Do Re Me(me)

I blame her for this, this unmerited exposition of an octet of factoids all about ME. Best of all, I am required to tag eight lucky contestants who will, doubtless, be unyielding in their expressions of gratitude for the honour. For example: Oh, Ms. Dogma, my gratitude to you knows no bounds, it is... boundless. It has no boundaries, so vast is it I cannot relate it to any chart. It is uncharted. It is on a chartered bus. With a fez on.

So, to quote Ms. Dogma, here are the rules, anyway: Anyway here are the rules:
-list 8 facts/habits about yourself
-post the rules at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed wherever you damn well please.
-tag 8 people and post their names, go to their blogs and leave them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and ask them to read your blog.

There you go. Mo and I debated whether the facts/habits listed ought be "interesting". I am of two minds. Obviously, if I am telling you something about me, it is prima facie very interesting. You will be interested. You cannot help yourselves. I know. It's all right. There there.

The other mind says: You don't have eight facts/habits about yourself to list. You are more boring than a toilet paper sandwich made on wonderbread (which also makes a fine toilet paper). You'll just have to make something up.

So here we go.

Uno: I have now exhausted my vocabulary of the Spanish language.

2: I am wracked with guilt over nearly every action I commit each day. I writhe (largely internally) with discomfort at day's end in consideration of my omissions. Welcome to my head.

3: I do not understand the subject of taste. For example: Simone Bocelli is a not-very-good opera singer. His blindness does not make his music any more appealing. It is the aural equivalent of aerosol cheese. That grouping of opera hotties, I don't know their brand, "Jismo" or something like that, they are the aural equivalent of microwaved Tilsit cheese with a side of mouldering sweatsock. Is the music-consuming public so facile as to be attracted to the lamed or incredibly hot among the musical world as the recipients (ok, the managers of the lamed etc.) of their discretionary income (ok, borrowed on credit money)? What's next, 3 amputee tenors singing "Ein Schwert verheiss mir der Vater" to a glockenspiel accompaniment while waterskiing naked on Lake Geneva? Wait... I want to sign that act!



Quattro: Audis suck. Suzi Quatro is no better even if she is not a German car. Audis are no better for not playing rock bass and singing such classics as... actually, Ms. Quatro's music is entirely forgotten by me.

5. I like pants. I am also partial to socks. I am wearing some right now!

F. Many of my favourite sentences begin with this letter. Maybe "favourite" is a code word for "most often used".

7. I don't want to tag anyone. I tried to send love to certain high falutin blog types a couple of months ago and he rebuffed me. I am still on a serious course of Adlerian therapy. (Classical Adler, not Zero Adler, or New Adler, or Zero Adler, that tastless alternative to the real thing.) What would happen if I tagged eight people and made them, like, talk about themselves? Oh, wait, they're fucking bloggers. What else are we doing?


Ocho: I have eight fingers and two thumbs. Why aren't the great toes called "foot-thumbs"? Is it because they are not opposing digits? Either way this is notice that there will be no singing of "I have ten fingers"-type nursery rhymes in this house. I cannot abide this obvious inaccuracy. (Nor, for obvious reasons, will Mo permit me to run a home-school operation. Not that we are so inclined. Oh, who cares.)

There.

The lucky eight: IAM, Denver Dad, Nonlinear Girl, Crouton Boy. I will email them the good news tonight! Don't delay! Type now!

(I know that's 4. I reason that Mo is on for the other half. Back to you, honey!)

V-man out.

Eight is Enough

I was late to blogging and luckily missed that whole '100 things about me' thing. I would have never been able to do that, too myopic. AlphaDogma tagged me for eight. Eight is enough.

Fine, eight things about me.. that are not necessarily interesting.

1. In 1990 p-man and I went away for the weekend for the first time. It created a police-incident in the UK and Canada.

2. My writing was first published in a book when I was ten, that was a long time ago.

3. You could figure it out if you know that I got my first high heels a year later and they looked like this. That would be the first time they were cool.



