Thursday, October 9, 2008

Thank God for Tags

I am officially exhausted and probably comedy impaired today. Fair warning that this will either be freaking hilarious or embarrassingly stupid. Daughters won't sleep through the night. Living on caffeine and cold pizza. Speaking in incomplete sentences. Figure you get the picture.

But the gods are smiling down on me. (Actually, it's raining, so apparently they're doing something else on me. Let's say it's spit and pretend we weren't thinking something totally different and wildly inappropriate, okay?) I've been tagged not once but twice. It's probably because I run so slowly. Not my fault. You tend to slow down after falling off a cliff and having your knee reconstructed.

So the first tag is courtesy of fabulous Abi.

4 goals I have in the next 5 years:
1. Be the recognized world expert in Batman eyebrows.
2. Sleep an entire night through without anyone waking me up.
3. Get rid of the @$&($%ing mouse that won't get out of my basement. It pooped on some of my writing. I mean, really. Can't we be a LITTLE more subtle than that?
4. Have The Wonder That Is My Novel published in foreign languages and then go on a book tour and try to read it phonetically. Because that would be funny, particularly in German. Wouldn't you like to hear me read from Grobartig Unbrauchbar?

4 places I will visit someday:
1. Scotland. Where I will drink lots of Black and Blacks (Guinness and blackberry schnapps... I'm drooling. I'm drooling. I'm really really drooling.)
2. Climax, Michigan. Because hey, I'm in the state and it's a good excuse for a road trip.
3. Australia. Because I'd like to see how they cook shrimp on little plastic dolls.
4. Google. To drop off the "donation" I owe them after they made me the Batbrow expert.

4 of my favorite foods:
1. Potatoes.
2. Potatoes.
3. Potatoes.
4. Kartaffelsalat.

4 jobs I've had:
1. Managed the national center for research in Mad Cow Disease.
2. Statistician/researcher.
3. Autopsy coordinator.
4. Water aerobics teacher. (Funny story: I made all my own tapes for the class, and one day one of my students is singing "Careless Whisper" during the cool down. And instead of singing, "Guilty feet have got no rhythm," she sang: "Guilty feelings, hot diddle diddle." I am not lying.)

2 places I've lived:
1. Cleveland, Ohio
2. Chicago, Illinois

2 places I'd like to live:
1. I kinda like it where I'm at, thanks.
2. Although there's a development called The Arboretum down the street from us that is tres swank if you're giving out houses.

4 things I'd do with my spare time, if I had any:
1. Play a lot of video games. I'm a dedicated button masher. I never learn all the secret codes; I just whang on the buttons at random and see what happens.
2. Crochet. I'm supposed to be making ponchos for my daughters' birthday, but I haven't started. And I made some mean penis cozies for my roommates in college. Gag gifts. I'm all about the crafty gag gifts.
3. Take cooking classes. Cooking for me is a zen thing, except for when all of the smoke detectors in the building are going off, in which case it's a snarfworthy mass chaos thing.
4. Read all my books again. I have this great skill where I can block out the ending of a book so I can read it again and still be kind of surprised by what happens. So I can read a good book sixteen times and still not be able to tell you what it's about.

And on with the tagginess. I tag Brenda, Cate, Tabitha, Tiny T, and anyone else who is too tired to think up something else to post about.

15 comments:

Tiny T said...

Woo hoo! I got tagged! Yea! Wait... should I be excited that you're suggesting I'm too tired to come up with a post? You're right, but the principle of it...

So something totally unrelated to this post, but I thought you would love it is this:
http://www.wordcentral.com/byod/byod_index.php
It's a Build Your Own Dictionary! You can make up words and see what other words people have made up :P

Michelle D. Argyle said...

I'm incredibly jealous that you can block out the end of books. A talent, indeed. Or a curse depending on how you look at it. That would have sucked big time during a class test . . .

I have a friend who lives in Australia - I'll ask her about the barbies ;)

Your post was funny, so don't worry about being embarrassed. We'll leave that all up to me, the true expert.

Tabitha said...

