Category: Memes

I thought I was going to have a new song to post today, but apparently my husband didn’t finish mixing it last night. Thus, a book meme stolen from Foggy City Mommy.

Bold those you’ve read.
Italicize books you have started but couldn’t finish.
Add an asterisk* to those you have read more than once.
Underline those on your TBR list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: A Novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre*
A Tale of Two Cities*
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World*
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984*
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye (how’d I miss this one?)
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit*
In Cold Blood*
White Teeth
Treasure Island*
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Can you tell I majored in English?

I’ve been tagged for a meme by Tish Grier, which is most welcome on a Monday when I’m still tired from the weekend. Without further ado:

Four jobs I’ve had in my life:

• Cashier at a Sears store
• Editor and typesetter for a custom printing company
• Marketing Babe (at several different companies)
• Copywriter

Four places I have lived:

• A 13-acre farm with horses, chickens, peacocks, dogs and cats
• A run-down duplex owned by a notorious slumlord
• A condo with walls so thin that my husband overhead the upstairs neighbor greeting a call girl at the door
• My current house, which is getting more and more to my liking with each passing year (after 12 years)

Four of my favorite foods:

• Pasta
• Cheesecake
• Steak
• Cherry cobbler

Four places I’d rather be right now:

• On a beach in Jamaica (assuming that "now" means "not during hurricane season")
• At a bookstore
• Hiking in the mountains
• Lying in bed snuggled up with my cats and hubby, taking a nap

I’m not going to tag anyone, but feel free to tag yourself if you need something to post about today.

Toby Bloomberg has tagged me for the "8 Random Things About Me" meme. After having this blog for more than three years, I can’t imagine that there ARE eight things about me that I haven’t already mentioned, but I’ll go with the first ones that leap to mind.

1. I don’t really miss caffeine. I’ve been decaffeinated for a couple of months now and although I still enjoy the smell of coffee, I have no desire to drink it. I’m perfectly happy with water and the occasional cup of herbal tea.
2. I wish I had skill in the visual arts. I admire illustration and graphic design, but the best I can do is a few cartoon-y doodles that haven’t changed in 20 years. I guess I’ll have to be content to express myself artistically through writing and singing.
3. I was painfully shy as a kid and I still have to fight my impulses toward introversion. I know, that sounds weird for someone who writes about her life for public consumption and performs with rock bands. It’s still true, though. One of my biggest worries is that I come across as antisocial.
4. My husband is right about my crazy cat lady tendencies. I have three cats because I have deliberately chosen to limit myself to three. I’ve done that to quell the part of me that would like to go to the animal shelter and bring ’em all home.
5. Facebook is my new favorite online activity, followed closely by GarageBand (which I originally joined so that I could put my band’s song on my Facebook profile).
6. I’ve always been drawn to the past. I love archaeology and paleontology, reading old books, browsing through antique stores, rummaging through my family’s old photos, studying history, and learning about past civilizations. If anyone ever invented a time machine, I’d be first in line.
7. I haven’t traveled as much as I would like. I have a valid passport burning a hole in my file drawer, yet for some reason it never occurs to me to plan a big trip somewhere when I have extra money. Instead, the house seems to get all of my extra funds. I should choose three or four must-see destinations and start planning trips there.
8. I could eat pasta every single day. Between Italian and Thai food alone, I’d have all the variety I could ever want. However, I wouldn’t ever make such an adjustment to my diet because I’m getting chubby enough as it is.

I’m not going to tag anyone in particular, but feel free to self-tag if you haven’t done this one yet. It was kinda fun.

Megan of Divine Reality had an interview meme on her blog and I asked her to include me. Here are the five questions she sent:

1. Where did "Average Jane" come from? Do you consider yourself average?
   When I first decided I wanted to do a journal-style blog, ‘Average Jane’ seemed like a good name to convey that I was writing mainly about mundane things. I don’t have any statistics from which to judge my averageness, but I suspect that a lot of the things I do are actually outside the norm!
2. What was the last thing that made you smile?
   I came home to my husband and cats after a weekend out of town.
3. What do you do when you’re not blogging?
   What don’t I do?! I work as an advertising copywriter, I volunteer for Soroptimist International and a low-cost spay/neuter clinic, I write lyrics and sing in an original heavy metal band, I hang out with friends and family members, I do yoga 2-3 times per week, I play with my cats, and sometimes I get in a little reading, yard work, housework, cooking and/or sleep.
4. What five things make you, YOU? (Pictures are encouraged)

   
   My home office, where I do my blogging and lyric writing. I can see that it’s time I watered the poor philodendron.

