Thursday, March 29, 2007

the increasingly specific meme

In ancient times there was a Schmutzie who was married to me. She participated in the internet blood rite known to post-Dawkinites as a meme. I continue the meme in memory of her.

10 FAVORITES
  • Favorite Color: Gold of the slaughtered honeybee. I mean blue. Didn’t mean to bring up the bee thing.

  • Favorite Food: My curried cauliflower recipe, which is hotter than the core of the sun and just as tasty.

  • Favorite Month: September.

  • Favorite Song: My favourites in pop music always shift. I prefer to ride the wave of my taste instead of dropping anchor. So right now I’m going to go with “All My Friends” by LCD Soundsystem, a group whose sound is so geared to my jaded mid-thirties demographic that I may be imagining them.

  • Favorite Movie: I like any movie where Lily Tomlin sleeps with Keith Carradine and Jeff Goldblum travels around on a chopper bike for three hours. It’s Robert Altman’s stoned mashup of country music and dirty politics Nashville! If you travel back in time to 1975 and only see one movie all year, this should be it.

  • Favorite Sport: Sports are the creation of the secret athletic agenda that controls our liberal media and has taken over our public execution arenas with meaningless contests of physical skill. If we could root out this cancer at the heart of our society, then all our social problems would topple like evil dominoes.

  • Favorite Season: Fall.

  • Favorite Day of the week: Saturday.

  • Favorite Ice Cream Flavor: Butterscotch ripple. When I was young I was sorry that it existed only in ripple form, but in retrospect I’m glad.

  • Favorite Time of Day: That hour or so of horizontal gold light before sunset known as magic hour. It puts me in mind of our fallen honeybee brothers and sisters. Damn, there I go again.


9 CURRENTS
  • Current Mood: Bee-mindful, bee-wistful.

  • Current Taste: Coffee.

  • Current Clothes: Black short-sleeve button-up shirt, khaki Dickies and a nice pair of Keen sneakers.

  • Current Desktop: Are we talking computer desktop? An image that I snipped from Andrea Heimer’s site.

  • Current Toenail Color: Lepidopter.

  • Current Time: Ten to three. That’s not only the time, it’s also pretty good odds.

  • Current Surroundings: Divided boardroom. On Monday I move into an office, where I start my new job. Did I mention that I got promoted? I did, I did.

  • Current Thoughts: Sex, bees, Sylvia Plath, trying to have sex with Sylvia Plath while the bees buzz around us, inability to do so because of all the bees, angrily accusing Sylvia Plath of trying to seduce me.


8 FIRSTS
  • First Best Friend: Bo MacKinnon, whom I met when I was only two. We hung out, tricycled around, went to each other’s birthday parties.

  • First Kiss: You know, I’m not sure I remember. Was I thirteen? Did I come that late to kissing? Man.

  • First Screen Name: Palinode.

  • First Pet: The first pet I remember was a black cat named MacAvity. I remember when he died, but now that I write about it I don't want to relate the story. It was unpleasant.

  • First Piercing: May 4th, 1985, gold stud in my left earlobe.

  • First Crush: Her name was Katrina. Grade 3. Not particularly requited, except on the few occasions when it suited her. She was, as the song goes, a little Dutch girl.

  • First CD: Since I’ve never thrown away a CD in my life, I imagine it’s sitting in a milk crate somewhere. My music snarfing career began with vinyl and cassette, and I vaguely remember buying a 45 for 'Hungry Like the Wolf' in grade 6. In grade 8 I joined the Columbia Music and Tape Club. The first thing I ordered was a cassette tape of The Smith’s 'Meat Is Murder'. I’d never heard The Smiths before but I liked the title.



7 LASTS
  • Last Cigarette: August 3, 2000. It was a dried-up handrolled Drum.

  • Last Drink: On Tuesday after work to celebrate my promotion.

  • Last Car Ride: I caught me a taxi to work this morning. Now there’s a story.

  • Last Kiss: This morning when I said goodbye to Schmutzie.

  • Last Movie Seen: I’m in the middle of watching a pirated screener of The Host. If it weren’t dubbed in Spanish from Korean and subtitled in awkward English, I’d probably enjoy it more.

  • Last Phone Call: I talked with Schmutzie. She wanted me to remind her of something, but god only knows what that thing was.

