Diary of Heretic Reviews & Memes

Jan’s Big Love

My friend, Jan of salabasngmandaluyong tagged me for this, which is much more an award than a meme. I copied his post starting here:

We're not supposed to look at the gift horse's mouth. If, however, you want to pay this forward, follow the following::

1) Put the logo on your blog
2) Add the link of the blogger who shared the award with you
3) Pass this award to bloggers whose blogs you love
4) Add your link to the list of participants below
5) Leave a message on the blog of the blogger who passed this award

Bloggers Lair/The World of Nothing/ The Macky That Doesn't Exist/ The Spoiled But Not a Brat/ Holding On/ The Mark of an Explorer/ Feel Free/ Shout Out/ Proud to be Filipina's Corner/ My New Way of Living/ I Love-Hate America/salabasngmandaluyong/Diary of a Heretic (Awards & Memes)/

After this, I’m naming a few others. Many bloggers who favor me with links and love, don’t go in for awards much and rarely put up memes. (You know who you are but most likely are not reading my Review & Meme blog, which I admit is a poor relation to Diary of a Heretic.) Many more bloggers enjoy memes and awards and have treated me with great generosity and I’m either inept or impatient by not naming you here. If you’re reading this, consider it "my bad," take the award you deserve and play it forward.

A huge shout out here: Whoever last Stumbled my under-500 word story, "Guaranteed Happiness," brought me unprecedented numbers of hits. Pure massive large, mon! I would love to know who you are. Jan did the same for me, earlier. Sad to say, my reciprocation will never compare. For I have Stumbled posts with such little consequence as to go unnoticed.

Below are a mere fraction of deserving bloggers I owe thanks: 

Mimi

Utah Savage

Duane

Rootz Poet

Billy Warhol

The Truth to Some Extent

My Life Thinking

Expressive World

Celebrity Latest Gossip

Stella's Seven Things Meme

If you scroll down two posts you’ll see I just did a Seven Things meme two weeks ago. But this one comes from Stella, my brilliant and witty writing colleague at The View from Here. Also, it’s practically become second nature for me to view any and all attributes in groups of seven.

1.    In the previous post I mentioned my long term fear of police. The police and I fail to communicate. Doctors and I usually get along very well. We sympathize with each other; recognize that any one person’s complaint is probably no big deal compared to another’s; discuss trends in various treatments that have more to do with the pharmaceutical business than specific illnesses.

 2.    My husband and I have two occicats, Archie, the darker one, and Oscar who’s silver. They are the naughtiest cats I’ve ever heard of. They can open dresser drawers, snag clothing and toss socks at each other all day. They’ll get their paws on a bra and play tug of war. And they can TP our apartment in ten minutes, but prefer paper towels. On the plus side, they come when we call them and can even play fetch. To say nothing of their wild beauty.

3.    I get the worst migraine headaches ever afflicted on anyone throughout all time. And, I get them often. Typically, during the 24-hour peak, I feel as if half my head has been blown off. The upside of this (I try harder than you’d guess to be optimistic) is that for all that pain, I can experience commensurate pleasure. My good friends the doctors are beginning to see this in MRIs. And people with a history of migraines end up with a brain whose sensory and pleasure/pain lobes show extra nerve endings.

4.    I don’t drink alcohol—ever—because one sip induces instant half-your-head-blown-off pain. But I can be as much fun at parties as any brandy snifter.

5.    I’ve never eaten a McDonald’s hamburger or a Burger King. I’ve never eaten anything at Wendy’s or Taco Bell.

6.    I’m temperamental. In my previous Seven Things I offered examples of how opinionated I am, but I think temperamental is more accurate. When my son (who was wildly precocious) asked me when he was seven what the word meant, I defined it and my son said, “Oh, like you.”

7.    My in-laws who leave the country at Christmas are apparently saying Fie! to economic reality and taking us to Rome for Christmas. The trip will be my Seventh outside the USA.