   
   Singing is a big part of who I am. Sadly, I’ve been having a great deal of difficulty with it lately due to acid reflux. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that my GI specialist can find some new medication that will help.

   
   My tree-hugging tendencies are exemplified by my 2001 Honda Insight (55 mpg average!), the compact fluorescent bulbs in every light fixture in my house, and the way I overstuff our curbside recycling bin every week.

   
   
   I’m fascinated by technology, which I why I thought my husband needed a Roomba for the studio as a Christmas present.

   
   
   What can I say? I love my cats.

5. Go here http://horoscopes.aol.com/astrology/zodiac-central/
   and find your horoscope. Does it fit you or are they totally off base?
   It seemed fairly descriptive of me, but I always believe that it’s easy to find yourself in any neutral description of traits. In other words, I think the newspapers’ "entertainment only" disclaimers on horoscopes sum them up pretty accurately.

If you want to be interviewed by me, please leave me a comment or send an e-mail saying: "Interview me." (or the like).

* I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
* You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
* You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

* When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions and so on.

Here’s a meme I did once last year that I thought would be fun to try again with a different iTunes collection. I’m endlessly fascinated by the shuffle function of my music players.

IF YOUR LIFE WERE A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc.)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool…

Opening Credits – "It Won’t Be Long" by Eric Lindell

Waking Up – "Just Plain" by Dirt Circus

First Day at School – "Animals" by Nickelback (that’s a hell of a day at school!)

Falling in Love – "Death is the Only Way Out" by Joseph Bishara (this isn’t going so well, is it?)

Fight Song – "Goodbye Freedom, Hello Mum" by Scatterbrain

Breaking Up – "West" by Lucinda Williams

Prom – "Savin’ Me" by Nickelback

Life is Good – "Sacred Lie" by Disturbed

Mental Breakdown – "That’s That" by Scatterbrain ("Don’t Call Me Dude" would have been so much more appropriate!)

Driving – "My Immortal" by Evanescence (apparently it’s a very slow drive…and it may very well be raining)

Flashback – "Two-Bit Town" by Eric Lindell

Getting Back Together – "Nothing Good About Goodbye" by Hinder

Wedding – "Shot in the Dark" by Ozzy Osbourne (hee!)

Paying the Dues – "Sons of Plunder" by Disturbed

The Night Before the War – "Panik Kontrol" by Psykosonik

Final Battle – "The Warning" by Dark Crucible

Moment of Triumph – "Symphony of Destruction" by Megadeth

Death Scene – "Megalomaniac" by K.M.F.D.M.

Funeral Song – "Fancy Funeral" by Lucinda Williams (what are the odds?)

End Credits – "Outta Time" by Scatterbrain

That was fun! Feel free to play along if you’re stuck for a post idea.

From Karl at Secondhand Tryptophan (he didn’t tag me – I just felt like doing this one):

You Can Dance With Me: A Meme of Musical Proportions

Of all the bands and artists in your collection, of which one do you own the most albums?

Probably Yes, followed closely by Judas Priest.

What was the last song you listened to?

Dark Crucible, "Haunted" (I was singing along with the instrumental track).

What’s in your CD player right now?

My weekly vocal practice CD.

What are your favorite instruments?

I really love a nice, crunchy electric guitar.

Who’s your favorite local artist/band?

Aside from my own? I’d have to say Action Figure even though I don’t get out to see them often enough.

What was the last show you attended?

The Scissor Sisters

What was the greatest show you’ve ever been to?

Monsters of Rock was pretty cool. I’ve also seen Queensryche a couple of times and been extremely impressed with their live sound and performance.

What’s the worst band you’ve ever seen in concert?

One of the times we saw Emerson, Lake and Palmer, they were clearly having an off day.

What band do you love musically but hate the members of?

Guns n’ Roses

What is the most musically involved you have ever been?

