Fiddler On the Meme

I was fairly bursting with fruit flavor, excited that I had been tagged by Aunt Dahlia for a meme. I love a good meme so I clicked right away on her blog to see what the meme was about. This was the other day when I was not in the office very much and was in kind of a hurry so I looked at the rules very quickly and then read the rest of her post - pretty cool! In my rush here is what I combed out of it:

List 5 classes you would like to take.

Awesome.

I spent the next two days dreaming up a fantasy curriculum with cool stuff like fiddle lessons with Alana from Hot Club of Cowtown, because I love her and I've always wanted to learn some bluegrass fiddlin', and a cultural anthropology class with a time travel machine so you could actually do a field study in another era. Did you know that I love time travel novels? Yep. I truly do.

Well now that I've had the time to sit down and actually read what the meme is about I have discovered that I was totally wrong and it's not a fantasy classroom meme at all. In fact it's quite the opposite and is called Real Life Curriculum. Yeah. I was way off base.

Here are the real rules:

The Rules are: Devise a list of 5-10 courses you would take to fix your life. It's more fun to be in classes with friends, so include one class from the person who tagged you that you'd also like to take. Tag 5.

My first problem is this: My life is not in need of fixing. It's pretty good just the way it is. My second problem is this: It's hard to maintain this continuous state of denial if people keep insisting on using the words "real" and "life" in the same sentence. Dammit.

I am overly familiar with what my faults are and have spent (wasted) countless hours/days/weeks/ contemplating my own foul humor, laziness, sluttiness, uselessness - well, you name it - I have beaten myself up over it to the point where long ago I (and my therapist) decided I was much happier if I just learned to live with and love myself as I am, warts and all.

My warts and I are living pretty harmoniously together these days.

Because I cannot resist the temptation of a meme, I will reluctantly accept this "Real Life" Curriculum challenge, but I won't like it. I will sit in the back of the class and roll my eyes, throw spitballs at the "A" students and probably have to sit out a couple of detentions for talking out of turn and using inappropriate language.

1. In light of my haste in reading the rules and subsequent misinterpretation of the meme the first class I should probably take will be called: Pay Attention You Fool - Reading Comprehension of Instructions & Fine Print. I have problems with this kind of shit all the time. Last month I got a letter from United Airlines stating that my frequent flyer miles were going to expire and I would lose them if I didn't redeem them right away or transfer them to someone elses account. I immediately freaked out and got them on the horn right away to bitch about this travesty of justice. My anger brewed with more intensity as I listened to a muzac version of Paint It Black and waited for the next available representative. "... over 50,000 miles and I'm just going to lose them because I haven't flown with them for 6 months? Tell me I've got to transfer... how dare you... spent half my goddamn life in yer lousy cramped seat, eating your tiny pretzels and for what..."

and so on...

Turns out my miles don't expire for another full year and I don't need to do anything and if I'd just read the entire form letter I might have known all that and avoided a temper tantrum and an embarrassing phone call. Hee, hee. Haw. Haw. Ahhh... Ahem.

2. That story is a good lead in for a class that should be very useful for me: Keep Your Lid On Psycho - How Not to Fly Off the Handle At the Drop of a Hat. I'm not nearly as bad about this as I used to be. I no longer honk my horn when I'm behind a bus in traffic, or leave my loaded grocery cart abandoned in the store because the lady in front of me at the cashier's decided to write a check, but there's always room for improvement, as witnessed by my bad behavior with United Airlines detailed above.

3. The longer I go without a job the more my agoraphobia is growing. So I think a class called: Get Out of the House Lady - Before You Become A Shut In & End Up Begging Dr. Phil for Help Via Webcam is in order. Seriously, it's getting kind of bad. I never want to go anywhere and it takes me a very long time to get ready to leave. I have to psych myself up for every outing and think of a hundred different reasons why I don't need to go out. The only reason I think it may not be agoraphobia is that I'm not afraid to go out as much as I am weary of going out.

4. The class I will include from the meme of the blogger (Aunt Dahlia) who tagged me will is called: How to Get Through an Entire Day Without Giving a Shit or Even Thinking for One Second About How You Look. I have a serious spending problem with beauty products. MDH refers too them as my "potions" and I posted a scary picture of the linen cabinet in our main bathroom a few months ago that was over flowing with lotions, creams, serums, gels, derived from all sorts of plant and animal extracts. If we had a house fire and all that stuff melts and fuses together I wouldn't be surprised if it creates some mutant superhero creature, named Beautitia, that smells like grapefruit and lavender, and saves the world from crows feet, unwanted facial hair and chapped lips.

5. I've always wanted to be one of those people that have always just known, recognized and been able to pursue their special purpose in life. I have no idea what I'm doing here and no idea what I should be doing. I enjoy my life very much, but I have always wished I had a passion for something. Or at least a thing that I could say - that's what I want to do. A career revelation, if you will. I like to crack jokes, cook and play video games but that doesn't look great in the "Career Objective" section of a resume, so I think I would like to take a class called: Figure Out What You Are Passionate About & Find a Way To Make Money Doing It.

Well, that's my meme. I'm a rule breaker at heart so even though I'm supposed to tag 5, I choose to only tag one person and that person is The Man Who Knew Too Much. I choose him because I think he is funny as hell, I read his blog every day (or whenever he has a new post) and I have never known him to do a meme. Maybe he doesn't do memes, but I hope he will take me up on this challenge anyway. (It's totally cool if you choose not to Del-V. Anyway dude - you're tagged.)

PS - Thanks Auntie Dahlia for tagging me - I bitch, but I still love a good tagging ; )

6. Proof-reading for Illiterate Morons Who Over Use the Words "Always", "Really" and "Very". Jesus.