Tagged!

Okay, my new blog pal Thomma at Tennessee Text Wrestling has tagged me, probably in polite retaliation for my laziness in not linking to her from my sidebar yet. LOL! Hey, what's the upcoming holiday* break for, if not for blog maintenance?

Four jobs I've had:

1. Bartender at a 5-star restaurant
2. Locksmith assistant
3. Computer tech support
4. Bookkeeper for a jazz club

Four places I've lived:

1. Muncie, IN
2. Fresno, CA
3. San Antonio, TX
4. Houston, TX

Four favorite foods:

1. Indian (any kind)
2. Cookies (any kind, but especially oatmeal-raisin)
3. Ice cream (cookies and cream or vanilla)
4. Flan

Four movies I could watch over and over:

1. This Is Spinal Tap
2. The Life of Brian
3. Pandora’s Box
4. (anything with Buster Keaton)

Four TV shows I enjoy:

N/A (I haven’t watched more than the occasional documentary or news report in years)

Four places I've traveled:

1. Maine
2. Vermont
3. New Mexico
4. Washington, DC

Four places I'd like to visit:

1. England
2. Spain
3. China
4. Argentina

Four websites I go to daily:

1. Bloglines
2. Evil Editor
3. BBC News
4. Arts and Letters Daily

Limiting the websites to only four was tough! And TV was quite a stumper, too. Even as a kid, I didn't watch much TV. And how come there's no books on this meme? I supposed I'd be hard pressed to name only four books in any context, though, so maybe it's just as well.

Speaking of books, I'm currently reading We by Yevgeny Zamyatin in the new Natasha Randall translation. It's sort of the Ur-dystopian novel, and I'm really enjoying it. It's occurred to me that a lot of the "classic" dystopian novels follow a theme of "male central character, content/resigned with his lot in a totalitarian state, meets female agent of chaos/rebellion." Isn't it interesting that in so many of these novels it's the woman who sees the totalitarian state for what it is and inspires the male central character to seek his own truth and meaning? It's actually a sort of reverse Adam and Eve, if you think about it-- the female tempting the male from the wilderness toward Heaven.

I bet someone could get a doctoral dissertation out of this, if no one has already.

* For anyone who gets their knickers in a twist over the use of the word "holiday," get over it. The context is Christmas + New Year's. More than one holiday in one break = "holiday" break. It's only a Christmas break if I have to go back to work before New Year's. Which I don't. Thank God, and Merry Christmas!