Sunday, September 24, 2006

The Meme Challenge


Katrice has tagged me to tell 10 secrets about myself.

I didn't know what "meme" meant. I understand the concept as used here, but wanted to know the exact definition.

The term "meme" refers to a unit of cultural information that can be transmitted from one mind to another, such as tunes, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.

Sounds like a BLOG to me.

Okay, I'm glad we cleared that up.

1. I love to pop bubble wrap. It reminds me of kelp on beaches, which I also relish stomping.

2. I like animals better than I like most people.

3. I've had a couple of relationships that I'm deeply ashamed of. Okay, more than a couple.

4. I'm a book junkie.

5. When I was about four, I somehow acquired the shocking knowledge that boys urinate standing up, and waited for a chance to try it. I was barely tall enough to straddle the toilet with only one foot touching the floor. Once in position, I let go and to my dismay, my peepee didn’t go into the toilet at all but ran down my leg and puddled on my shoe just as my mother came into the bathroom to check on me. She was livid but didn’t spank me because she didn’t want to get her hand all wet.

6. My mother had several evening gowns which she never wore. I loved to sneak into her closet and lie down under them. They smelled like her perfume, and sometimes I draped their long skirts around my head and played dress-up without taking them off their hangers, which was forbidden. The most beautiful one was black silk with tiny flowers on it. It had spaghetti straps and a little matching bolero jacket.

I loved it so much that I cut a tiny square out of the skirt to make a dress for my doll. The scrap turned out to be too small so I cut out another, larger one from the other side. I tried to drape the skirt around the holes so they wouldn’t show.

I’m sorry I ruined her dress because I would have liked to inherit it.

7. My friend, Bruce, and I started a 5-alarm fire when we were 11. Long Island had a drought that summer and by August, the abandoned golf course behind his house had yellow hay which was taller than we were. We sneaked out there with a pack of his mother’s Lucky Strikes, he lit one and dropped the match. The hay at our feet burst into flame and instantly, the whole golf course was burning with a loud hissing sound.

We ran until we got across the dried-up creek bed and all the way to my house where we crouched beside the living room bookcases and listened to the fire engines. The fire was so big that five different fire departments answered the call.

We expected to get arrested and go to jail for the rest of our lives, but no one ever questioned us. The neighborhood smelled like smoke for weeks.

8. I had a friend named Brenda in junior high. Brenda was large and big-breasted with hooded eyes and chewed gum constantly, which emphasized her bovine features. She smoked and shoplifted and boasted that she had gone all the way with several boys. Nobody who knew her doubted this.

The one time I slept over at her house, her father fixed himself a bowl of strawberry ice cream, two scoops, on which he had arranged chocolate sprinkles and a cherry. He brandished his dessert in my face and leered, “This is what you look like down there,” licking his lips at me.

I was terrified but didn't call my father to come get me because he’d be angry if he had to go out, and I didn’t know what to tell him, anyway. Brenda didn’t even seem embarrassed. There was no lock on her door and I lay awake all night with a full bladder, afraid to go to the bathroom down the hall.

9. I loved rhythm and blues and tried to write songs as a teenager. The problem was, all the songs I listened to were ungrammatical. While I understood that grammar was being sacrificed for the rhythm, I couldn’t bring myself to write “ain’t” or especially, double negatives. I hated that about myself but on a deep level I was afraid of sounding illiterate, so my brilliant songwriting career never happened.

10. I found a book called The Story of a Hundred Operas in our bookcase and read all of them. The most romantic was Aida, who loved her boyfriend so much that as he was sealed into his tomb alive, she jumped in to die with him.

Years later, I got to relive this fantasy when I married my first husband. The marriage ended due to a lack of necrophilia on my part.

Bonus Secret: The worst thing I ever did as a child was persuade my younger cousin, Jane, to poop behind the oil burner in our basement. She didn't want to but she worshiped me, and eventually managed to produce a small, hard turd.

I don't know why I did this. I'm not sure I even knew at the time.

I tag Odat and The Law Fairy.

33 comments:

d~ said...

You always please me. Always.

I want further information about number 6. What did your mother do when she found out?

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Spanking. Administered by my father, the Spanking Specialist.

I wanted to tag YOU, but hadn't heard from you in awhile and thought you might not see it. :(

SO glad you're back, d~.

Anonymous said...

awww geeze......do i hafta???? lol
I will...soon.....
(but on the other hand...wow, this is my very first tag!)...lol

Odat said...

Oh wait...I got so caught up with being tagged...i didn't commend you for writing your secrets..wow..i think we have a lot in common...lol....good job...

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Odat,

Young lady, if I have to tell you One More Time to do your homework, I'm going to Tell Your Father. And he.will.not.be.pleased.

Law Fairy said...

Yikes, secrets!! Hmmm... well, I guess that will come in handy if/when I get bored at work tomorrow ;)

#8 freaks me out. I probably would have avoided the bathroom too. Amazing how common creeps like that are, and yet people never quite figure it out...

Law Fairy said...

Yikes, secrets!! Hmmm... well, I guess that will come in handy if/when I get bored at work tomorrow ;)

#8 freaks me out. I probably would have avoided the bathroom too. Amazing how common creeps like that are, and yet people never quite figure it out...

Law Fairy said...

whoops! sorry for the double post...

Maria said...

Thanks for deining MEME. I had no idea.. Now I know... thank you thank you thank you!

Ok.. so I guess as kids we are all a bit wierd and disturbed! lol

~M

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Law Fairy,

Yes. No. 8. Looking back with adult (allegedly) eyes, I'm sure he was the reason his daughter was so messed up so young.

I can't wait to see what you come up with!

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Law Fairy,

Don't worry about the double post.

