Sunday, December 02, 2007

7 Random Things

So! I have been tagged! Twice for this meme, in fact - by Adjunct Whore and Maude Lebowski. Fun! What's more fun that writing a meme when you have way too many un-fun things to do (grading, making annoying last-minute requested revisions on an article)?

THE RULES:
1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird things about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

THE THINGS:

1. When I was seven years old, I invented an imaginary...community that I called the National Society. It was populated by figures from pop culture (plus me, of course): Anne of Green Gables, Kimberly from Diff’rent Strokes, the Charlie’s Angels, etc. The National Society was headquartered in a building that was one mile high and one block long, and there were two multi-storey apartments on each floor (?). I seem to have imagined myself in a kind of “recreation director” or camp counsellor role...I still have notebooks filled with things like groups I had organized them into, each the name of a bird (the chickadees, the tufted titmice (!)) for various scheduled activities. (‘cause we all know how much Cheryl Ladd would have loved to ‘play gymnastics’ with Anne of Green Gables.) I kept this going until I was about nine, maybe even ten.

2. I used to imagine quite vividly – when I was about twelve – that there was a kind of big slug-like worm living in the flesh at the base of my neck. I would picture paring off some of this flesh (yum) and seeing this fat immobilized worm just curled into me. Delish. Note: This was not a pleasurable fantasy, just so's you know. It was just...neutral.

3. When I was twenty-one, I used the postmodern theory with which I was all newly heady to excuse and justify my mean and irresponsible treatment of my girlfriend. Not my finest moment. (The mean and irresponsible treatment involved cheating on her – with a guy, gasp! – and dealing with the fallout (breaking up with her to date him) very callously.)

4. I had a wonderful experience in high school. I went to alternative schools, and they attuned me to the possibility of critical education and were just generally fabulous communities.

5. Until I was in my mid twenties, I was thought by many to be very sullen. Part of this was shyness, but part of it was that I didn’t smile much. I am infinitely more smiley now (also not so shy)...I detected a change in myself in this regard, incidentally, when I moved back from France.

6. Sometimes I think I'm destined to end up with my friend M.

7. I can’t really get it up for Christmas. At all. No thanks. Although I did today spend my afternoon making and canning cranberry-pear chutney to give as gifts to people here in Scary City with Potential who have been nice and/or helpful to me, like my Chair and my TA and the admin assistant, and the couple who invite me to the blues jam every time they go.

TAGGING:

Erm, so many of you have done this or been tagged!! I will try to think of seven who haven't been (sorry if this is a repeat for any of you):

Psychgrad (oh no, psychgrad! Email me!), Kermit, Neophyte, grumpyABDadjunct, Medieval Woman.

(That's the best I can do right now.)

5 comments:

Dr. Bad Ass said...

Wondering if you would like to post your recipe for cranberry-pear chutney?

Margaret said...

*I'm* wondering if you'll say more about #6, since I often feel the same way (about my own m, not yours.)

squadratomagico said...

I wanna join the National Society!
Question: were there any men there?

Hilaire said...

Dr. Bad-Ass - Done! See above.

Maggie - Oh, I'm such a tease on the blog, aren't I? I sort of don't feel like I can write about that here. But - and i am quite serious about this - I have been thinking about emailing you about this question, since you have been so good to "talk" to on email about other such questions. But I don't know if you want to get into a big convo about this. But yeah, there's lots to say.

Squadrato - It's funny, I was wondering the same thing...whether there were any men there. I don't think there were many. And the women/girls are certainly the ones who stand out for me. But the Diff'rent Strokes brothers - Willis and Arnold - may have been there, actually. But really, it was a world dominated by women, as was my affective world in general, I think!

Margaret said...

My dear, email me whenever you want. Or we can set up a (gasp) phone date! Or you can just continue to tease me. It's all good :)