Writing or Typing has tagged me with a Meme (in Sevens), and now I'm it. Resistance is futile. I must comply.

Seven Things I Plan To Do Before I Die:

1. Write a novel, and not a novel-in-stories, but a real novel novel.
2. Learn how to make pottery.
3. Visit the Insectarium in Montreal.
4. Visit glass-blower's studios all around the country; interview them; make a documentary.
5. Read all of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.
6. See the Jellies: Living Art exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
7. Buy a house not because I want the house so much, but because then I could have a dog!

Seven Things I Can Do:

1. Play the piano.
2. Type 100+ words per minute.
3. Make a Tiramisu and other utterly frivolous desserts completely devoid of nutritional value.
4. Crochet eccentric hats and afghans.
5. Very basic HTML.
6. Drive stick-shift (because let's face it, you aren't really driving if you aren't driving stick shift).
7. Put together put-together furniture all by myself, even with dubiously written instructions.

Seven Things I Can't Do:

1. Games involving flying projectile objects.
2. Blithely drink shots of tequila anymore without embarrassingly serious repercussions.
3. Tolerate discriminatory asshats and their discriminatory asshattery.
4. Indulge the arrogant delusion that I can smoke "just one cigarette" without falling off the wagon altogether and becoming a smoker again.
5. Achieve alertness immediately upon waking in the morning.
6. See past my nose without corrective eyewear.
7. Be happy without cats.

Seven Things That Attract Me to People of the Opposite Same Sex:

1. Needs her space to pursue her own quirky life and pastimes, so therefore respects my space.
2. Intelligence.
3. Terrific sense of humor.
4. Loves animals and treats them with gentlenesss and compassion.
5. Treats people with kindness and empathy.
6. Sturdy, strapping, curves, robust.
7. Willingness to indulge in obsessive sushi consumption.

Seven Things I Say Most:

1. "Sushi, anyone?"
2. "Dont make me get up!" (To the cats)
3. Any possible variation on the F-word because I love the F-word to distraction: Fuck, fucking, fucked, fucker, motherfucker, motherfucking, fucktard, fucknugget, fuckwit, fuckwitted, fuckwittage, fuckitty fuck fuck fuck.
4. "Clusterfucked" (At the end of the semester)
5. "May you be cursed with having to wear a colostomy bag!" (In the event of egregious and dangerous driving transgressions that bring forth my inner road rage. I know. That's sort of shocking and horrible. I don't know what gets into me.)
6. "What a poor neglected kitten you are. It's kitten abuse!" (To the cats, in the midst of mollycoddling them on their backs and rubbing their generous tummies.)
7. "Mwah mwah, mwah mwah mwah mwah." (To my students. In Peanuts-ese.)

Seven Celebrity Crushes:

1. Elizabeth Bishop (But not in a creepy necrophilic way or anything. I know, I know . . . she's dead. That's weird. Suck it up.)
2. Jeanette Winterson
3. Amy Bloom
4. Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg
5. Jean Rhys (Also dead, I know . . . I suck at this celebrity crush thing.)
6. Jeri Ryan (But only as Seven-of-Nine--none of that Boston Public or OC shit.)
7. James Gandolfini (I know. WTF. Don't bother asking.)

Seven People I'm Tagging:

1. Excellent Danger
2. Early Hours of Sky
3. JadedJu feels my vibe, but Can.Not.Do.A.Meme (She's MeMe snob!)
4.
5.
6.
7.

(I'm tagging you all by ESP, so see if you can feel my Top-Secret Brain Vibe Tag and respond accordingly! Should you successfully receive my Top-Secret Brain Vibe Tag, I will then reveal your identity on the list so that readers may gasp in wonder and delight at these Amazing Kreskin-esque maneuvers.)

Mmm, I love the word strapping. And strapping women. Garbo used to refer to herself as "a strapping lad"...sigh.

Okay well I can teach you “how to make pottery” in the art world it’s called “ceramics” and in the real world “having a hell of a lot of fun with mud.” Plus it IS really hot playing out the pottery scene from Ghost.

Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. Oh. *swoon*

My mom saw her perform last year, from like the third row or something, and could probably have managed a chance to meet her if she'd tried hard enough (a friend of hers plays in the symphony that was hosting her).

If she didn't smoke like a chimney, I'd probably have to go stalk her or something. Thank goodness for that little flaw, I guess. *grin*

I also have an inexplicable celebrity cruch on James Gandolfini! Nice to know I am in good company.

Emily: Yes, sigh indeed!

Teresa: I keep telling everyone that when I retire I want to throw pots, so I'm going to hunt you down and make you teach me how!

Charles: Fuckwit and fucktard are two of the most satisfying words ever, I think. Fuckwit is thanks to Bridget Jones. Ooh, and I forgot the "fuckwittery" construction!

Anne: Oh, would love to see NSS play live . . . that would be amazing! Have you seen Speaking in Strings?

Erica: I'm glad you get the Gandolfini thing!

Here in Kentucky, we say "fuckwattage," which has to do with how completely screwed up something is. (The higher the wattage, the more incandescent the asshattery--which is a word I love and cannot wait to drop into a staid conversation).

Speaking in Strings -- yes indeed. Actually I knew about it but hadn't seen it, so after my mom saw NSS, I had the DVD sent to her, and got to watch it myself the next time I visited. Very interesting stuff. I'm fascinated by musicians.

Re: Seven Things That Attract Me to People of the Same Sex:
1: Check
2: Check
3: Check
4: Check
5: Check
6 Check
7: Um, do I have to partake or is okay if order the burger?I

Umm...I think the smog in Chicago must be extra thick this time of year, because it took a few days for the ESP to get here. :)

Does ESP ever travel at the speed of the US Postal Servce?

The insectarium is mucho cool!

I'm getting a weird vibe. Am I imagining it?

Why the Insectarium? I've been to Montreal a gazillion time and never heard of it.

There is also the Meguro (tokyo) Parasite Museum I highly reccomend. It has a jarred tape worm of umptteenth meters removed from a woman in Bangladesh (okay I can't remember really if it was a woman or which country, but so what?) and other jarred creepy crawly things that like to live off living humans. It is a formaldehyde kingdom! Some folks, like me, get nauseous from that smell, but this museum had tight jars so I survived the jaunt.

You can also buy T-shirts with the tape worm illustration sprawling from frint to back...maybe a better option than the deranged Zebra look?

Cheers,

Rebecca Dosch-Brown