Auntie Meme

Oh good grief! I'm running here and there, hither and yon, and Jazz tags me with the Meme of Fours. He knows I lack an attention span! He knows if I had an Evil Twin I'd have a spare. And yet he tags! He'll get his! To paraphrase The Tick: I'll bake a muffin - that will steal his car! To begin, then:

Four jobs you've had in your life: Waitress (don't cross me), courier (yes, I drove the truck), medical school instructor (so hardcore), visiting artist (school administrators blow, blow, blow.) What jobs have I had that were not in my life?

Four movies you could watch over and over: Better Off Dead, The Blues Brothers, Jaws, Torch Song Trilogy. Generally speaking, I don't watch a lot of movies - that attention span thing again. These movies I can watch any fifteen minutes of and feel like I saw a whole thing.

Four places you've lived: New Brunswick, NJ, Somerset, NJ, Highland Park, NJ, Hartford, CT. Yes, I have lived other places, some of which were not in New Jersey.

Four TV shows you love to watch: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, Good Eats, Poirot/Midsomer Murders/Sherlock Holmes/Nero Wolfe/Inspector Morse Sunday afternoons/evenings on Biography, Most Haunted. Most Haunted is an hour of apparently accidental Brit hilarity. The second half of every episode:

Delicate Show Presenter: Is there any spirit person here who'd like to communicate with us?

Someone coughs, stirs dust, kicks a table leg. Everyone runs screaming! Repeat five times in thirty minutes. It's no Father Ted, but I feel like I'm going to cough up a lung every time!

Four places you've been on vacation: Maui; Prince Edward Island, Canada; Quito, Ecuador; Italy.

Four websites you visit daily: I go all over the place and read as much as I can every day, but I do not read a lot of the big political sites. I tried reading a little dKos yesterday. The format gives me headaches. Atrios makes me feel like I have an aneurism. People fighting in comments make me want to stab someone, and I just can't deal - and I don't have to, especially if I avoid the conservatives who will make me wish I could scour out my cerebral cortex. No one gets closer to a better world that way. Also: if I stabbed strangers my loved ones would feel neglected. If I must choose:

Running Scared. Between Ron, Jazz and Georg, I learn something new every day, and if I don't understand it, someone with an attention span explains.

Brilliant@Breakfast. How Jill maintains that white-hot fury is beyond me, but thank your favorite deity, she does!

TBogg. He says he doesn't drink but if he did, I'd love to sip martinis and sit between him and Wolcott at the Telephone Bar in Manhattan. Just line up the drinks. The spit takes would be less embarrassing after the third round.

Bitch, Ph.D. Lately, I'm reading her daily. I think it's because Katy Hipke's on hiatus. There are a lot of people I pop in on daily - I mean dozens - and a lot of people I look at as source material for the radio show and the blog. Prime examples: Blanton's and Ashton's, the Big Brass Blog, Pam's House Blend.

This is also why I can't manage a blogroll: I am feeble and give my heart easily.

Four of your favorite foods: Four things? Last week, a tater tot in a bowling alley was - for a moment - my favorite thing I'd ever eaten. A steak marinated aggressively and grilled rare can make me dance in a restaurant aisle, but so can a spicy tuna roll. I've stood up at the table and declared my love for poached scallops, and Hollandaise might qualify as a gift from the gods. On the other hand, for sensual pleasure, what equals standing in one's garden on an August afternoon, picking a tomato one grew oneself and taking a sun-warmed bite of firm flesh? Add a few grains of salt and the tableau turns nearly pornographic.

Four places you'd rather be: I love being in my apartment. I'm serious, I love it, love it, love it but if I must leave it : on the west coast of Maui; Venice, Italy (I would live there if I could); maybe Rome. I love Rome. There are lots of places I'd love to visit, but since I haven't been yet, I can't say I'd rather be there than here. Ask again in ten years!

Four albums you can't live without: I...can't. I can't narrow it down to four. I couldn't even narrow it to twenty. The more I thought about it, the more ridiculous it sounded to sacrifice A Night At the Opera to keep Nevermind the Bollocks... Are you kidding me? Hounds of Love or Live Through This? Prosolar Mechanics' Turn On or Ramones Mania? Which of that long series of Elton John albums from the seventies my brother, sisters and I know every note of, and would never willingly live without? Talk Talk's Laughingstock or the B-52s albums that still fill me with heart-stopping joy? Seal or Tori Amos' Tales of a Librarian? The London stage version of Jesus Christ Superstar, The Weavers at Carnegie Hall, or Lene Lovich's Stateless? Graceland or Rhythm of the Saints? I'm not even picking a favorite Devo, Elvis Costello, Dead Milkmen or English Beat.

These albums are old, worn, beloved. Most albums are composed of one, two or possibly three decent songs and the rest is filler, so my music collection is mix-heavy, with everything from the Singing Nun to the Scissor Sisters. I could pick about ten of those I couldn't live without.

Hush, you! I'm no good with rules!

As for tagging: lots of bloggers are away from their virtual fiefdoms. Tagging's a hit or miss proposition.

Sharon at Center of New Jersey Life. I want to be just like her when I grow up.

Nomad @ Mindsay, who is never less than fascinating.

MEWintle, who will be very surprised.

And for a lovely variety, a new friend of PIC: joated at Compass Points.