Friday, December 16, 2005

I'm the new "it" girl -- it's true!

So there I was, strolling through the blogosphere, dum de dum dum, don't mind me, when all of a sudden Ms. Mama snuck up behind me and whacked me upside the head, shouting, "Tag! You're it!"

Okay... it didn't pan out quite that way. But tagged I am, nonethless. And I feel compelled to follow through with it, otherwise I just know I'll get seven years' bad luck or the guy who I have a crush on will never ever like me back.

Here goes...

Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot.

1. Running2Ks
2. Queen of Spain
3. Becky
4. Ms. Mama
5. The Diaper Pail

(Okee dokee... that wasn't too hard.)

Then select five people to tag.
1. Dread Pirate Robert
2. Laurie
3. Daddy L
4. Dak-Ind
5. William

(Heh heh heh... passing the buck! And now with the questions...)

What were you doing 10 years ago?

I was working as an English teacher in Japan. I'd been living there for four months and was suffering my first real bout of culture shock. I couldn't get over how the Japanese just plain did everything WRONG -- from refusing to obey any kind of traffic rules while walking on the sidewalk (just pick a side and STICK WITH IT, PEOPLE!!!), to standing uncomfortably close to me while in elevators or waiting to cross the street, to insisting on having the windows kept open in classrooms during the winter in schools that DIDN'T HAVE CENTRAL HEATING. (They said it was character-building; I said it was torture.)

(Needless to say, I began to find Japan much more bearable -- and I'm sure the Japanese found me much more bearable -- when I finally realized that it was ME who was doing everything wrong. When in Rome and all that...)

Ten years ago to the day, I was actually in Indonesia, taking a much-needed holiday from Japan. It was the first real trip to a foreign country I'd ever taken (I was so thoroughly chaperoned in Japan that I never really felt unsupervised -- I knew that if I was ever in danger of falling down and going boom, there'd be someone there to catch me. Japan: a lovely country, provided you're not going through culture shock.)

My friend Amrit and I had a marvellous time in Indonesia. After freezing my ass off in non-central-heated-character-building Japan for the past couple of months, I was delighted to be somewhere warm. And I had the best coffee I'd ever had in my life while there--served piping hot every morning, accompanied by a plate of fresh fruit. Mmm...

We went to the islands of Bali and Lombok. I remember Bali as being a land of bright floppy flowers and innumberable stone statues of all the local dieties, peeking out through the greenery. Lombok was a little more subdued, but we enjoyed it more because it was further off the beaten track. We had an especially entertaining time one night when a couple of island boys took us on their motorbikes to an old Dutch colonial plantation house on a hill overlooking jungle and coffee farms and we spent the evening there drinking moonshine made from rice alcohol and staring at the stars.


What were you doing one year ago?

Eating a fried egg on whole-grain toast. Perhaps two fried eggs on whole-grain toast. And when I wasn't eating fried eggs on whole-grain toast, I was wandering around in an exhausted, first-trimester daze saying to myself, "Holy SH*T! I'm pregnant!"


Five snacks you enjoy
1. Fried eggs on toast -- still to this day
2. Samosas with tamarind chutney
3. Spring rolls
4. Antipasto on Triscuits
5. Sweet, dark cream ale (it is TOO a snack!)


Five songs to which you know all the lyrics
1. "Dreaming" by Blondie
2. Anything from Pink Floyd's "The Wall"
3. "Buenos Tardes" by Ween
4. "Love on the Rocks" by Neil Diamond
5. "Rainbow Connection" by Kermit the Frog

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire
1. Party!
2. Party!
3. Party!
4. Give generously to deserving charities
5. Party!

Five bad habits
1. Overusing exclamation marks!!!!!
2. Eating WAY, WAY, WAY past the point of being full
3. Reading a trashy novel in the bath when I KNOW I should be cleaning the house or cooking dinner or starting up my own home business or doing any of those other things that nicer, better, more dedicated people do with their free time.
4. Drinking orange juice straight out of the container
5. Forgetting to put on one of the two lovely watches my husband bought for me and then spending the rest of the day repeatedly asking him to tell me what time it is.


Five things you like doing
1. Writing
2. Hot tubbing
3. Walking in the woods
4. Swimming in mountain lakes
5. Starting the day off right with a hippy speedball


Five things you would never wear, buy or get new again
1. Leg warmers
2. A leopard-print string bikini (Okay, I was 16 and had terrible judgment, people -- though I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse)
3. A V-necked shirt worn backwards
4. A thin leather tie
5. A nose piercing


Five favorite toys
1. Milo
2. Rob
3. My computer
4. My bicycle
5. Rob's iPod

There! Done! Time for someone else to be the new "it" girl or boy.

Happy holidays, everyone!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a fun meme. I always like reading other people's fives.

Happy holidays!

Laura said...

Did you really have your nose pierced? Was it painful? I pierced my navel, and that was painful enough...

Oh and everyone should spend a little bit of every day reading a trashy novel in the bath. It is good for your health :-)

Erin Whalen said...

Heh... I convinced my boyfriend (now husband) to pierce my nose for me while both of us were stinking drunk at a friend's place. The friend said she would do it for me but back out at the last minute, so I made Rob step in for her. Yep, it hurt -- but only for a short while. I didn't keep the piercing in for very long, though -- the nose ring kept falling out, and one day I lost it for good. Rather than going through the hassle of buying a new one and repiercing my nose (the piercing grew over quickly) I decided just to revert back to my normal self. (The piercing kind of made me feel like I was pretending to be someone else -- it just wasn't "me", no matter how much I wanted it to be.)

BTW, I hear that navel piercings are WAY more painful than nose ones. Do you still have your piercing?

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Oh, and special to Nancy -- I would have tagged you had you not begged off blogging for a while. I hope your holidays are wonderful, relaxing and re-energizing. Take care!

LaurieD said...

Oh, all right. Comin' right up....