at work, or went to work while still drunk -- $50
Used toys while having sex -- $30
Got drunk, passed and don't remember the night before -- $20
Went skinny dipping -- $5
Had sex in a pool -- $20
Kissed someone of the same sex -- $10
Had sex with someone of the same sex -- $20
Cheated on your significant other -- $10
Masturbated -- $10
Cheated on your significant other with their relative or close friend -- $20
Done oral -- $5
Got oral -- $5
Done / got oral in a car while it was moving -- $25
Stole something -- $10
Had sex with someone in jail -- $25
Made a nasty home video -- $15
Had a threesome -- $50
Had sex in the wild -- $20
Been in the same room while someone was having sex -- $25
Stole something worth over more than a hundred dollars -- $20
Had sex with someone 10 years older -- $20
Had sex with someone under 21 and you are over 27 -- $25
Been in love with two people or more at the same time -- $50
Said you love someone but didn't mean it -- $25
Went streaking -- $5
Went streaking in broad daylight -- $15
Been arrested -- $5
Spent time in jail -- $15
Peed in the pool -- $0.50
Played spin the bottle -- $5
Done something you regret -- $20
Had sex with your best friend -- $20
Had sex with someone you work with at work -- $25
Had anal sex -- $80
Lied to your mate -- $5
Lied to your mate about the sex being good -- $25



Now, when you're done adding up your total, (I don't blame you, it's human nature.)

Of the following choices, what is the saddest:

A. That my total was $525.00
B. That I got that assuming I was only fined once for each infraction
C. That I had to pull out the calculator to get my total.
D. That none of my total was illegal drugs or drinking.
E. That I'm not sure if I have technically had sex in a church or not, but fined myself for even having to puzzle it out.
F. That I wondered if a scantily-clad drag queen counted as a stripper.
G. That I was spending time on Myspace at all.


Yeah, yeah, I know.

G.


CC

Where were you?

I will have a mechanism for voting (even if it is just emailing me your top five choices,) set up over the weekend. But right now
The Happy Feminist is asking where people were when historic events occurred. I'm answering hers and adding a few of my own.

My answers:

Deaths of John Lennon and Elvis, Iranian Hostage Crisis, Shooting of President Reagan: Not born yet, or I was unaware of them.

When I heard that the Challenger exploded, I was in Ms. Allen's third grade class watching it on TV. I don't particularly remember it as having been traumatic at the time, but I've had dreams about it and often thought about it, so I guess it probably was.

The OJ verdict. I was in english class. It was a very diverse English class with a teacher who had gone to the Citadel. Mr. Levin made it clear he was taking no crap from any of us and that there would be no fuss from anyone, no matter what happened. When the verdict was read, we were perfectly silent and remained so for the rest of class.

I was at the teen club where I worked when I learned that Susan Smith had drowned her kids. I felt a certain kinship to her for reasons that are obvious to those who know me well. That one hit me really hard.

I heard that Princess Diana died from my college advisor. He was a great kidder and I assumed for two days that it was a joke. (My college was really insular and I didn't watch much TV.)

The Monica Lewinsky story broke when I was in India with a group from my college. I went tearing all over Bombay buying up American magazines and trying to figure out if she was related to Mike "the Chicken Man" Lewinsky, a guy I'd gone to high school with. Yep. They were brother and sister.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was in North Carolina and at work. I called my mother in DC over and over until I got through to the low-income housing project she manages in Anacostia. When I did get through, she said "Of course I'm fine. Nobody bombs poor people!" and hung up on me.

When I heard Katharine Hepburn died, I had just returned from a vacation to see linguist friend. I was pretty upset and wore black for a week. She was my childhood hero.

Added later:
Oh yeah, and at my senior prom, the DJ played this weird song and my friend Kylie went "Oh! There's a dance to this song, I learned it on a cruise. It's called LA MACARENA!"

By mid-summer, the whole country knew how to do Kylie's dance.

CC

CC answers the Seven Meme

A. Seven things to do before I die
1. Write that novel.
2. Figure out way to reverse T-cell receptors
3. Negotiate settlement between Palestine and Israel
4. Save baby from burning building
5. Develop Cold Fusion
6. Take award-winning photographic series of old ladies that redefines society’s standard of beauty.
7. Loose some weight as to leave a better-looking corpse.


B. Seven things I cannot do
1. Diet
2. Keep my house neat.
3. Paint as well as I want to, I just don’t have the fine motor control to copy what’s in my head.
4. Understand physics as well as someone who has had calculus.
5. Dance
6. Meditate without starting to think about sex or falling asleep.
7. Completely stop swearing, though I’m trying.


C. Seven things that attract me to ...
1. My husband: his fabulous ability to talk to me for hours about anything
2. My friends: Their brilliance and how much I learn from them
3. Houses full of books: Hiding from the world with a shell of books around me.
4. Ministers: their thoughtfulness.
5. Professors: their understanding of my lust for books
6. Cats: their independent natures.
7. Photography: The chance to show other people the world as I see it.



D. Seven things I say most often
1. “Well, there is that”
2. “Well, I, for one…”
3. “It’s just me talking, but…’
4. “I like (first thing), (second thing), not so much.”
5. “I heart (thing)”
6. “Wanna go out for dinner?”
7. “Say something interesting”


E. Seven books (or series or genres or topics) that I love
1. Robertson Davies’ Leaven of Malice, What’s Bred in the Bone and World of Wonders , especially, but really everything he has ever written.
2. The Oxford companion to..well, pretty much anything.
3. George Eliot’s Middlemarch
4. Mysteries, especially those with really smart female detectives. (Margaret Maron especially.)
5. Oliver Sacks’ books about abnormal psychology.
6. Lisa Alther’s books about women.
7. Anything about Richard Feynman or Katharine Hepburn, both of whom fascinate me.

F. Seven movies I watch over and over again (or would if I had time)
1. The Philadelphia Story
2. Tea with Mussolini
3. Joe vs. the Volcano
4. Cold Comfort Farm
5. UHF
6. Primary Colors
7. Radioland Murders