You're No Meme Until Some Meme Plants Petunias

SururbanFog, originally uploaded by carolsLittleWorld.

A lot of blogs, and bloggers, out there love the pass around the meme torch. They love to “tag” you with all kinds of prompts to get you to post more often. You know these things, they are suggestions like “list 7 interesting things about yourself” or “describe your favorite food” that sort of a thing.

Those of you who know me, know that I hate doing these things. It’s not that I don’t mind naming other blogs (I do that in my links section anyway.) It’s not that I wouldn’t know what to say (I can yap about almost anything.) It’s not that I think I’m “above” all of that (I actually would like to respond to some of these memes, really I would.) It’s just that, well, frankly, my answers aren’t all that normal. I would scare people. I would scare people away from the “world wide” web and then they would have to take up some other hobby, you know, like full-contact knitting, speed racing matchbox cars, or gardening. (I don’t want to make anybody take up gardening if they don’t do it already. Imagine throngs of people hurling small pots, spilling seeds, whipping around bag loads of potting soil, all the while muttering things like, “that damn Carol!” That’s not a pretty picture, if you catch my drift. And I really don’t want to be held responsible for any dead petunias. Really, I don’t.)

Consider, for example, the very innocent looking “3 things” meme. It asks you to post 3 things about…and lists some random topics. It asks you to post 3 things you like, 3 things you hate, 3 things on your desk right now (that are not computer-related.) Sure, that looks innocent enough and, I suspect, for most people, it is innocent enough. But, not me. No, not my desk. No way. There’s nothing “innocent” or “normal” about my desk, nothing at all. In fact, I’d say my desk is about as far from “normal” as you can get and still retain the “desk” quality. Really, I would.

To give you an example, here are 3 things on my desk right now: spent compact flash, an invitation to a black-tie fine art gala, a working voodoo doll. See what I mean? There’s nothing “normal” about that. “Normal” people don’t have these things. Not all 3 of them, and certainly not together, all on the same desk. (They just don’t belong. It’s like a “Where’s Waldo?” nightmare, with no Waldo in sight.)

And that’s just what’s within arm’s length of my chair. You don’t even want to get me started on what you might find should I open a drawer or move an immediate object or two. It’s a scary, scary place, my desk is, and, no, as a matter of fact, I don’t believe it (or the contents within) belongs in a meme. There are young children on the intertubes these days and people surf sometimes late at night. (I may be a bit mean but, what? You think I’m completely heartless?) It’s just not all that normal around here for me to go around answering these questions and revealing these sort of “factoids.” Trust me. You don’t want to know.

And that’s just the “innocent” enough 3 things meme, could you imagine if I did some of the more “interesting” ones? You know, the ones like “tell me about your sex life,” “what’s in your cupboard?” or “all about your spiritual belief system?” Sure, I’ll put that in a meme. I think that’s a great idea….

(Hope you have a lot of potting soil in your shed because I sure as hell don’t.)

Until next time…