Phew, Seven (and every other number) is time; sometimes it's not enough; sometimes too much. These Seven were a lot. Finally, I'm tagging:

wornoutwoman
(The author of FINDING KLYLIE)
Utah Savage

Clear Lake Reflections

Duane Francis

Trulyana

Hanging on a Hyphen

Lisa Holdren

The Lemonade Award Meme

Nina, the well-known novelist of The Alien Next Door must have such a sunny nature that she tends not to see someone like me as the raving heretic I am, but rather, as an optimistic, can-do being who deserves this bright Lemonade Out of Lemons Award.

This award goes to those who show an admirable attitude and brim with gratitude. And grateful, I am. For all my heretical sound and fury, I am actually a good deal more grateful than troubled and persecuted. So in the gratitude arena, I hereby gratefully accept. And fear not: I work tirelessly on my not always so great attitude. Maybe once the meme has gone around to those who inspire us, I'll think positive. 

Here are the rules:

• Put the logo on your blog or post.
• Nominate at least 10 blogs which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude!
• Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
• Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
• Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.

The rules say to tag at least 10 blogs, but I'm only doing five. As I said, I'm still working on my attitude. The bright and grateful crew are:

Inksplasher

Rainy Day in May

Daily Mish Mash

Shamelessly Sassy

Reading, Writing, & Stuff That Makes Me Crazy

Seven Things About Me Meme

 Lisa Holdren tagged me for a Seven Facts meme—an easy one. From what I can tell, Suzanne Lieurance at The Working Writers’ Coach initiated this piece of pie: Seven Random Facts About Me. Eyes closed? Consider skin (1), muscle (2), bone (3), cartilage (4), ligaments (5), nerves (6), and blood (7). Maybe those are too random. Or, not random enough.

I’ll try again. First, the rules: list Seven Random Facts and tag Seven other bloggers. I’m only tagging five but I’m unscrupulous, that’s a random fact, but free.

These are real: SEVEN RANDOM FACTS ABOUT ME:

1. I’m afraid of the police. Nothing serious ever happened between them and me; just a   few inappropriate giggles (mine), threats (theirs), t aunts (mine), and heavy financial retribution (theirs). To my mind, I don’t even break the law; my opinions do.

2. I’m extremely opinionated. So people say. As a tiny example, imho: if everyone would respect each other, as well as him- or herself, no exceptions, we might not need laws. No name weapons, no name calling, no cheap shots, no meanness. Take further. No police, no jails, no war. Mind your manners. Honor everyone’s human frailty and empathize.
That’s my opinion.  

3. All I ever wanted, all my life was to succeed as a writer. Except by writer, I mean novelist, or lately, novella-writer. And by succeed I mean get published and popular enough to earn a living. My parents have always said no. No, I absolutely could not do that. Don’t you hate it when your parents are right about stuff like that?

4. So I didn’t get what I always wanted. Instead, I’ve got the best husband and two children ever born. The three of them fill me with joy—always, without trying. (At least, I think they’re not trying.)

*

5. Sometime this month, I damaged the fourth finger on my right hand doing fingertip chaturangas (they’re like push-ups except you push up in the air and float back to your toes before bending your elbows). During one of the two hour yoga classes I try to get to three times a week, a ligament tore loose, semi-permanently bending my top knuckle. Now and for three months, I’m wearing a cast, which may or may not straighten my finger.

*

*

I've never seen a James Bond Movie:       

Or a Star Wars Movie:          

                                          

Or a Raiders of the Lost Ark Movie.     

7. Thanksgiving is the holiday I hate most. Not because I’m not thankful and grateful. I  am., all day, every day. But this big turkey dinner on a Thursday makes no sense. Come  on—on a Thursday. Don’t tell me about the Pilgrims or the poor, eliminated American Indians. I suspect the whole thing’s another big joke on working women. See if the females get cranky, cooking and cleaning--ironing (!) the tablecloth, followed by more cooking and more cleaning while the males watch football and get drunk.

.

