Four things

Carmen tagged me with a meme. I'm of two minds about memes. One the one hand, they’re fun to write. On the other hand, they can be annoying to read. When written by people I don’t know or read that often, memes feel like one long, linked up in-joke. Without some context or an interesting story to give the information some background, I kind of don’t care. I guess I’m a sucker for narrative.

So here’s my four things and I understand if you don’t want to read them.

Four Jobs I’ve Had:
--receptionist in the non-invasive cardiology lab at Brigham & Women’s Hospital. It was a temp job. There were no windows and the two techs who did EKGs and echocardiograms were always hitting on me. Also, people frequently came in to ask if I knew where the morgue was. Frequently they were picking up or delivering something morbid, like a head (really). It got too depressing, so I quit after a month.
--page in my local library. I got to put away books and stamp checkout cards for 4 hours after school. There was no better job in the world. It meant I could sneak upstairs and look at pictures of the boys I had crushes on in old yearbooks, and explore parts of the library that were 150 years old. I kept getting in trouble, though, because I was always reading the books I was supposed to be putting away. One of my duties was to call people and let them know the books they’d requested had arrived. Once I had to call a deaf man to tell him his copy of “The Joy Of Sex” had arrived and I ended up screaming it out for the whole library because he couldn’t hear me.
--chambermaid at the Westmoor Inn on Nantucket. Scrubbing toilets and changing nasty bedsheets isn’t what I’d call romantic, but it meant I got to live in one of the most beautiful places on earth for $5 a day. It also meant I got to see what people kept in their rooms—ribbed condoms were popular--and how much they bought at the cheesy island stores (a lot). The guests got tanked every night at the wine and cheese hour and frequently tipped the hotel staff large amounts to stay silent about their bedroom activities. The Inn itself was haunted and that kept things interesting. I fell in love with outdoor showers, beach combing and evening runs along Cliff Rd.
--reporter for an entertainment magazine. Best. Job. Ever. I got paid to network at movie premieres and DVD release parties. My first week on the job, I attended a two-day industry event at the Bacara resort. No one blinked an eye at the crazy amounts of DVD swag I got in the mail. The schwag was creative—the Bubba Ho-Tep DVD came in a yellow plastic bed pan. Also, I worked across the way from E!, so I got to watch all the weird celebrities arrive at the building. I used to bump into Ted Casablanca in the café. Juliette Lewis used to show up in our lobby all the time and I once peed next to her in the restroom. She sang while she peed.

Four movies I can watch over and over:
Bring It On
Center Stage
Star Wars
Last of the Mohicans

Four places I’ve lived:
Florence, Italy
Los Angeles, California
Waterville, Maine
Evanston, Illinois

Four TV shows I love:
Grey’s Anatomy
The Office
Scrubs
Battlestar Galactica

Four places I’ve been on vacation:
Bermuda
Paris
the Pacific Northwest
Hilton Head, South Carolina

Four blogs I read daily:
Carmen
Defamer
Dooce
Blah-di-Blog

Four of my favorite foods:
Cheese—any variety except goat cheese which, for some unknown reason, I cannot stand.
Fresh bialys from Kossar’s
Burritos from Poquito Mas
Sushi sushi sushi
(and the harvest pumpkin soup from Au Bon Pain. Yes, that’s five. Deal.)

Four places I’d rather be:
--climbing the stairs in Santa Monica
--hiking in Marin
--exploring someplace I’ve never been before, preferably somewhere warm and sunny. Beaches and mountains are a plus.
--in LB’s hotel room

Four albums I can’t live without:
Duran Duran, Greatest Hits
The OC Soundtrack, Volume 2
Nick Drake, Pink Moon
Doves, Lost Souls

Four vehicles I’ve owned:
A gold 1985 Toyota Corolla
An unwieldy lime-green Trek mountain bike
Supergirl rollerskates
A 2004 magnesium gray Honda Civic

Four tagees:
Renate
Pound Foolish
Bryna
Elle Charlie