So it turns out that Loup tagged me way back at the beginning of September! I missed it 'cause that was right around the time that I was getting ready to go on vacation, so I was just barely keeping posts going & wasn't really reading much, just had too much work to do before I left; then I had no internet access for the duration of vacation. Not such a bad thing. Anyhow, I was messing around on Technorati last week & discovered that Loup had tagged me - I may be late, but I'm game! So here goes with THE CURSE OF SEVENS! Thanks Loup!
7 things I plan to do before I die –
(qualifier: actually some of these are more things I’d LIKE to do – or at least think I’d like to do - and in one case just something I'd like to see but is way out of my personal control – when I plan to do something, I’m sort of holding myself to it, and honestly there aren’t a lot of things to which I hold myself – I seem to have more luck when I follow life where it leads, rather than when I really want things to happen enough to try to make them. I’m not sure whether more planning would lead to more success, or just more disappointments as I either failed to accomplish what I wanted to, or accomplished what I wanted to only to have it somehow turn out badly. You can call it a zen approach, or we can go with what all my poor teachers said when I was a kid - "Bonnie has so much potential, if she would just apply herself".) That said, here are the 7 -
1. Figure out what I want to do when I grow up – or at least make more use of the things I’m actually good at & enjoy doing.
2. Maybe go back to school…that kind of goes with (or comes after) 1, though!
3. Keep improving my boating skills, both sailing & paddling – maybe go get some sailing certifications; more navigation; more long-distance stuff & keep teaching others, too – back when I was a partner at MKC, teaching & learning all at the same time, the one fed the other, the momentum was tremendous & it was just exhilarating to find out what I could do – for myself & for others - when I tried.
4. Get over my stage fright (singing & speaking).
5. (Not a personal goal, just a hope…) See an end to this ugly trend of the religious right trying to insinuate themselves into our government (and the government’s giving in to that). I think our founding fathers were absolutely right to separate church & state – that’s why I got uncharacteristically opinionated over the ID thing. I think religion gets dangerous the minute it starts being forced on people instead of being a purely personal matter. I know that’s awfully heavy deep n’real for an entertaining meme, but in addition to the ID thing, I just finished reading Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi, today, so I’ve got fundamentalism on the brain right now. Good book, I recommend it.
6. Hand over the 1/3rd of the business manager’s job that I’ve been doing (and HATING) to an actual business manager! Gratuitous waste of a long-term goal, but I’m really, really sick of this, on October 15th the position will have been open for 6 months, & I resent the damper it put on the entire summer…you only get so many summers.
7. Learn to let it go when somebody I trusted hurts me & then refuses to take any responsibility for it or even speak to me in person about it – thankfully, this has only happened to me a couple of times in my life (I’m not thinking of an ex-boyfriend when I say that either) but I can still make myself cry thinking about either one.
7 things I can do:
1. Paddle pretty well.
2. Sail a boat (not by myself though, yet - just for starters, somebody else has to dock!)
3. ride a horse
4. play a little music & sing some too
5. Origami (how’s that for random?)
6. use words pretty well, once I figure out what I want to do with them in the first place.
7. Throw my whole heart into something or someone, once I make my mind up to do so.
7 things I cannot do:
1. get up in the morning without multiple snooze-alarm activations
2. get through a work day without coffee
3. take much interest in TV shows (it helps that I don’t have a TV!)
4. put down a new book until I’m exhausted, generally around 2 am
5. grow things (I try but can only manage the most uncomplicated plants)
6. Stomach the thought of actively participating in the New York dating scene.
7. Convince myself that I’m actually going to stay in New York forever.
7 things that attract me to the opposite sex:
1. Quiet self-confidence
2. Respect for others
3. Sense of humour
4. A sense of responsibility for their own actions
5. Intelligent – doesn’t need to be MENSA material, but smart
6. Active & outdoorsy -
7. Physically – tall, warm eyes & smile, capable-looking hands
7 things I say most often:
1. This summer’s #1 expression has unfortunately been the frustrated sigh.
2. “Sure thing!”
3. “basically”…basically, this is my annoying filler word that I basically say too much, basically.
4. “here, kitty kitty” (I seldom pass a pet cat without trying to say hello, can usually cajole all but the shyest ones over for a little petting)
5. “Sorry” (used in everything from ”Sorry to be a pain, but…” to “I’m so sorry”)
6. “Love you both!” (saying goodbye on a phone call with my folks)
7. “Schooner” (close tie with “kayak”, “paddle”, “Hudson River”, and “boat” but I think “schooner” wins cause I’m always telling my paddling crew I can’t go do x-and-such paddle on x-and-such day because “I’m working on the schooner”).
7 celebrity crushes:
1. Johnny Depp as a pirate.
2. Harrison Ford as anything
3. Chow Yun Fat (especially & particularly in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”)
4. Jackie Chan
5. Josh Brolin (digging into past a bit, I thought he was so hot in “The Young Riders” that my roommate made a running joke of it…the fact that he was always on a horse may have helped)
6. And here I am digging back even further…not being big into pop culture, I just started thinking back over any celebrity I’d ever thought was really attractive, and suddenly I was seeing a face from an 80’s band – took me a while to recall the name “Roland Gift”, lead singer for “Fine Young Cannibals” (there, have I, like, totally aged myself or what?)
7. OK, I am really reaching here, I actually had no idea what the guy looked like except that I just did a Google search for images, but…Frank Orrall, lead singer & songwriter of Poi Dog Pondering – I just love his lyrics & the way he sings ‘em.
7 people I want to do this:
1. First person who wants to
2. Second person who wants to
3. Third person who...
OK, you get the general idea, right? I don't feel like I've been a sociable enough blogger lately to tag people but if this sounds like fun to anybody, sign yourself up in comments & have at it!
Hey, and as long as I'm doing memes...I'm going to do one I saw on Rivertyde too. This is such a nice simple one that even I can't complicate it...only I'm going to, a little. Here are the rules:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Dont search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do whats actually next to you.
The book that's closest to me right now:
"Two populations that are geographically separated, like B and C in our pictorial model, are said to be allopatric." - E. Peter Volpe, Understanding Evolution (this was one of the very small number of old college textbooks that I've held onto all this time - I dug it out when the ID stuff started turning up, just to refresh my own memory & it ended up on my desk when I decided to do some writing on the topic)
The book I just finished reading:
"She said, I don't know, but maybe I just can't tell you". Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran.
I'm a little disappointed that the specified sentence turned out to be less than thrilling out of context, as I found this to be a fascinating book on many more levels than I expected from the blurb (which focuses on private classes in Western Lit which the author held for 7 of her best female students after the overthrow of the Shah - the book ranges much farther than those students or those classes, though). It was sitting next to The Bookseller of Kabul - I think I chose the one I did because it was actually an insider's view - will probably go back after the other one of these days, though, I find myself wanting to learn more about the people who live in these countries that are so far away but with whom we are so inextricably entangled.
So there's my 2-meme night - anyone who didn't play back when these were actually current & wants to, well, consider yourself tagged!
No comments:
Post a Comment