         

 

I'm tagging: Ioju, Morinn ,Nina, Cheryl and Janet Snell,and Mark. Happy, happy Thanksgiving, everyone! (That’s not ironic; not my favorite holiday, but you have a good one!)

Friendship & Excellence Awards

Honestly, to me it seems as if yesterday I clicked over to my friend Mimi's only to learn that she (the Queen of Memes) had landed in the hospital due to an unnamed bug. Nothing keeps Mimi down for long, however.

Yet, imagine my surprise when battling the “rough beast” of a super migraine, I rose from the malevolently spinning bed and discovered that Mimi, founder of the BlogBlast for Peace Movement --next BLAST scheduled for November 8, 2008--had spread more Peace. See the video of 8/18/08.

Further, she has designated this week award week. And a few of her more clever readers have responded with beautiful awards and memes. Two of which, she has bestowed upon me. 

This first from Foster Me Up, a sweet and funny blog, is a friendship award. Mimi says it’s friendship among vixens and even though I've scrolled through Foster Me Up a few times, I haven't seen any vixens. It may be migraine-blindness, who knows? Male foxes are reynards, among other nomenclatures, and vixens are female foxes. Ask anyone: vixens possess an undeniable mystique, one of untamed allure.

Every woman and girl I've ever met projects a unique and wild allure, so I'm not bothering to tag anyone here. You know who you are: if you're reading this, and you're female, you're my lifelong friend and should claim the friendship among vixens award. And pass it along however you wish.

Here's my second award from Mimi, originated by New England Lighthouse Treasure. In this case, anyone still reading, male or female, merits friendship—and congratulations! You are among a very distinguished few and entirely deserving of the E for Excellent Award, but this badge comes with rules. To accept it, I must list only ten excellent bloggers. Or, to quote:

According to Cyberspace rules in the eUniverse of eAwards, acceptance of this Excellent Blog Award requires me to tag nominate 10 virtual victims  excellent Bloggers.

Thus limited, I'm “nominating”:

1. Noah the Great, a prolific poet, working an especially rich groove. His poetry is often brief, always personal, and generally astonishing.

2. Just Paisley writes prose and poetry in a voice that’s clear, honest, and impossible to ignore.

3. Manictastic’s blog mostly offers short stories, some in serial form. His style and subject vary. My favorites are first person accounts of young men, looking for fun, acceptance, and wisdom.    

4. Writing To Survive is a creative blog with an unstinting and honest goal, to show the truth so that even pain gives our lives meaning and merit.

5.The Supplicant writes evocative prose poems that illuminate and often surpass his original and captivating photographs.

6. Mr. Grudge writes passionately about his life experience. He's currently posting chapters from his novel.

(NOTE: The Supplicant and Mr. Grudge have started an outstanding communal writers’ blog: The Midnight Wanderers.)

7. The Adventures of Ioju are surreal and fascinating. The blogger is an excellent writer and comic artist.

8.  My Marrakesh offers the splendors of living and making a home in Morocco. Excellent writing, photographs, and insights into family life.

9. I'm Having A Thought Here reads like a memoir with wonderful pictures, but elicits the warm, comfortable feeling you get listening to good and buoyant friend.

10. My Muse and Me investigates the artistic life with great energy and promises much pleasure.

Loosey-Goosey

 

Jennifer  of “Saying Yes…”  goosed me this morning with the ‘tag five geese’ meme.

Here are the rules:

• look up page 123 in the nearest book
• look for the fifth sentence
• then post the three sentences that follow that fifth sentence on page 123.

Strange but true (I’ll use this the next time I get tagged for a “Weird Things”), I keep The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali on my desk the same as Post-Its and the little pink speakers I need for audio. It looks nice aesthetically, and I’m always open to enlightenment via proximity.

See what you think of Patanjali on page 123:

“The teachings can help you slightly, but too much learning may muddle your mind.”

Too bad, I don’t agree. My mind gets muddled most when I haven’t learned, not even the hard way, not even after countless repetitions.

