I am It!

Ems tagged me, so this survey is passed on for me to fill out...

Four Jobs I've Held:

1. Tray Breakdown cafeteria worker (That's TBD, to dining-hall staffers in the know) at Cowles Dining Hall, Grinnell College. My job as TBD #4 was to grab the cups off the trays and put 'em in their holders set on the racks above me.

2. Coach/server @ TGIFriday's in the Chicago suburb of Darien. Fun, fun job. But insane also. And oh yes, I had flair. I had FLAIR, my friends! (Four best pieces of flair: Huge button of Her Highness Debbye Turner, Miss America 1990--she was from Columbia. A glittery gold pin that spelled out "SOLD" in fake diamonds--everyone coveted it, for some reason. "The Happy Fisherman" button, hidden on the inside of my vest with all the other dirty flair, for only special customers to see. A ruby slippers glittery red 3-D pin from Mama.)

3. Customer Service Rep at the North American Paper Company, or NAPCO, in Glenview Illinois. Worst job of my life! An hour commute to and back, even at 7 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. And my van had no A/C and the stereo mostly didn't work at all. On the plus side, though, I understand some of the "Office" references more than others might.

4. Shelver/drone at Missouri Book Services in Columbia. A job everyone has had at one point or another who grew up here. Oh, it was awful. Shelving the same dirty used textbooks, authors Halm to Hettich, cart after cart, day after day. Some days they had me work the belt--standing there staring at a moving conveyer belt, grabbing books for a specific row...sometimes it went too fast and you missed some, and got slammed later when all the 'missed' books were put on the belt again. Sometimes it was slow as molasses and the minutes were like hours...it was during some of the slow time that I read a book in their collection, The Little Prince. It was good, and sad. When you got off the belt (two 15-minute breaks a day, one at 10 and one at 3, and an hour for lunch at 12), everything around you was moving. HORRIBLE!!!

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over:

(These are movies that I stop and watch every time they're reran on TV despite the fact that the DVD is sitting on my shelf)

1. Meet Me in St. Louis (How can I ignore the boy next door?)
2. Harry Potter (the first one)
3. The Sound of Music (Every Christmastime on ABC)
4. A Christmas Story (But only with the family. I don't really watch it alone. It's too darkly lit and depressing at the end.)

(Near misses: Great Balls of Fire [5 times in the theatre], West Side Story, Young Guns I & II, A Charlie Brown ANYTHING, Mary Poppins)

Four Places I've Lived:

1. NYC (University Hall, right on Union Square. 11th floor. Roomies: Kat Carlson, Katie Claypoole, and Whitney Dobbs. All totally and completely too cool for me, but for some reason they liked me. I used to stare out the window late into the night, promising myself I'd go to bed when 30 seconds passed and I didn't see anyone walking outside. It never happened. I also would look at all the people in the tableaux of apartments across the street and see what they were doing.)

2. London, England (Gower Street, near Tottenham Court Road. Janet Poole House, second floor. The view out my flat window was overlooking a lot of roofs and it was totally chim-chim-chiree-ish. Thankfully, I didn't have a roommate, though less thankfully, my room was approximately 10' x10'.)

3. Grinnell, Iowa (Norris Hall, North campus, with the A/C, the jocks, and the narrow, narrow halls--and Sarah Miller two floors almost directly above me! Roommate: Alethea something from Des Moines. Younker Hall, North campus, with a very entertaining floor of friends but a roommate who sexiled me pretty much nightly. I think I spent about two nights in that bed. Roommate: Niki/Ryan. Gates Hall, North campus, on the loggia which meant you could crawl out my window onto the roof of the walkway. On an all-girls' floor, which I dreaded but turned out to be terrific. No roomie! Loose Hall, South campus. Basement single room, same dorm as all my friends. I loved it.)

4. Door County, Wisconsin (Fish Creek, which sounds awful but is completely charming. I shared a cottage with Susanne Graff and Karen Mal, and had the tiniest room--about the size of a single bed plus a row of boxes. It was $50 a week. I wish I'd taken more pictures, especially of the moon glimmering over the lake in Peninsula State Park.)

Four TV shows I like:

1. Ugly Betty (Every episode makes me smile. And I like how every character has something good and something bad about them. And seriously...have you seen Henry? How cute is Christopher Gorham?)

2. The Bachelor (Since Lily moved to LA, we've had some serious post-show discussions. I know it never works out, but you sure have fun hating the bitches during its run.)

3. Dateline: To Catch a Predator (HOW FANTASTIC is the moment when the skeezeball is caught and the host goes "Well I'm Chris Hansen with Dateline..." Oooooh, I love it. Neil had never seen it, but it came on when we were in Pigeon Forge and he too was immediately hooked.)

4. Square One TV (Back in the day, Dad and I would watch this on PBS every afternoon. I would pay good, good money for a complete DVD set of the series. That was some funny shit! Whenever I hear the word "tesselation," I am reminded of the Beach-Boys-sounding song of the same name from this show. Same with "probability" [Don't you mess with me!]. And it always ended with "Mathnet," a spoof on Dragnet that sometimes really scared me. I WANT IT!!)


Four People Who Email Me Regularly:

1. Neil, when we're at work. We discuss menus, schedules for the evening, and our love.

2. Sarah Irwin, to talk about last night's Idol and when we're getting together next

3. Amy Zoellers, for dinner plans, book club plans, and funny anecdotes

4. Sarah Miller, to catch up every few weeks or for possible NKOTB updates


Four Favorite Foods:

1. Hard salami. I don't understand why it isn't everyone's favorite Cold Cut.

2. Cornichons. Those tiny little vinegary pickles served mostly in gourmet restaurants. For awhile, you could only get them in town at Village Wine & Cheese, and the 'rents would always get me a little tub of them in my stocking.

3. Nachos Bellgrande with Chili and tons, tons, tons of Mild Sauce from the Packet. I relish every bite with my fingers, and then when it gets too messy, I stir it all together at the bottom and go to town with the enclosed Spork.

4. The little rectangles of saran-wrapped homemade chocolate-iced chocolate cake they served at the WJHS cafeteria. Some people would spend all their $1.25 lunch money on 5 cakes, but I never had the guts to do that. On occasion, I would get two. The white-iced chocolate cake was good too--a little more refreshing. The only thing that compares are the [much more expensive] wrapped squares you can get in the Walgreen's refrigerated section.

Wow. I haven't thought about that cake for a long-ass time. The one good thing about West!


Four Places I'd Rather Be:

1. Buzzing around NYC with Neil, in a crazy driving taxicab or zooming along in the subway

2. Barnes & Noble, with money to spend, in the discount section

3. Pensacola Beach with the family

4. Walking, if it were a nice April day, instead of snowing, around the Botanical Gardens with Neil, Dad, and the Southerland family


Four People I'm Tagging:

I don't believe I have four readers, so I'll make up a new question (and if you are reading, and you're not Em, consider yourself tagged):

Four Assigned Books I Thought Were Worth the Read:

1. Tom Sawyer (Junior year Honors English, with M.A. Gates at HHS)

2. Richard III (Intro to Shakespeare, Grinnell-in-London)

3. Wuthering Heights (Women in Lit, or something. Grinnell-in-London)

4. Jumping, by Barbara Trapido (One of my very favorites from aforementioned Women/Lit course at G-i-L. The author came to speak to our little class and Jae thought she had to have been a man at some point, what with her big hands.)