MEME: Saturday Six -- Episode 77

First , let me thank Patrick and Gregg for assuming the heavy mantle of organizing and overseeing the newlyamed VIVI! Awards. If you are going to participate, now's the time.

Second, for seventy-seven weeks, Patrick has been like a burr under my saddle, a fly in my ear. Questions, questions, questions. Every week, more questions. Every week, more answers. I feel like a literary chipmunk, pursuing my tail on the wheel of the Saturday Six.

And so it goes.

1. How many AOL J-landers have you actually met in person?
   None.

   2. How many photos that you have taken yourself are hanging on display in your home in a size of 8x10 or larger? (The print, not the frame!)
   None.

   3. How far do you live from your job? What is your commute time like? Has the distance prompted you to consider alternative transportation because of gas prices?
   When I last worked, it was 11 miles and 25 minutes to the job. Being the bloody sticks, the only alternatives for a fat man with a bad heart is shank's mare or a real mare – neither of which is attractive during winter and other inclement periods. Which is most of the time. Car pooling isn't an option due to irregular hours and days.

   Now, of course, it isn't a problem.

   4. Take this quiz: What decade does your personality live in?

   
   
   what decade does your personality live in?
   
   quiz brought to you by lady interference, ltd

   Actually, I suspect I live in the very early sixties ... but that wasn't an available choice.

   5. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #70 from Kris: What is the funniest, most original Halloween costume you've ever seen?

   A Centaur costume – a very realistic looking horse's ass end made of foam and fabric with a very, very male front half ... the women were falling all over him!

   6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #71 from Courtenay: What is your favorite paragraph in a literary work? This might be a thought, or a message, or a descriptive passage which has remained in your consciousness throughout the years. Be sure to post the name of the book and author.

   There are way too many to chose from. Try this one, the opening lines of “Nature I Loved” by Bill Geagan (1952, Coward-McCann, Inc. New York):

   It seems there is nothing that plagues the human mind so fiercely as being completely lost when time is precious and fast running out. It's like wandering through a madhouse of mirrors while an important engagement awaits outside, or through a tangled forest swamp, with only a little daylight remaining.

   I found myself in just such a predicament five years after graduating from high school. I wasn't bewildered by numerous images of myself in glass nor was I wallowing aimlessly in a sprawl of wilderness slop and trees; but I was every bit as badly lost -- lost hopelessly, it seemed, along the twisted and cluttered trail of life.