Saturday Meme – 5 Things I Like

I got this one from Success Warrior.  I'm not tagging anyone, but play if you want.

5 Favorite Words:

1.  It's not exactly a word, but a phrase.  Ever since I read the book Finn by Jon Clinch I've been saying, “I know it.” instead of “I know.” It's a speech affectation that the author used to great effect for Huckleberry Finn's father. 

2.  “Dude”  I call many people Dudes.

3.  “Hoppers.” I now call my kids Hoppers.  It's from The Wire which Rose encouraged me to watch and which I got totally hooked on.  Great show, great word.  My kids don't like it, though. 

4.  “Staccato.” I use it in many of my stories to describe choppy, quick sounds or actions.  My writer's group – all of them – chop it out of my submissions without fail. 

5.  “Fuck.” It's my curse word of choice.  I also like saying “Jesus Christ.” I think that's because it's fun to say something that means a lot to other people and means nothing to me.

5 of your favorite quotes -

1.  “Look at the Big Brain on Brad.”  It's from Pulp Fiction.  It's a great quote. Tim, who has a signed script from the movie, told me that Brad's name was Brett in the script.  Brad rolls through the quote much better.

2.  “Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.”  Vonnegut, source of many great quotes.

3.  “Day at a time I suppose?”  This is from Omar, my favorite Wire character. The full exchange was while he was on the witness stand in a murder trial.

When asked his occupation he said, “I robs drug dealers.”

The State's attorney then said, “Mr. Little, how does a man rob drug dealers for eight or nine years and live to tell about it? “

And Omar Little responded, “Day at a time I suppose?”

4.  “Yes we can.”  need I say more?

5. “Personally, I think, uh... they don't really want to be involved in this war. You know, I mean... they sort of took away our freedom and gave it to the, to the gookers, you know. But they don't want it. They'd rather be alive than free, I guess. Poor dumb bastards.”  Eightball from Full Metal Jacket. 

5 things you like about your job -

1.  I work for myself.  I work hard, but it's for me and I know my schedule and if I don't like what I'm doing I can stop.  One thing that's happened, and it only happened once, when I was working for a particularly unreasonable client I packed up and left.  I told her that she would have to find someone else, someone who would put up with her shit. It was a great feeling to be able to walk away like that. 

2.  I work outside.  Somedays, when it's cold or there's snow on the ground that's not such a good thing.  But today when it was 70 degrees and sunny, working right on a house on the Mississippi River it was beautiful.  Most of the time it's beautiful.  No cubicles, no staff meetings, no status updates, and no relying on incompetent fools to do other parts of the job.

3.  I have no Human Resources department.  There is no one wasting my time with manuals and meetings and sensitivity training.  I watch no orientation films and there is no office politics.  If I ever grow this company large enough to have office politics, I'm just going to fire every fucker involved in such petty games. 

4.  I didn't know it before I started this job, but I really like working on beautiful old houses.  It's cool, you know.  It's a setting and life I've never experienced before. 

5.  Audiobooks. All day long, 4 or 5 a week.  I love them, it's as good as reading only a different experience.  A different voice.  I don't know whether the audiobooks make the day go by faster or whether the job makes the audiobooks enjoyable to listen to. 

5 place you would like to live -

1.  Minneapolis, MN.  Yeah, that's where I live now and there's a reason for that. It's my first choice.  The parks, the lakes, the people, the restaurants, the city, the bookstores, the community.  I could go on and on.

2.  Oslo, Norway. It's a progressive beautiful city in a nation not currently run by a fascist cabal.  If the theocracy gets stronger here, watch me flee.

3.  Boston.  The history and the academia.  It's another place I've considered often. I almost went to work on Cape Cod one time and I would've lived in Boston and commuted. 

4.  Canada.  It's a fine country and would fit well with my lifestyle and values. 

5.  The Philippines.  The people are extraordinary and the scenery is unparalleled.  It's inexpensive and emerging.  A great future location.

5 things you like about blogging -

1. I say things on my blog that I don't say anywhere else, to anyone.  Writing is easy for me and through my writing I can say things that are otherwise hard for me to say.  When I'm sitting here writing these things down I don't think about how they're going to be received, but instead I simply think that this is what I need to say.

2.  It's the one place that I've been able to tell my stories in full.  It's easier for me to write them out then talk about them because they're long and detailed. 

3.  There's a community here.  You read and comment and I love that.  The first thing I do when I get home is check my blog for comments.  I think I may have to go to a 12-step program to deal with this.

4.  Learning. When I write a post I do the research first and I learn a lot about subjects from movies to books to politics.  Sometimes I get so wrapped up in the research that I'm reading for hours for a post that will take me twenty minutes to write. 

5.  You.  I really do like the people who read my blog. 

- rick, blogging

Comments

[a rose is a rose]

tell your kids you COULD have called them 'yos' instead. that's also from the wire. i personally think that was an incredible choice for the writers. you KNOW the cops would (and in real life probably do) use that word to describe those kids without batting an eyelash.

i hate cities, but i myself LOVE boston. love the cape too but ONLY non-summer months.

[wry]

Ah, you know I'm a sucker for a good meme, so I'm sure I'll take liberties with this one. I love your quotes, Vonnegut's are always killers. And The Wire is only the best program ever.

[jane]

Ooh, I like "I know it" too.

Who the hell are Tia and Trey?
I can leave at will if needed. It doesn't happen much but if Tia or Trey need me, I can come home or take time off. My boss very much understands the need to take care of family.

[Success Warrior]

Jane, that's a bit from my blog that must have somehow dodged and juked to avoid being cut and was able to slip into Ricky T's blog. Sometimes words are elusive.

[CV Rick]

Sorry, Success Warrior. Tia and Trey have now been removed. You'll have to inform them.