Tuesday, October 02, 2007

The Lame-0 Meme

Kristen tagged me with this meme: 5 things you do, did or like that some may consider "totally lame," but of which you are proud.

(I'm having trouble with the proud part. There's no shortage of lame.)

1. Most people know this about me and it scares quite a few of them. (Does that count as "lame"?) I have a Filemaker Pro database of pretty much everyone I have communicated with over the past nine years (3,762 records) -- and it documents our communication. I started it when I started my job at Rock the Vote to duplicate a database at my old job and it went from there. My friend Gregor once suggested it was a reflection of my fear of dying and he might have a point: it tells quite a story.

2. I'm old enough that email was a new thing when I was in college. My friends and I would go to the computer lab and send each other messages while we were sitting next to each other (very Pretty in Pink). It was such a novelty that I printed out all of the emails and saved them in a book. Also a great read.


3. I participated in Hands Across America when I was in high school with my friend Kathy Pont. I would agree that there is some definite lameness to standing on a black tar highway near West 57th Street in Manhattan while wearing the requisite black wardrobe of an angsty teenager -- in the middle of a July heatwave -- holding hands with a stranger. But it was when I was becoming a social activist and, damn, was I a sincere kid.

4. I love Kid Nation. Love, love, love it. I love the emotional transparency of 8 year olds. I love the fact that everyone is worried about the well-being of these kids when they may just be the most self-aware, well-spoken, intelligent children I have ever encountered (we could all use the same editing). Go feed your obese child another Twinkie and talk to me about child endangerment.


5. I get up at 5:00 am just about every morning so I can have time to drink coffee, read the paper, catch up on blog feeds and, in general, have time to myself. I could use more sleep, but I really like the quiet of mornings and the sense of accomplishment and order that it brings to my day -- and my life.

I'm tagging Kaitlyn, John, Eden, Chris and Michael.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I didn't realize you were still keeping up the Filemaker habit. I'm proud to be able to state that I was there in the beginning. In fact, you are the person who taught me how to use Filemaker.

I printed out a ton of emails at college too. The guys at the computing center were very derisive with me when I went to go pick up my reams of personal correspondence.

Anonymous said...

not fair!! ok, ok... this shouldn't be too hard... stay tuned.

also, have been meaning to start watching kid nation; gotta tivo that, i can never find it on

Anonymous said...

It shouldn't be hard for me to come up with lame things I do that I'm proud of... I will get on this soon.

abf said...

I have faith that both of you, Kaitlyn and Michael, will be able to come up with something lame that both of you have done.