Right now, writing lyrics and melodies, taking vocal lessons and recording with my band. The only thing that could step up my level of involvement at this point would be a lot of live performances.

What show are you looking forward to?

We’re hoping to see Lacuna Coil next month.

What is your favorite band shirt?

I wish I had my old Judas Priest shirt from the Turbo tour, but it disintegrated in the wash long ago.

What musician would you like to hang out with for a day?

Cheesy as it sounds, I’d enjoy talking about lyric writing with Jon Bon Jovi.

What musician would you like to be in love with you for a day?

Luckily for me, my drummer husband is in love with me every day.

What was your last musical "phase" before you wised up?

I let myself be drawn into the "grunge" look for a while when I was in an alternative band. I still have more XL flannel shirts than a person needs.

Sabbath or solo Ozzy?

That’s a toughie. I’ll have to go for solo Ozzy.

Did you know that filling out this meme makes you a music geek?

Duh!

What was the greatest decade for music?

I’d have to say the 1970s.

What is your favorite movie soundtrack?

Can I pick more than one? I care a great deal for the "Wayne’s World" soundtrack, but there’s nothing like the "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation" soundtrack for driving around on a sunny day with the car stereo cranked.

Who is your favorite artist who is much better live than on a recording?

I have to agree with Karl’s choice: Barenaked Ladies.

Do you have a hidden desire to be a popular musician?

Ain’t nothin’ hidden about it!

Have you ever used drugs to enhance the music experience?

No, I’m a goody two-shoes about drugs. However, I’ve been known to drink a good deal of beer at a concert (but only if someone else is driving, kids!).

What was the last song you heard that gave you a chill?

"Side of a Bullet" by Nickelback always gives me a chill because of what it’s about.

Where would you be without music?

Bored and creatively unfulfilled.

Since I’m up at 8 a.m. on Christmas Eve Eve, I might as well do an extra blog post, no? Yvonne has tagged me for this meme that’s been making the rounds of marketing and business blogs lately:

5 things you probably don’t know about me:

1. I almost never watch dramas or "serious" movies. Real life is serious and dramatic enough! I prefer comedy, science fiction/fantasy, action/adventure and kids’ movies. The only exception is that I have been seeing a lot of documentaries lately, mostly about the environment.
2. Even though my iTunes library is jam-packed with heavy metal music, I still have a soft spot for the music I grew up with, particularly anything sung by Julie Andrews. A friend gave me a Julie Andrews CD at my bridal shower as a joke and didn’t quite know how to react when it became clear that I loved it.
3. I originally named my oldest cat "Galileo," but I kept forgetting what I’d decided to call him (Copernicus?), so I ended up switching his name to "Kato."
4. I still have all of my Nancy Drew and Oz books from childhood and I’m looking forward to sharing them with my niece when she’s older.
5. My favorite places to shop are Lowe’s and Home Depot. If money were no object, I’d remodel my whole house, inside and outside, until everything was exactly the way I want it.

So I suppose it’s my turn to tag some people. I guess I’ll go for Pharmgirl, Cagey, Dorothy, Goofy Girl and Jeremy.

Speaking of meme-like activities, check out Lazy Eye Theatre’s Plot Generator 1.0. Take the ten words and phrases he supplies and use them to write a paragraph or two describing a movie you could make. I’m still thinking about it…

The only Christmas-y things I’ve done so far this year are shop and bake a batch of cookies for a cookie exchange at work. One of these days I’ll get around to putting up the tree, I suppose. It’ll have to be this week because my niece is coming over to bake and shop with me on Friday and Saturday, and I’d never hear the end of it if she arrived to find the house sans holiday decor.

To help me get in the mood, I figured I’d pick up this holiday meme I first saw at Everything I know about hiking…I learned wearing flip-flops.

1. Eggnog or hot chocolate? Hot chocolate! I like it with a shot of peppermint or butterscotch schnapps and some whipped cream on top.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree? Santa wraps presents and puts them in stockings and/or on the hearth. For the last several years, we’ve been letting Santa off the hook for gifts because neither I nor my husband really find a lot of value in trying to gather a stockings-worth of little presents for each other.