Perhaps the next three sentences will enlighten me. (Not trying to build your suspense here, but I wasn’t sure how to count sentences as one or two divided by a colon. So I tossed a coin, dropped it, and suspected that if I needed to toss it again, the answer was this: a colon breaks the idea into two sentences; semi-colons don’t.)

1. "Turning inside means turning the sense within; trying to hear something within, see something within; smell something within."

2. "All scents are within us."

3. "All beautiful music is within us."

True enough, but I’d like to get my senses and music out once in a while; walk them around the block. Extra in-put wouldn’t hurt, either.

To complete the meme, I'm tapping five feathered heads.

Goose
Goose
Goose
Goose
Goose
. 

Seven Weird Things About Me

 

This uncomplicated meme feels like a perennial, but maybe that’s just me. Nina at The Alien Next Door  tagged me. After I list seven weird things about myself—interpret them as more or less weird according to your own standards—I’ll tag seven people to list seven weird things about themselves and then tag seven other bloggers to do the same.

1.  Is it weird that I’m running out of weird things about myself? Or, is it weirder to make it a point in every other meme that I’m double jointed? Co-incidences sometimes strike me as kind of weird. So the first meme I posted on this site was Seven Weird and/or Random Things about me. And The Alien Next Door tagged me for this one, too.

2.  Consider the above and you may suspect I’m prone to oddball theories. True. I make-up or discover unlikely scenarios all the time.

3.    Every once in a while one of the unlikely scenarios proves correct.

4.    And, more often my oddball theories involve a preponderance of truth.

5.    My husband and I have a television and rarely see movies, rarely, I think, compared to most people. What’s so weird here? I like to read. If that doesn’t rate as weird yet, give it twenty years: I like to read.

6.    I’ve never eaten a Big Mac or any other hamburger at McDonalds.

7.    Architecture bores me. My husband finds buildings fascinating. They barely register in my mind. I see them but don’t care at all. If they’re ancient or significantly historical, I try to muster some appreciation. Not many things disinterest me. My enthusiasms run toward the extreme, so my architecture aversion strikes me (and him) as weird.

Next up are: Morinn, Catspaw, Becca, Lyon, Corey, Matt, and Dee.

The Band Meme

Mimi the Queen of Memes, whose resume includes singing soprano in operas, tagged the squawky-voiced Lady Heretic, with her recalcitrant flat Midwestern vowels and embarrassingly inappropriate emphasis on sour notes for The Band Meme. And yet, in the event the universe flipped over and warped enough that I might actually participate in a band—in my dreams I play electric bass—I chose a name for it years ago. My dream band, where I’d slide to my knees at every reverb, throw about a mane of blond hair, tear my shirt and toss it to screaming fans was always “St. Dymphna and the Lunatics.”

But I followed the rules. After all, the universe has yet to flip over for me.

The Band Meme’s rules are as follows:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post the result as a comment in this post. Also, pass it along in your own journal because it’s more amusing that way.

My band’s name is Occult Hoaxes. Album title: Working for the Company
The cover was a close-up of a red silk rose, which I’ve altered as suggested.

Tagged to rock on are:

A Boy from India
Motherland
Manny's Place
Texas Jam
Himalman 

New Year's Meme

Mark Antony of Hotel Mark tagged me for this New Year’s meme. First rule, remove one question from below and add your own. Answer the list of twenty questions. Tag eight people and list them at the end of the post. Notify those running close enough for you to snag ’em in our big backyard in their shout box; or email them, comment on their blogs—just make sure they know, you’re calling them out in this game whether they want to play or not.

1. What color do you like most?
The one I haven’t seen yet.

2. What in life do you fear the most?
Living on after a child I love has died.

3. Where is the place that you most want to go?
Wherever my husband is, but we’d both love to travel. He’s seen more of the world; I’ve seen a random sample. I like mountains and islands. Other cultures fascinate me, but I’m a fussy eater.

4. Which part of you do you hate the most?
Part of me? My temperament: I lose my emotional equilibrium easily and rail against my limitations, even those that are simply normal.

