We Three Things

We all heard the stories when we were growing up. About the weary traveller who stumbled upon a gypsy camp, hundreds of years ago. Seeing that he was starving and frozen half to death, a kindly old gypsy woman handed him a sealed envelope and offered him some food and a place to sleep for the night, on the condition that he read the contents of the envelope and pass it along to at least five people before the next full moon. The man happily agreed, and spent the night eating a hearty meal and listening to wonderful music by a crackling fire. But the next morning, he discarded the letter as soon as he left the camp.

The man died, of kidney failure, exactly thirty-seven years later. Coincidence, or gypsy curse?

That is the question that's driven scores of people to pass chain letters—and more recently their ubiquitous internet spawn, memes—to friends, relatives and co-workers. We live in a society of fear, and try as we might, not a one of us can escape it's puissant grasp. Not even me.

Yes, yours truly was recently tagged by Mr. Scprock—he who uses words like "puissant" in everyday conversation— to answer a ridiculous meme. And so, now I must present to you three things that I do that others do not know about.

1. I steadfastly continue to say "all of the sudden," despite knowing that the preferred idiom is "all of a sudden." I don't care. It just sounds more urgent to me my way. It's not just any old sudden, it's the sudden. "The" will always trump "A" when it comes to importance. I guess an example would be "a devil" versus "The Devil."

2. As anyone who knows me outside of the confines of the internet can attest, I constantly shake my right leg when I'm sitting down. In fact, I'm doing it right now. Apparently, it annoys people. But I can't help it. I stop for a while, then it starts back up again without me even realizing it. So I fidget. Big deal. I don't see people walking up to Michael J. Fox and yelling, "Hey, stop that!"

3. I didn't know it until last year, but it seems that I like Beck. Who knew? I never really paid much attention to him because I thought all he did was quasi-rap stuff, which I'm not at all into. I didn't know he did other stuff, too. People need to tell me these things. Sea Change is a fantastic album. It's mellow and kind of sad, bud not in a depressing way. It's quickly joined Pink Floyd's Momentary Lapse of Reason and Tom Petty's Wildflowers on the list of albums I use to unwind and relax. After I downloa-I mean, legally purchased Sea Change I've since added a bunch of Beck stuff to my collection. I'm still not crazy about Odelay! but even that's starting to grow on me. And I really like Guero, which brings me to my third, um...thing I do. There's this song, Hell Yes, where in the chorus he says stuff like "Hell yes, I'm movin this way/ I'm doin this thing" and this voice that sounds like a really hot Asian chick (but apparently is actually Christina Ricci, which is just...weird) says "Please enjoy." Anyway, I always thought it was kind of funny, because it's like he's just describing what he was doing. So all last summer, and even now occasionally, whenever I'm doing something, I start singing about it in my head. Like, "Hell yes, now I'm havin some eggs/ I'm makin some toast. (please enjoy) Hell yes, now I'm mowin the lawn/ I'm rakin some leaves..."

What can I say, I'm easily amused.

I think that's it. I could tag some other unsuspecting bloggers now, but I think I'll just take my chances with the gypsy curse. Hell yes!