Hey Look! Another Meme!

Some people have an awesome sixth sense. Jen Lancaster, for example. She just KNEW I was on the verge of a meltdown concerning book-related issues…and unfortunately for me, my coping strategy is less CALL THE PUBLICIST – AGENT – EDITOR – EVENT PLANNER – WRITER PALS TO ADDRESS CONCERNS IN A PROFESSIONAL, RATIONAL MANNER and much more CRAWL INTO A BOX AND FEDEX MYSELF TO THE YUKON TERRITORY.

Actually, that’s not true. My coping strategies involve watching videos of terriers doing amusing tricks on YouTube. So lucky for me, I have a new coping strategy / distraction today: A meme! So let’s get this show on the road. The rules:

1. Link back to the person who tagged you.

2. Post these rules on your blog.

3. Share six unimportant things about yourself.

4. Tag six random people at the end of your entry.

* * * Six Unimportant Things about Jess * * *

1. I recently and somewhat recklessly downloaded a bunch of music by artists I had never heard of before: Professor Murder, Say Hi to your Mom, Film School, Band of Horses, Sound Team, Tokyo Police Club, Wolf Parade, and Vampire Weekend. An hour later as I listened to my new playlist, I could be heard raving about my new purchase while I jammed on headphones at my computer like a kid from the eighties listening to the new Cinderella album in one of the library carrels during study hall: “You know all this new music I just downloaded? It’s all so GOOOOD!!!! I mean really, it’s just so … it’s so, it’s just really, really good. Seriously.”

This is what happens when you drink and download.

Also, I’m actually seeing Vampire Weekend this Saturday in Milwaukee.

And that is a sentence I never thought I’d ever type in my entire life.

2. Yes, my high school had REAL ALBUMS in the library that we could listen to during study hall on headphones the size of hubcaps. REAL ALBUMS by CLASSY bands like White Lion and Warrant and Billy Squier. We listened to them in parachute pants and Exclamation perfume.

3. My parents raise chickens, goats, and an assortment of inbred farm cats. They have day jobs, so their menagerie is really more of a hobby farm. With very prolific hens who lay up to two dozen eggs a day. After it became clear to my parents that there was no way they could digest that many eggs on a daily basis without solidifying important organs, they decided to post fliers with neighborhood businesses: “Eggs for sale! Get your farm fresh eggs!” Around Easter an adorable elderly couple saw my parents’ poster at the nearby gas station and called. “Yes, we would like to buy some of your eggs!”

Dad quickly rummaged around the fridge and found a carton packed with ten eggs. He packed two more to make a complete dozen and made the delivery before the couple resumed their drive home.

Unfortunately, he gave them ten HARD-BOILED eggs. And two raw ones.

4. Johnny Depp and Christian Bale are shooting some scenes for a film about John Dillinger in my city. Swoon! Last night I was downtown for happy hour (which actually turned into several happy, fuzzy, and mildly incoherent hours) and got to check out the old time-ification of Main Street firsthand. Which brings me to number five:

5. When I was about eleven years old, I was somewhat obsessed with The Great Depression. We had a thick, glossy Time Life book dedicated to the entire decade of the thirties, and whenever I was home sick from school, I’d savor every word in that book and study every black and white photo like there’d be a quiz at the end of the day. I was particularly fond of the section that listed the depression-era prices for things: a seven-room Spanish stucco home in Beverly Hills cost $5,000 … an automobile tire was $6.20 … a 3-piece bedroom set was $49.95 … a men’s wool suit was $10.50 … a haircut was 30 cents … one pound of onions was three cents. Three beautiful cents! Could there BE anything more gorgeous or fascinating to an eleven year-old girl than the idea that somewhere in history, a full POUND of onions cost just THREE CENTS???

Oh, how I would have been transported with joy if Mattel came out with a depression-themed Barbie during this time—Okie Barbie perhaps, complete with dust storm mask, broken-down Model T, and Young Communist League card. As I got older, my tendency to fixate on historical periods segued into an obsession with books & movies about The Holocaust, the Vietnam War, Soviet-era gulags, and finally, communist China.

I was a really cheerful and popular kid.

6. This Friday I’m blogging at The Debs about my first love. Er, loves. I promise to make it honest and awkward and embarrassing.

And now, I shall spread the joy by tagging December (she's new to the whole blog thing--go over and say hi!), Anonymous Coworker, Kevin Charnas, Green Mountain Country Mama, Monnik, and Jeff at View from the Cloud.