Lion and Magic Boy

I remember the day I first ran across the word “meme”, as related to blogging. “Oh how charming, I thought. Look how they’re all interacting! First one person does it, then they tell two friends, and then they tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on!”

Ha.

[I just spent 12 minutes looking up the source of that obnoxious tagline. Do you remember it? If you heard it once, I swear you would be unable to forget it. Need the name? It's bothering you now, isn't it? It, it's on the tip of your tongue, isn't it? It's going to drive you crazy now, isn't it?]

Now you know how I feel about memes. This one won’t leave me alone.

And Sween of Space Monkey Pants has tagged me with this neural monstrosity, charging me with thinking up six things about myself odd or interesting enough to post here for you, never mind that I already did this once. Go ahead. See what I wrote the other time. Make sure I don’t repeat myself here.

[Was it Breck?]

1. I can hold a pencil between my upper lip and my nose, like a long yellow mustache. I can wiggle the pencil back and forth, too, and not drop it. I used to call a meeting of my employees and greet them that way when they’d arrive in my office. I have no idea what they thought about it, as, oddly, it was never mentioned.

[Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific?]

2. Sadly, I am unable either to burp on command (let alone the alphabet) or make rude noises using my hand underneath my arm (sorry, can’t say the word “armpit” ewwww I shudder even typing it) despite years of attempting it (I had an older brother). Although I haven’t practiced either one lately, I am pretty sure I still can’t. Wait a sec. Nope. Can’t.

[Clairol Herbal Essence?]

3. Although I went to Paris three times, my strongest memory of the City of Light seems to be the uneven cobblestones that I had to wrestle Nathaniel’s stroller over, around, and among (while also dodging the effluvium of a large number of little yapping dogs carried in large handbags that proliferate the city) in order to navigate the streets while walking…somewhere. It was somewhere French, I’m pretty sure. Was it pretty? I have no idea. I see gray stones dotted with dog poop.

[Prell?]

How’m I doing? Three left, damn! [mutters something]

4. The skin gets dry on the bottoms of my feet and I like to pick at it. In the summer between 7th and 8th grade, I picked at my foot so badly that it became infected and before long I developed blood poisoning (diagnosed by the telltale red line moving up my leg, which I remember being told at the time would cause my death if it reached my heart. You can believe I paid attention then) and spent a few weeks on antibiotics and crutches right smack in the middle of summer when everyone else was doing things like swimming.

[Suave? You can't remember it, can you?]

5. Speaking of crutches, I was back on them only a few months later when I did something to my foot again. What was that? It wasn’t broken, because that happened four years later. Hmm. Anyway, it was winter (which in northern California doesn’t mean that much) and the Winter Olympics were on, so I spread the story that I broke my foot skiing in the Olympics. And there were people who believed this.

[Can't think of any more shampoos from the time period in question. Except The One that's driving you crazy, of course.]

6. The modeling career I alluded to in this post never really got off the ground. I was told I wasn’t tall enough (by an inch) to be a runway model in New York, and I didn’t think I was attractive enough to go into print, and at not-quite 5’8″ and 110 lbs. I didn’t think I was thin enough for either. Plus I felt that the classes I was taking were sort of a ripoff, designed to take the money of the families of hopeful girls. So all I really did was participate in a couple of shows held at malls and wear clothes by some new store called The Gap.

There, Sween! Ya happy now??! Slavedriver.

[You do remember this now, don't you? With wheat germ oil and honey (are those actually good for hair? No one knows). Here you go, so you can sleep tonight: Faberge Organics. "And they'll tell two friends, and they'll tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on......"]