5. When you encounter a sad moment, what do you do?
I cry unless doing so would frighten someone. Making them uncomfortable or embarrassed, though, doesn’t faze my tear ducts. A sudden disaster is different: coping comes first.   

6. What are you afraid to lose most?
My children.

7. Name a memory that occurred to you this year but not last year.
Well before he was two-years old, my son asked, as he traced a plaque embedded in a bank’s foundation, “Mommy, what’s a logo?”

8. If you meet someone you love, do you confess it? Or would you observe from afar?
My feelings show even when I manage to keep words out of it. Shutting up is difficult for me.

9. List three good points of the person who tagged you.
Mark and I don’t know each other well, but he’s obviously considerate, full of good will, and loves music, especially classical guitar.

10. What do you require from your other half?
I expect him to tell me when he thinks I’m wrong, and not let it go. He must be honest, and never tell me what I want to hear because it’s easier.

11. Till now, what is the moment you most regret?
I regret every moment when I’m too impatient to consider what other people think and why.

12. Which type of person do you hate most?
People with terrible power over others who hold so fast to their ideologies that they fail to see or care about the devastation their administration wields upon others’ basic, human needs.   

13. What is your ambition?
To write fiction that people really want to read.

14. What is the thing that will make you think someone is bad?
Evil acts covering evil acts covering eviler acts…

15. If you had one wish what would you wish for?
Recognition and respect among all people of all persuasions that we’re all related, to the extent that what affects one person ultimately affects everyone, ultimately.

16. How would you celebrate the New Year?
If I could, I’d celebrate with beautiful new clothes and music and dancing at a party where I enjoyed a hot kiss with someone I scarcely knew.

17. Name one part of your body your lover tells you he or she adores.
I think I know but his answer here is, "No comment."

18. Do you have a New Year’s resolution?
For years, my resolution was not to try so hard. But you know, I’ve tried as hard as I can not to try, with negligible success. This year I’m resolving to read more blogs more often.

19. If your better half is cheating on you, will you forgive him or her?
Damn straight, I will, and even more so if he wants my forgiveness. But I’ve been married a long time and he’s got really big stock to spend. And I’ve told him so.

20. What keeps you awake at night?
Guys dressed like businessmen come out of the Dunkin Donuts across the street at three a.m. and yell at each in the street right below my window. Maybe they’re not the same men, but it’s every night since we moved here. My guess is too much caffeine and too much sugar, but who knows?

Tag time: Ladybug & Co, Mauro, Cheryl Snell, Shyloh's Poetry, enovator, Sci-Fi Girl, Paisley & Imani.

 

7 Weird & Random Things About Me

Sci-Fi Girl, the science fiction writer Nina Munteanu, blogger of The Alien Next Door, and supreme memer, tagged me for The Seven Weird & Random Things meme. Since every meme deserves its own category, I’ve set aside this page for meme, and as applicable, badges.

1.    My aunt and uncle after thirty-one years are still Hare Krishnas, now known as members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).

2.    Lying supine, I can lift my legs and then lower them so that my feet wrap around my head.

3.    Another yoga position that comes easily to me involves balancing on my hands, arms straight and lifting my legs to my shoulders.

4.    When I shattered my wrist rollerblading, the surgeon repaired the joint using a dead person’s bones.

5.    Among other things, caviar, lobster, and alcohol beverages immediately afflict me with a migraine that generally persists for four days and nights.

6.    I can weep at will, but am less adept at stopping.

7.    I often brag about my baking, but haven’t baked anything special in years.

The rules for The Weird & Random Things meme are:

Reveal Seven Weird & Random Things about yourself and then tag Seven Random bloggers. Include links to their blogs and let each one know you’ve tagged them for this meme by leaving a comment on their blog. 

I’m tagging: Manictastic; A Brit Out of Water; Polliwog; Hotel Mark; Clear Lake Reflections; Joe's Movie Corner; Personal  Paranoia; and for extra measure, The Fifteen Minute Dating Blog!