Stung. Or Bitten.

Or tagged. It was bound to happen sooner or later, that a (lifesaving) blog meme has shown up to rescue me from remaining voiceless days in this, the NaBloPoMo of November.

I have been tagged by Deb Abramson at Stupid Mommy.

But first, ru-ru. I mean rules. (If you're laughing at ru-ru, I love you to death, but first—well, you know, and that's why I love you.)

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Rules:
1. Write your meme (described below).
2. Include the rules in your post (though you may reword them in your style).
3. Link to the person who tagged you, then link to the seven (7) random people you have tagged.
4. Let those seven (7) random people know they've been tagged by commenting in their blog. Also say something nice about the post so you don't come off totally random. Say, on a blog about a dog's death, you might not want to come in and go, "Hi! I'm all smiley and stuff! You've been tagged! Go to my blog! Yippie!" Instead, you might begin with, "I am so sorry about your loss!" Wait, maybe use a period there.

And now the meme:
Share seven (7) random and/or weird things about yourself.

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Seven (7) Random and/or Weird Things About YourMyself

1. I eat cake with a fork. I eat ice cream with a spoon. But if ice cream and cake are on a plate together, I eat the confection with a fork. This is the proper way.

2. The truth is that while I'm sitting here trying to come up with six more random things, I'm thinking about Stupid Mommy's admission #7 that she feels like a total failure most of the time. I really want to write about feeling like a failure. There's a lot of that going around. I won't be coy and say a little success goes a long way toward ending that feeling of failure. However it's important to see our daily achievements as successes. Raising one kid well is success; raising three is success with an -est on the end. Getting a book contract is success (thus far). Having an already-published book is success. Writing for local and regional and national and international magazines is success. Getting a poem published in a pretty online journal is success. Having friends who like you and care about your successes is success. Loving others is success. So I—I, no stranger to perpetual, nagging feelings of failure—wonder how some people can feel like a failure. The dude played by Ethan Hawke in that awful movie Until the Devil Knows You're Dead would be a total failure if he hadn't produced a beautiful, smart daughter (even though she hates him). But because of her, he's not. (The movie, however, is a total failure. Don't let the fact that I used it as an example confuse you.)

The above random fact could've made an entirely new post; I should've picked a different random fact and saved that for tomorrow! I'm going to post every day of NaBloPoMo because I've made a commitment to myself, to my practice of writing. And this is an easy thing at which to succeed.

And if you cash it in on this, the 25th day of November, with just five blog posts to go, well, you might deserve to be called a failure. But then again, you're only failing at blogging, which is not exactly the stigma it would be if you, say, accidentally started to drive out of your parking space at Target while your daughter was banging on the window. A couple of years ago. So long ago that she probably doesn't remember. So stop thinking about it.

Which brings us to #3. (I'm not finished yet?)

3. I have very high cholesterol and need to lose weight. Meanwhile, an English company is about to send me some fancy cakes, which I will need to taste in order to write some witty, elegant, delicious words. I have to make certain bargains with myself: that I'll lose ten pounds before I write that chapter; that I'll go right back on the wagon until I visit the Ho Ho plant; that now, while a homemade carrot cake is on the counter in the kitchen, was not the perfect time to test TastyKake's snack-size carrot cake; etc.

4. It is 8:00 on a Sunday morning, and I have nothing better to do (my daughter is still sleeping, my husband is reading) than to write this meme here, alone, in the cold (we have no heat until tomorrow), next to a portable radiator borrowed from a friend. And the truth is that there's no better place to be in my three layers of clothes, hat, and gloves, than next to this portable heater and in front of my friend, the iMac, on one of his last days.

5. Are we there yet?

6. Am I simply the most uninteresting person on the planet? Or has every single one of my random facts been discussed ad nauseam here and on Flickr? (Or both?) To quote the Replacements: "Shocking how nothing shocks anymore."

7. I owe you a three-parter on this one to make up for #5 and #6.
7a. My husband's babe to do it with is Catherine Zeta Jones (which is obvious because we look alike, except for my height and weight and face—but I mean boobs and hair, which we both have in ample supply). My guy to do it with is Bob Schneider (or Billy Harvey), but if the opportunity ever arose, I couldn't do it. I talk a good game, but if it came down to it, I'd have to run away, like a Teletubby.

7b. Not because it's wrong to cheat (it is wrong, but even Sisela Bok, in her book Lying, says that you can agree in advance, make different rules, so that some lies won't necessarily be lies; I'm paraphrasing Sisela, so you'll have to read it yourself), but because I don't look as good naked as I do in clothing.

7c. George Clooney used to be on my list, but he's on everyone's list. Jodie Foster used to be on my list, too, but she's also on everyone's list. I've never had much interest in same-sex sex, so I'm not even sure she's my type anymore. I might think that Mariska Hargitay from my favorite show, Law & Order SVU, but she always looks like something smells bad. And maybe something does. But she's also on everybody's list.

bonus #8
When my husband and daughter aren't home, I watch Law & Order marathons on USA network for like four hours in a row.


These are the fine folks I've tagged:

Barbara at Travel Sweeps

Tracy at A Map of my Life, so Far...

C. at Searching for Home

no titles again and again and again

Christine at Mariacristina

Tracy at The Ka-nitting Factory

Not Martha at not martha

I hope you will visit these (mostly) random picks.