Memememememememememememe. And me.

Lisa tagged me with this meme, and while I certainly have things I should be doing instead, here I am. (This is a classic example of one of my "5 bad habits" below.)

- 10 years ago: I had either just undergone or was about to undergo surgery for a detached retina, which caused me to have to begin my senior year of high school three weeks later wearing a gauze patch over one eye.

- 5 years ago: I was at the Denver Publishing Institute, summoning the courage to move to New York and try my luck at getting a job in big-time publishing. I had also just read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and been enthralled.

- 1 year ago: I was having a terrible, terrible week and preparing to go on vacation out west. (Just like this week, actually. . . . Maybe the last week of July is cursed for me.)

- yesterday: I attended the New York City Child_Lit lunch at the Old Town Bar & Grill to discuss Half-Blood Prince; I wrote a letter to our sales reps about The Book of Everything for Spring 2006 Sales Conference next week; I talked to the brilliant David Small about a picture book we're working on, and went over layouts for it with our creative director David Saylor; and I saw two movies with Jeff -- "Hustle and Flow," which I really enjoyed, especially during the scenes where they were putting the raps together, and "Wedding Crashers," which has a great premise but can't decide if it really wants to be a raunchy slapstick sex comedy or a realistic romantic comedy and ends up being merely stupid, long, and tedious. (It does have Owen Wilson, though, who I've never found very interesting before this movie, but suddenly -- Owen Wilson! And also Bradley Cooper -- the much-lamented Will on "Alias" -- in a very un-Will-like role.)

- tomorrow: I am going to do laundry, start cleaning my apartment in preparation for having Jeremiah and 2.0 over for dinner Sunday night, try to read the first pass of The Tenth Power, and see "The Conformist" with Ben at Film Forum. If I get three out of four of those things done, I'll be satisfied.

- 5 snacks I enjoy: MoonPies, plain-chocolate McVitie's (biscuit of the gods), stroopwafels, oatmeal creme pies, Pirate Booty (arr)

- 5 bands/artists that I know the lyrics to most of their songs: This is hard because I don't have the complete albums of very many artists . . . But I know a lot of the Dixie Chicks, Rogers & Hammerstein, John Mayer, Diana Ross and the Supremes, and Stevie Wonder.

- 5 things I would do with $100,000,000: Buy a brownstone in Park Slope; endow the Carleton Quiz Bowl team and English department (or whatever the school needs most); take all my friends shopping for glamorous clothing of their choice (I myself would probably get a BCBG or Morgane le Fay dress), then out for an excellent dinner and activities afterward, all chauffered in a private limousine about town; donate a great deal to breast-cancer research; buy a first edition of a Jane Austen novel.

- 5 locations I would like to run away to: Paris, Hawaii, Australia, Sweden, Scotland

- 5 bad habits I have: Procrastination, incredible mercuriousness (is this a word? Here, let me go away from this now to look it up . . . ), work avoidance/lack of discipline (different from procrastination), perfectionism, competitiveness

- 5 things I like doing: Reading, baking, playing Scrabble, having a long lovely dinner and nosh with friends, dancing

- 5 things I will never wear: Heels more than two inches high, a skirt or shorts that don't cover my butt (eww), a clown costume, false eyelashes, lederhosen. Well, maybe the lederhosen.

- 5 TV shows I like(d): "Gilmore Girls," "Alias," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," "Moon Over Miami" (does anyone remember this? It ran for about three months in the fall of 1993, I think, and it starred Ally Walker and Billy Campbell in a sort of updated, more literary "Moonlighting" -- it was *great*)

- 5 movies I like: "Sense and Sensibility," "Head On," "It Happened One Night," "Singin' in the Rain," "Speed"

- 5 people I'd like to meet: Jane Austen, Eleanor Roosevelt, Kate Constable, R. J. Anderson, and George W. Bush, so I could kick him.

- 5 biggest joys at the moment: My wonderful girlfriends, the prospect of next week's vacation in the Rockies, Famous Ben's Sicilian pizza with mozzarella and fresh basil (on the corner of Sullivan and Spring Streets in Soho, incredible marinara sauce), air conditioning, fresh flowers

- 5 favorite toys: iPod mini (nicknamed "Nutmeg of Consolation"), digital camera, my new little matchbox SmartCar and Mini, running shoes, library card

- 5 tagged: Okay, what five people do I know who read this, have blogs, and might be willing to do this? Melissa, Will, Nadia (see! I find out you're alive after four months and I'm giving you things to do already!), Rebecca, and Jeremiah. But only if you want to -- no obligation.