3. Colored lights or white on tree/house? I have white icicle lights outside, but I’m not going to put them up this year. For the tree, I just bought some colored LED lights.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? I have a little ball of fake mistletoe over our kitchen door that’s been up since last Christmas because I forgot to pack it with the rest of the decorations. It inspires less kissing than you might imagine because we’ve pretty much stopped noticing that it’s there.

5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually I do it at the beginning of December, but I’m running late this year.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? I love roast turkey and dressing and I’m perfectly happy to have it for Thanksgiving and Christmas both.

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? I always enjoyed Christmas eve. My grandparents, aunt and uncle would come to our house for dinner. We’d have a fire in the fireplace and sing Christmas carols, and then my grandfather would tell or read Christmas stories.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? My parents went to great lengths to keep the illusion going (buying different wrapping paper for Santa’s gifts, etc.), but I eventually started to figure it out. When I asked my mother if Santa was real, she explained it in terms of what Santa represents, which satisfied me.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Not necessarily. However, my husband has a very difficult time buying me a gift and not giving it to me immediately, so sometimes we’ll exchange our gifts early.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? When I first moved out on my own, I bought a bunch of fairly plain starter ornaments and I’ve been adding one or two pieces to my ornament collection every year since. I like to get ornaments to commemorate things I like or places I’ve been.

11. Snow, love it or dread it? I love the way it looks but I dread having to commute in it.

12. Do you know how to ice skate? Sort of. I learned when I was a kid but I never got very good at it. The last time I tried to ice skate was on a first date with a guy while I was in college. I got out onto the ice and immediately fell backward and hit my head on the ice HARD. I saw stars and it hurt so much I cried. Needless to say, the date was pretty much over before it began.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? I remember my first Barbie doll when I was a kid. She was just a standard Malibu Barbie, but I liked her a lot.

14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? Getting together with family.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Chocolate cake roll with peppermint ice cream filling.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? See #14.

17. What tops your tree? I have an angel that looks disturbingly like Celine Dion.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? Giving. I love watching people open the gifts I got them.

19. Favorite Christmas song? I like "O Holy Night." I worked on it at a recent vocal lesson. It’s a good one to sing.

20. Favorite flavor of candy canes? Classic peppermint.

I dodged this bullet for a couple of weeks, but now Dorothy has finally tagged me with this popular meme:

Here are the rules – Each player of this game starts with the "6
Weird Things about You." People who get tagged need to write a blog entry of
their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the
end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names.
Don’t forget to leave a comment that says ‘you are tagged’ in their
comments and tell them to read your blog!

1. You’ll never see me take just a big bite of egg in any form; I always take little bites of bread, meat and potatoes (if applicable) in the same mouthful.
2. I put my contact lenses in the ‘wrong’ sides of the case. For some reason, I like to have the "R" side of the case on the left and the "L" side of the case on the right. Really, it makes no difference at all because both lenses are the same prescription.
3. When I’m folding laundry, I always give each item a little pat after I put it on the pile. I would never have noticed that I do it if other people hadn’t pointed it out to me.
4. I talk to animals. (No, they don’t talk back to me!) Not only do I talk to my own cats, but I’ll also greet any squirrel, chipmunk, bird, dog, etc., that I encounter outdoors.
5. I can raise my left eyebrow by itself, but not the right one. When I tried to find the muscle that would raise my right eyebrow, I ended up learning how to wiggle my right ear instead.
6. It took me an abnormally long time to learn to read a clock face. I was probably in junior high or maybe high school before I stopped consciously counting by fives to figure out the time. Even today, sometimes I’ll look at a clock, speedometer or other gauge with a clockwise readout and end up reading it backwards (for example, seeing 9 o’clock and reading it as 3 o’clock, or seeing a 3/4 full gas gauge and reading it as 1/4 full).

I’ll tag Blaugra, Stacey, Rozanne,  SueBob, Keith and The Misanthrope.

Yes, another meme. I lifted this one from SueBob. My only excuse is that I’m in the middle of a four-day weekend and I have lots and lots of other things to do besides veg on the couch with the laptop.

1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought? I haven’t looked in the mirror yet today, but I’m sure my thought would be, "Shower. Now."