  • Last CD Played: I think it was either "Lose All Time" by You Say Party! We Say Die! or the B-52s album with "Rock Lobster" on it.


6 HAVE YOU EVERS
  • Have You Ever Dated One Of Your Best Guy/Girl Friends: Twice! The first time did not go well. The second resulted in me standing around drunk in a suit in front of my relatives. What the hell was that about?

  • Have You Ever Broken the Law: Yes, but in a good way.

  • Have You Ever Been Arrested: I've had plenty of run-ins with bored cops, but no arrests.

  • Have You Ever Skinny Dipped: No. It’s cold outside of my clothes. Have you ever worn a suit of night water? Freezing.

  • Have You Ever Been on TV: Back when I was working in TV, I ended up on camera quite often. I was in a room full of smoke, I was doused in freezing cold water, I was laid out on a lawn covered in soot, I struggled in a hospital bed. I did voiceovers. I learned juggling (but not very well), ate fire, did all kinds of silly things.

  • Have You Ever Kissed Someone You Didn’t Know: Oh hell yeah.


5 THINGS
  • Things You’re Wearing: Silver ring with topaz, couple o’ jaunty earrings, 1 niobium nipple ring, a pair of lively boxers.

  • Things You’ve Done Today: Bought a coffee, bought a coffee, bought a coffee. Set controls for the heart of the sun. Optimized my body for light combat.

  • Things You Can Hear Right Now: The grumbling of my computer fan, the click of the keys as I type, a distant thumping in another office, a heavy door clicking shut, the ringing of a phone.

  • Things You Can’t Live Without: Books, a Fine Lady for taking out, the internet, sunshine, my ‘manliness’. And by ‘manliness’ I mean my framed lion-wrestling certificate.

  • Things You Do When You’re Bored: Pace, stretch, stare at an object until everything else goes blurry, wish for a book, compose paragraphs in my head.


4 PLACES YOU’VE BEEN TODAY
  • My office.

  • The food court.

  • The local Second Cup.

  • An elevator. Oh boy oh fucking boy.


3 PEOPLE YOU CAN TELL ANYTHING TO
  • Schmutzie.

  • My old roommate Tony.

  • Benjamin Franklin. He's always amazed at today's technology and faintly amused by how little humanity has changed.


2 CHOICES
  • Black or White: Polar bears, those savage killers of the North, are white. I’ll take black.

  • Hot or Cold: Polar bears, those savage killers of the North, are cold. I’ll take hot.


1 THING YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE
  • I want to learn the art of emulating a Mormon so closely that not even the elite High Guard, with their Mormon-dar, can sense the difference when I enter the Temple. Already I have mastered the techniques of Wearing Shirtsleeves in the Bath and Disapproving of Exposed Female Ankles. Soon the Temple will be mine, and I will crush all who oppose me with a gigantic iron weight that will materialize above my hapless victims. For extra effect the weight will say '10 tons' on it.

10 comments:

Elan Morgan said...

I'm not so keen on your making me sound dead at the beginning of this, but whatever, I got to sound alive near the end.

palinode said...

Then I offer you the following deal: if you die before me, I will have this blog entry carved on your headstone. If I'm the first to go, then you will have my body preserved and set in a crystal coffin. Every morning my coffin will emerge from its crypt on a little wheeled track to the sound of "We Are The Champions" or "Pet Cemetery". It will retreat at sunset.

notquiteawake said...

I think you should give us your curried cauliflower recipe. Or have you already.....
(formerly Bigfoot)

blackbird said...

I can only DREAM of being this specific.

Tom said...

I have to agree about sports.

I can't see anyone getting that worked up over something that doesn't, as a matter of course, end up in fatality.

The masses have a new kind of opium.

Mr. Head said...

Mmmmmmmmcauliflower. Mmmmmeme. As usual, *chuckles to self at work, not caring who sees*

i am the diva said...

The secret to acting like a good Mormon is telling everyone that you won't judge them...and then secretly judge them.

Anonymous said...

i too request this curried cauliflower recipe!! gimme.
(i mean, please won't you share it with us?)

Mr. Head said...

Do not release the cauliflower recipe. There's power there...

Anonymous said...

That curried cauliflower is the fucking BOMB. I don't want the recipe, I just want you to bring it to every dinner party I have until the end of time. Thanks, you're a doll.