Jill beat me to it, but since this was passed to me as well, I put my answers below the fold. I’ve already had two shots of a really nice blue agave tequila before noon, so be kind to my typos.
Seven Things To Do Before I Die
1. Publish a book (stealing this one from Jill)
2. Live someplace other than Indiana, preferably in a different country, though I failed Spanish twice (and German, and Latin) so any place where Spanish is the primary language is out of the question.
3. Get a job. Within the month.
4. Learn to like keeping house
5. Get an advanced degree. Maybe two.
6. Run for public office
7. Pass a foreign language class without much crying and frustration
Seven Things I Cannot Do
1. Snap
2. Whistle
3. Sing in public
4. Eat any animal that lives in water
5. Finish a project in one sitting
6. Get through a day without tripping, banging into something, falling, or otherwise injuring myself in some minor way (Ditto on this one, Jill. Apparently we’re botch clumsy.)
7. Crochet
Seven Things That Attract Me to…Blogging
1. Ego
2. Needing to write
3. Reflection
4. Community and connection
5. Debate
6. Intellectual communion
7. Endless personal criticism from libertarians
Seven Things I Say Most Often
1. “Dude, shut up,” but only when I’m embarassed.
2. “Fuck” in all it’s wonderful forms
3. “Jesus Christ,” “Jesus H. Christ,” “Christbasket”
4. “Charming.”
5. “I said no.”
6. “Do me a favor?”
7. I have a habit of making up cuss words when I’m frustrated. See: Christbasket
Seven Books That I Love
1. A Million Little Pieces
2. a collection of short stories by T.C. Boyle, aptly titled Stories
3. The Best Short Stories of (Insert Year), I love the short story form and read as many as I can get my hands on.
4. The Dictionary of Theories
5. The Autobiography of Malcolm X — I’ve written a bazillion papers on Malcolm and I am still fascinated by him.
6. Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Cafe
7. (This is so dorky, but) The Oxford English Dictionary
Currently reading My Friend Leonard, and the CHS canon, all three gifted by my awesome readers.
Seven Movies That I Watch Over and Over Again
I don’t particularly like movies all that much, so this will be the list of things I’m willing to watch twice.
1. Donnie Darko, for the soundtrack alone
2. Girls Will Be Girls
3. The Ballad of Jack and Rose
4. Casino (I secretly love gangster movies of all forms)
5. Godfather, I and II, III is just irritating
6. Wallace and Gromit
7. Traffic
Side note: I watched Requiem for a Dream last week and thought it blew. Talk about heavy-handedness and melodrama. Lame, sensationalistic, and preachy.
Seven Songs I Play Over and Over Again:
1. “Guns of Brixton” by the Clash
2. Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s cover of “Thunder Road”
3. Otis Redding’s “Just One More Day”
4. “I Want You” by Elvis Costello (ditto again, Jill — I love Costello)
5. The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog”
6. “Humor Me” by Pere Ubu
7. and my fav guilty pleasure, Too Short’s “Money In the Ghetto”
Seven Eight People I Want To Join In Too
Echidne of the Snakes
Jedmunds
OGeorge
Jenn
Crazy Aunt Purl, the funniest knit blogger out there whom I love from afar
Jennifer, from whom I get my coolest links
Ilyka
and Chuck, whose lifelong friend I embarassed the other night at the end of a long, pleasant conversation by exclaiming, “Wait! You’re a REPUBLICAN?!” Tact isn’t always my strongest point, even when I’m kidding.
Raise a glass to making it through yet another Atheist Kids Get Presents, Too Day. The highlight of Xmas Eve was a venture to to the store to buy supplies for a few homemade gifts and seeing several couples get into fights on their cell phones, and one young man get so pissed at holiday shopping that he punched his cart. At least I have company in my holiday bitterness.
And one more thing to raise your glass to: this is our first anniversary, me and Ryan. He finally snagged me after last year’s anti-Xmas party when someone convinced me to stop fighting his advances. Here’s to laughing until I heave every single day.