2. How much cash do you have on you? About ten bucks, I think.
3. What’s a word that rhymes with "DOOR?" Floor

4. Favorite planet? Venus

5. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone? My sister. We play phone tag a lot.
6. What is your favorite ring tone? I like the one that sounds like a vintage rotary phone.

7. What shirt are you wearing? Long-sleeved, black t-shirt.

8. Do you "label" yourself? No

9. Name the brand of the shoes you’re currently wearing? I’m barefoot right now.
10. Bright or dark room? Bright
11. What do you think about the person who took this survey before you? She is pretty darned cool.
12. What does your watch look like? I have a lot of watches but I seldom wear them.

13. What were you doing at midnight last night? Sleeping

14. What did your last text message you received on your cell say? I don’t do text messaging.

15. Where is your nearest 7-11? The nearest one I can think of is about 40 blocks south, but there’s a QuikTrip a mile away.

16. What’s a word that you say a lot? I’m not sure about this one – I haven’t noticed that I’m fixated on any word in particular right now.

17. Who told you he/she loved you last? My husband

18. Last furry thing you touched? My cat, Kato

19. How many drugs have you done in the last three days? I’m most of the way through my antibiotics prescription and I take my daily Nexium but I’ve pretty much given up the cold medicine now.

20. How many rolls of film do you need developed? I have two disposable cameras that need to be developed, one of which is from my pre-Katrina trip to New Orleans.

21. Favorite age you have been so far? I’m enjoying my 30s.

22. Your worst enemy? My own procrastination

23. What is your current desktop picture? On this laptop, its a cool illustration of a giant polar bear with blue, glowing eyes. I can’t remember who the artist is.

24. What was the last thing you said to someone? Your food stinks, kitty.

25. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to fly what would it be? I think I’d take the million bucks. 

26. Do you like someone? I like everyone (mostly).

27. The last song you listened to? "We Used to Be Friends" by the Dandy Warhols – but only because it’s the theme song to "Veronica Mars," which I watched last night before I went to bed.

28. What time of day were you born? A little after 2:00 a.m.

29. What’s your favorite number? 7

30. Where did you live in 1987? Kansas City, Missouri

31. Are you jealous of anyone? I get occasional flashes of jealousy (someone’s richer, thinner, etc.), but they pass quickly.
32. Is anyone jealous of you? Not that I know of.

33. Where were you when 9/11 happened? At home. I don’t really know why I was watching TV (I never turn on the TV in the mornings now), but I remember watching the first tower fall and then waking up my husband to tell him that something very bad was happening.

34. What do you do when vending machines steal your money? Pound on the mechanism (like that ever helps). If it’s at work, I e-mail our facilities manager, but that’s never actually resulted in a refund.

35. Do you consider yourself kind? Sometimes, but I could stand to be kinder.

36. If you had to get a tattoo, where would it be? I’d get one that ringed my upper, left arm. I’m considering getting one on my 40th birthday, but there’s a strong chance I’ll change my mind.
37. If you could be fluent in any other language, what would it be? Spanish
38. Would you move for the person you loved? Maybe. It would take a lot to get me to leave the rest of my extended family behind, though. 

39. Are you touchy feely? No. I’m whatever is the opposite of that.

40. What’s your life motto? I’m fond of my family motto: "Never stand if you can sit. Never sit if you can lie down."

41. Name three things that you have on you at all times? Wallet, lip balm, comb.
42. What’s your favorite town/city? I’m fond of Kansas City, although I haven’t really spent enough time elsewhere to be able to make much of a comparison.

43. What was the last thing you paid for with cash? Yesterday’s lunch

44. When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper and mailed it? Probably when my grandmother was still alive.
45. Can you change the oil on a car? Yes, but it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

46. Your first love: what is the last thing you heard about him/her? That he toured Europe playing keyboards with a progressive rock band. That was quite a while ago, though.

47. How far back do you know about your ancestry? Four generations back.

48. The last time you dressed fancy, what did you wear and why did you dress fancy? If we’re talking really fancy, it would have been on my tenth anniversary in Las Vegas when my husband and I renewed our vows.

49. Does anything hurt on your body right now? My neck is kind of stiff.

50. Have you been burned by love? Oh, probably. Time fades that kind of thing, though.