4. My Dad is just like Jim Rockford; but with a station wagon.

5. The no-longer-funny thing I have to stop saying to my husband is... "Angel, you make me tired all over."



6. I was born in the same hospital as a Royal Princess. (I thought that was pretty cool when I was nine.)

7. I have never seen Apocalypse Now.

8. I have seen every episode of Hogan's Heros at least four times.

Make this eight things about me that make me feel like I am pre-pubescent all over again.

ps... While I was writing this Betty Buckley was on TV.

Watch for the p-man 8 tomorrow!

Bad Blogger Confessional

As a titular blog contributor to the fabulously rhetorical BlogRhet... I got tagged for the reflective blogging post going around. Hmmmmm.....

I think I answer all the questions? Oh, fuck this ain't an interview. I can just talk, right? Here is what I say in response.

1. Early Posting
In late 2005 I was pretty traumatized by the turns my new parenthood had taken. Namely, life as a working mom and suddenly a working pregnant mom. Make that a pregnant working mom with a job share arrangement that just fell apart and childcare in total flux. I was, as the cliche goes, overwhelmed.

I found blogging a help with fears and uncertainties these things gave rise to in me. I started this blog 1.) to have a clear identity when commenting on what I considered to be 'the real blogs' and 2.) as a writing exercise to reason out(?) my inner tensions.

I have never meant this blog to be for my kids. It is really about me, me, me! I was my own audience. Myself and my husband. This blog was certainly a useful device for us to say things to the world and each other. I really liked those early posts when we were inmate and visitor, in turn, talking through the glass. I still like that about, what is now, our blog.

2. Your first
I mean you always remember your first, right? My first comment was a thrill. It was a luxurious bit of attention. I had asked the Sarcastic Journalist for a bit of coaching before I started the blog and she was nice enough to write me back. I guess she was curious after and she did look me up.

SJ was my first comment and she said a picture of my daughter and I was beautiful.

I was delighted. Am delighted. (Later I used the pic again and my beloved L. said I had nice shoulders. You should expect me to use this photo every year from now on. I need the feather stroking.

3. Conversations
In March 2006 our Who do you blog for? Quiz managed to get Dutch to publicly announce that an unexamined life is not worth living. Shocking. With that I believe he stopped reading our blog, phew.

Then on the upswing the post caught a bit of stardust off MommyBlogger heavy, Kristen, at Motherhood Uncensored. She even dubbed me a fabulous mom, heh those were the days. This event turned us to a broad range of bleaders and changed our blogging. Sure.

Oh that and the impending birth of our second child some four months hence.

4. The final question.. Do you think that this sense of audience or community might have affected the way you began to write?

As I have said I was initially my own audience. I would say that my experience and interaction with the ineffable community out there has changed things. I am, to use a dainty hyperbole, overwrought at times that I cannot serve the community adequately. (There are whaa-hey-ya toooo many good blogs to read these days. I might have a breakdown with all I know now.) I have to admit at times to publishing just to feed the beast. To meet that subtle Thursday deadline when really it's easier for me to write on Fridays. But who reads blogs on Saturday? I have to confess that the very persistence of this blog is the affect on my writing because I am not a liar when I need to say 'twice the children, half the blog'. I enjoy writing this meme if for no other reason as an opportunity to confess (and come to terms with) the lesser bloggedness where I am of late.

Not to say that we don't have some gems at times. Thanks a million, Mad. You're the best.

*** And now to tag. You know I hate tagging but I am a conformist so what BlogRhet wants, BlogRhet gets. I am pretty curious about what the answers to these questions would be for Mrs. Fortune she tends to cut the crap. And, what about you Liz Mom-101? Do 400 comment getters remember their first? (hey I know you're busy but it might double as presention prep?). Plus, as a tribute to our bygone blogging days I'll tag Heather back from that post that got us exposed.