LOL!! There must be something in the air, because my sons aren't sleeping through the night. I'm a walking zombie right now. Really. I think I died and just forgot to lie down and stop moving. Hence, zombie. :)

K.C. Shaw said...

I thought I was the only one who blocked out the endings to books! It's a gift, isn't it? Especially if you read murder mysteries, like I do.

Adrienne said...

I forget entire books. There are many I want to reread just because I remember loving them but just can't remember what the heck happened!

Carrie Harris said...

Tiny T: Um... I didn't mean to imply that. I meant to imply that I'M tired. Whoops. :)

Glamis: Could you ask? I had a neighbor who used to set Barbies on fire, but only the hair really burnt. So I'm not sure if that would be enough to cook a shrimp clear through. (wink wink nudge nudge)

Tabitha: Now there's an idea I don't think anyone has tackled yet. Zombie parents. Hrgh. Quit giving me ideas!!! I can't write all the books I have ideas for already!!! Snarf.

KC: Oh yeah. I've read the Dorothy Sayers mysteries about a million and a half times. Glad to find someone else with the "gift"!

Adrienne: Hah! I forget titles sometimes but not the whole thing!

Cate Gardner said...

3. Australia. Because I'd like to see how they cook shrimp on little plastic dolls.

Still spewing coffee hours after reading the above. LOL!

Will post mine tomorrow.

Anonymous said...

Scotland's amazing. Rent from the National Trust -- it's cheaper than a hotel and you get an entire property (or an apartment in a castle).

Kelly Polark said...

Funny post,not at all embarrassing (except for the poor bloke who sang Hot diddle diddle...)!

Carrie Harris said...

Cate: I had a friend when I was younger, and he used to torch his sister's Barbies. They didn't burn so well, so I'm seriously wondering how they manage to get enough heat to burn a whole shrimp.

Maybe I'm overanalyzing. ;)

Devon: Ooooh. Me plus castle equals good. Thanks for the tip!

Kelly: Yeah. I keep thinking I should submit that for one of those misheard song lyric anthologies. :)

sruble said...

4 things in my response to you:

1. BAD mousie!
2. Funny Potatoes and Barbies!
3. We play video games the same way. I R Button Smasher!

4. You and I should write a book together about all the jobs we've had (your chapters would probably be more interesting) ... either that, or write about one of each of our jobs. It would be about a person that's an autopsy coordinator by day and a stand-up comic by night (although I personally think that death should be at night and comedy during the daytime). I'm just sayin'

The alternate idea would be to write about managing the Mad Cow research juxtaposed with making a comic about slightly loopy cows.

What do you think?
Stephanie

p.s. Hope you get some sleep soon!

Tiny T said...

Maybe because it was early my comment didn't come across right. I was being silly. At least trying to be. It was kind of early when I read it and my brain was focused on the paper that I had to have finished today. If I could have, I'd have included a silly face.

Mary Witzl said...

I can do that blocking out thing too! I read books over and over again and even if I faintly remember the ending, I still get a lot of reading pleasure from them.

And I'm with you on the gag gifts. In college, I sculpted masks with papier mache and found out that with the scraps left over, I could make highly authentic-looking dog poops, which I then shellacked with a high-gloss polymer. These were immensely popular with my fellow students and I did quite a thriving little business one semester. Sadly, the novelty wore off, but it was good while it lasted.

Mary Witzl said...

I meant to sympathize with you about the sleep thing. Been there done that ad nauseam. Here's wishing you lots of ZZZs...

(I can't post on Verla's! They won't recognize my user's name anymore...)

Carrie Harris said...

sruble: Yep. We're related. And I'll write that book with you. I've got to put all those Mad Cow jokes to good use. Because trust me, I've heard them ALL.

Tiny T: Snarf. I'm tempted to misunderstand you again just for the fun of it, but I probably shouldn't.

Witzl: You should sell the poops on Verla's when you get your name back. (Must get it! That's how I found you, you know, and I don't want other people to lose out on your wit and comedy... or swim cap knowledge. It was swim caps, wasn't it? :)