Truly Bad Films

Friday, January 06, 2006

Five Quirks Meme

Cullen has a meme I'm copping. It's asks for Five Quirks of mine.

1. I'll call this one, "I Married Her Why?"
Most nights before bed, I rub cardomom scented oil on my feet to keep them sandal worthy even in winter. One night I oiled up my feet for an early bedtime. Pep was about to leave the room so I asked him to turn out the light.

"Why can't you turn it off?" he said.

"I cain't walk - I done greased my feet!" jumped out of my mouth. It was my best West Virginia mamaw voice and I don't even have any family from West Virginia. In all honesty, I'm sure my Turkish grandmothers from way back have uttered the same phrase through the generations - just not with such Appalachian verve. Sadly, I was not doing a character. It was just me being me. Pep had to lean on the bed to keep from falling down laughing. He kept saying "What!? You done what?!!"

2. I read magazines back to front, and then front to back.
This way, I read the short articles, like book and CD reviews, first - but Pep thinks I'm weird. He says it's an offshoot of my dyslexia.

3. I take a notebook with me everywhere.
In an excerpt I read from Joan Didion's new book The Year of Magical Thinking, she quotes her late husband on the tools needed by writers. He told her to always keep a notebook with her, because without a notebook, you're not a writer. This is true and it is also a small element of craft never taught in schools. You need to jot down every good line that runs through your head, because you'll never get it back just that way when you sit down to write a story where you'll need it. When I'm writing stories I'm always flipping through my notebooks finding great lines and paragraph fragments that came to me while going about daily life with my trusty notebook. It actually makes me laugh to read some of the stuff from my notebooks. I don't even remember writing it pretty often so it's like some talented stranger left a gift for me. Anyway, by carrying around your notebook, and filling in thoughts as they occur, time spent picking your nose can actually pay off later . . .

4. "Left hand, right hand, it doesn't matter. I'm amphibious."
Hey, Charles Shackleford - I too am amphibious! When my right hand gets too tight and needs a rest I switch over to my left. I can't write beautifully or fast with my left, but I can write. It would be easier to write Arabic with my left since it goes right to left, but we'll have to leave the note taking in Arabic for another lifetime. I've been mousing left for two or three months now and I don't even notice it. My dad's a lefty so I must have gotten the bi-handual mode from him and mom evenly.

5. I always take Bitch to read during faculty meetings.
I'm the defacto head of Women and Gender Studies on campus at the moment, because I'm the advisor to the minors. So, in some regards I might well get run out if I wasn't reading Bitch during the faculty meetings. I mean - somebody's got to do it.

One day last year I walked all the way across campus, my copy of Bitch proudly clutched to my breast with the front cover snug against my bosom. I read it during the meeting, probably holding it up at some point so that those at the front of the room, which would include the President, the Dean, the Faculty Secretary etc. could see the front and back covers simultaneously. After the meeting I hugged it, face front, to me and walked back to my office where I threw it, face down, on my desk.

Then, for the first time, I saw the back cover of the magazine. The entire back cover was taken up with an immense purple dildo, complete with diddler (or whatever they call that appendage) rampant from corner to shiny corner of the magazine. I thought I would die. I had just been all over campus carrying that thing like a walking porn shop ad. Parents could have seen me with my 11 inch self-pleasuring copy. The entire faculty had probably seen that thing - half thinking "Go-girrrl!" and the other half thinking - "How disgusting can WMGS get? Typical!" Jaysus on a corndog! What could I do but laugh . . . and carefully check the back covers ever after?

11 Comments:

At 1:58 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

hey chai great talking with you yesterday, but i have a question. What does cardamon scented oil do to your sheets? and why not mace?

 
At 2:29 PM, Blogger keithurbanchic said...

Oh Jeeez! I sleep in these thick cotton socks when I put that stuff on. It makes the dogs sneeze, but I like the way it smells. It could have mace in it for all I know . . .

Great to talk to you too - loved the kicked back baby snap! Thanks for calling!!!

 
At 3:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

ROTFLMAO! Somewhere on campus there are gals who are being subliminally reminded that they NEED a purple dildo, and they can't for the life of them figure out why.

There'll be a run on purple dildos! Long packages in plain brown wrapping appearing in dorm mailboxes (because of COURSE you can't just run down to Lynchburg this stuff!).

HMMMM what OTHER rags, uh, mags are you reading ... :-D

 
At 3:18 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

OH, and I often read magazines the same. So HAH great minds think alike.

LOVED the sports quote. Ha ha ha! I saw that on tv when he saw it too. Ha ha ha!

 
At 4:40 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

uh ..."when he said it too"

I must need more CAFFEINE!

 
At 12:20 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

hey, I'm uninformed. Exactly what is a "meme"?

 
At 7:44 AM, Blogger keithurbanchic said...

I'll give you something better than a definition. Did you know if you go to Google and type in any word plus the word definition, you'll get the definition for that word?

For example, you'd type:
meme definition

Thus, I give you a fishing rod instead of a fish.
;)

 
At 10:36 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

That last one just KILLED me. hahahahaha

 
At 11:28 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

hey, cool! I can ALWAYS count on you!

 
At 11:37 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I found a couple of great websites devoted to "understanding blog speak." Sounds slightly Orwellian, huh.

Anyhow, one website I looked at had a definition that just made me go "huh?" - viral encapsulated idea, with built-in feedback loop

??? Luckily I found some other defs that I could understand :-D

 
At 12:19 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Some of my best lines were written on cafe napkins, bar coasters, maps, paper bags and matchbook covers.

 

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