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Law Fairy,

Don't worry about the double post.

:<)

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Myhearthurts,

I wasn't really sure if it was supposed to be "meme" or "me-me." After all, it's all about me. Or should I say, me-me?

I think this is your first visit here, so welcome. It's nice to me-meet you!

Lex said...

Heart,

This was great. I tried #5 as well...with the same results!

Did you ever tell anyone about the fire?

#8, Yikes. Creep!

#9, I compuslively correct grammar in all kinds of music. It's hard to let go of the compulsion for the sake of "creative license". I understand.

Bonus: Just because as older cousins we take pleasure in pushing the younger one's around.

I enjoyed this. Thanks for sharing your secrets.

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Lex,

Did your mother catch you, too?

Never told my parents about the fire. They would have flayed me and left my bones in the backyard for wild animals to pick clean.

I still wonder if my inability to write something deliberately ungrammatical means that I have a large stick up my butt. I'm not a snob. I don't look down on those with flawed linguistic skills. I just can't be one of them.

Poor little Janie. I suspect my behavior was instigated by my brother drawing stick figures dropping doodoo bombs from their back ends and stuffing them behind MY bed. Even though I was younger, I was the better artist but my mother went by geography: My room, my pictures. So he was perennially perfect while I was the little pervert who drew pictures of people pooping.

Anonymous said...

Item 15: You're a bad person.

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Mark,

You're probably right. What tipped you off?

djn said...

I love this post.

I, too, like to pop bubble wrap but I feel irritated when other people do it around me. Perhaps it's because they don't invite me to co-pop.

#8, That guy was a dirty, dirty, sick man. Gross.

Thanks for sharing some deep, dark secrets!

heartinsanfrancisco said...

djn,

Many awful things happen to children that they don't tell anyone about, either because they're afraid or just don't have the words. And these memories, even if they're buried, instill a lack of trust that the world is a safe place.

But bubble wrap helps!

Anonymous said...

After some consideration, I've decided that I agree with macarena about tense.

H, not only do you have the gift of writing powerfully, but with your life experiences, you have stories that NEED to be told. Please tell them.

*slipping in a hug*

heartinsanfrancisco said...

d~,

For some reason, Blogger sent me your comment as an email but it didn't make it onto the blog. I copied it and guessed as to paragraph arrangement, but no golden egg.

So. Thank you for your constructive criticism. I've been considering changing the tense after Macarena's comment, and I take yours seriously, too.

The next excerpt I post might be in the past tense. We'll see how that works out.

Big hugs back!!

Lex said...

I don't remember if mom caught me or not. I think she did and laughed. She thought stuff like that was funny. This is the lady who thought that my bedroom walls graffitied in sidewalk chalk was cool. I meant that it ran down my legs and wet up everything.

I haven't heard doo doo bombs in forever!

katrice said...

Great job, Heart! Thanks for being a sport about this. And another little tidbit I learned about memes is that they're pronounced to rhyme with "genes." Somehow they're supposed to be litle building blocks of cultural info, like genes are building blocks of genetic info.

All of these secrets are very entertaining! I'm a book junkie too. And I agree with you about the inability to purposely write with incorrect grammar. Feels like a handicap, doesn't it?

katrice said...

Great job, Heart! Thanks for being a sport about this. And another little tidbit I learned about memes is that they're pronounced to rhyme with "genes." Somehow they're supposed to be litle building blocks of cultural info, like genes are building blocks of genetic info.

All of these secrets are very entertaining! I'm a book junkie too. And I agree with you about the inability to purposely write with incorrect grammar. Feels like a handicap, doesn't it?

katrice said...

*little

See?

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Katrice,

Blogger is replicating today. Comments keep coming up double. Guess it's that twin thing again.

Thanks for the pronounciation tidbit. So why does it have an "m," you wonder, and not an "n?" English must be VERY hard to learn as a second language, worse than most.

I also saw the Wikipedia info about how it corresponds with genes, but decided not to be too scholarly (ahem) in my post. Yeah, I ain't got no scholly thing an' shit goin' on, huh?

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Lex,

Your mom sounds really cool. She taught you well.

Ah, yes, the puddle from hell. My mother apparently didn't have much of a scientific bent and did not appreciate my experiment. And had no idea how to deal with a little girl who refused to know her place.

My brother was very educational. I really never saw the allure in scatological shit. :)

Anonymous said...

Part of me wants to scream "TOO MUCH INFORMATION!!".

But it can't.

Because the better part of me is laughing its ass off.

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Jennifer,

Too much information, you say... How do you think I feel?!

I guess I just decided to go for it. After all, as far as most of my blogging buddies know, i look like a pair of red shoes and have no real name. Such anonymity is empowering.

Anonymous said...

I had a friend in high school whose dad was awful. He would try and get us to sit on his lap when we were over at their house- which was rare because my friend always came over to ours. She and her brother also had a weird thing going on and I have no doubt it's because of her dad.

We lost touch with her after high school. A few of us were talking recently- we are afraid she's dead- she would occassionally say something that suggested suicidal tendencies. Now I wonder why we never did anything to help her?

urban-urchin.blogspot.com

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Urchin,

Yukkk. What a creep!

The reason you didn't do anything was because you were kids, too. Sad to say, few grownups know how to really help someone, and kids, no matter how fine their intentions, simply don't have the experience to do so.

Maybe your friend and her brother grew up and got the help they needed, and are now helping others. And maybe their father finally got arrested and died in prison.

Roonie said...

Wow. #8 was amazing. I feared for you, little you in memories.

heartinsanfrancisco said...

Roonie,

Your first visit. Thanks for coming by.

He was a very bad man. I was so shocked that I never forgot the incident, nor did I ever tell anyone before.

And now I've told EVERYONE.