Meme-Tagged By The Cannonball!!

Write whatever comes to your mind about yourself.

1- blogging.
A Love-Hate relationship, in a way. I love doing it, but hate NOT doing it. The problem is that there are times when I just don't really have anything interesting or insightful to say. Then, the blog kind of dies and I feel guilty about it. On the other hand, sometimes I have occasion to look back at some posts from months before, and think "Wow, I wrote THAT". So, more than anything else, blogging has given me the opportunity to pound out some interesting thoughts that otherwise would have been lost in the noise-filled echo-chamber that is my brain nowadays.

2- writing.
Oh how I wish I could!!!!! I am told that I am a great storyteller, and I so wish that I had the ability to translate that to paper (or ether). My brain is full of so many interesting stories, mostly of the people I have worked with, and interesting things (at least to me) that I have had the chance to see and do. Since I read the first chapter of All Creatures Great and Small, I thought that it (and it's three companion volumes) was the greatest book ever written. I'm no James Herriott, but I think I might be able to make a few people laugh, or at least giggle.

3- art.
Art is beautiful. Art is beauty. It is all around us. Everywhere, it seems, except those places where "modern man" intentionally tries to create it. Art takes time, both to create and appreciate, maybe that's why it is so rare in our world any more. This is true in the Catholic Church in the extreme. It appears that any art found nowadays is cookie-cutter 1970 minimalist. It all ha the appearance of a conscious effort to be "cutting edge", the problem being that the style was about 8 years past "cutting edge" in 1970 when it became the catholic norm. But I suppose the boomer generation, secure in their knowledge that everything they do is by definition the ultimate achievement, is unable to learn that the world has moved on.

4- crazy dreams.
I have been known to have some wild ones, on rare occasions leading to physical action. One time, I had a dream about getting into a fight with my former employer, grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, and shook him while screaming "You Son of a Bitch" over and over. The dream ended when my panicked (and previosly sleeping wife woke me up, as I actually, in my sleep, had HER by the nightgown, shaking her and saying the same thing!!!

5- nuns.
I miss them so much. I went to catholic school toward the end of the "mean nun" era. I had a few hard cases, but most were kind, firm, guiding. My daughter is in Catholic school (a GOOD one), and it breaks my heart to see her there without the whole platoon of nuns around. There is a retired nun (a real one, in a real habit) who still often is at the school in the mornings, either to visit or to help out, I'm not sure, and her very PRESENCE on the school grounds changes the whole atmosphere of the place. And I pray - every day - that my daughters, or at least one of them, gets the call.

6- music.
Love to listen to it, love to sing it - LOUD. Damn near any kind. But I have to be careful - very careful - because it can define my mood and attitude. I can drive myself into a real depression by listening to to much melancholy music.

7- normalcy.
I always wanted to be "normal", but never have been. Nowadays, since normal seems to be defined as a herd of starbucks coffee sipping SUV driving pretentious yuppies, I no longer have the desire to be "normal". On the other hand, now that I live in a real subdivision, I find that I can't fire up the grill or mow the lawn without the Monkees' song Pleasant Valley Sunday coming into my head!

Thanks CC, for the Meme, and for waking me up. I needed that.

Memes -- the empty calories of Blogger

A One Word Meme seen at Cannonball's...

1. Yourself: Useful
2. Your spouse: Amazing
3. Your hair: Lots
4. Your mother: Perfect
5. Your father: Demanding
6. Your favourite item: nothing
7. Your dream last night: Lost
8. Your favorite drink: Coffee
9. Your dream car: Niva
10. The room you are in: Office
11. Your ex: Sad
12. Your fear: Unemployment
13. What you want to be in 10 years: Alive
14. Who you hung out with last night: Carrie
15. What you’re not: Lazy
16. Muffins: Bagels
17. One of your wish list items: Books
18. Time: Flies
19. The last thing you did: Boring
20. What you are wearing: jeans
21. Your favorite weather: Blustery
22. Your favorite book: Detailed
23. The last thing you ate: Cereal
24. Your life: Blessing
25. Your mood: :)
26. Your best friend: Carrie
27. What you’re thinking about right now: ;)
28. Your car: Quest
29. What you are doing at the moment: procrastinating
30. Your summer: long
31. Your relationship status: married
32. What is on your TV: Thomas
33. What the weather is like: HOT
34. When was the last time you laughed: last night

Tagging anyone who hasn't done this one yet.

Music & Books

Ahhh, my first meme! Courtesy of my friend Carolina Cannonball

How many books do you own?
Enough to occupy the majority of four bookcases, plus maybe 8 boxes.

Book(s) I am reading now:
Somebody's Got to Say It! by Neal Boortz

Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me:
1- The Bible
2- Saint Joseph's Daily Missal
3- Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy
4- Robert Frost, The American Library Edition
5- Star Man's Son by Andre Norton


Now for the music...

Five favorite songs:
Rover - Jethro Tull
Hey Porter - Johnny Cash
Sing Sing Sing - Benny Goodman
Dark Night of the Soul - Loreena McKennitt
One More for the Road - Frank Sinatra

Three favorite music artists:
Johnny Cash
Frank Sinatra
Nanci Griffith
Loreena McKennitt
Ian Anderson

Three favorite composers:
Aaron Copland
Beethoven
Tchaikovsky

Favorite song when you were a little kid:
I can't remember. I sang constantly so who knows?

Favorite song you wish you could sing:
Come Sail Away by Styx

Favorite type of music:
everything but Rap

Least favorite song:
Morning Has Broken

Least favorite type of music:
Rap

Favorite music instrument:
Tie between Violin/Fiddle and Banjo

Musical instrument you wish you could play:
Flute

Tagging two friends.

Man this is tough. To narrow down to just a few favorites on such short notice is very very hard. I could easily do an ipod playlist in response to a couple of these!
Or a card Catalog - for those of you who remember what they were.