The "5 Things" Meme

Matt tagged me with this "5 Things" meme. Good timing, as I could use some non-Star Trek traction.

Fellow bloggers, please take up this meme on your blog, if it appeals to you!
Or readers, write it out in the comments!

Here are the steps:
What was I doing 5 years ago?
Five things on my to-do list:
Five snacks I enjoy:
Five things I'd do if I were a billionaire:
What are five of your bad habits?
What are five places you have lived?
What are five jobs you've had?

What was I doing 5 years ago?

August 2003 was significant because, 8 months after my mother's death, all of a sudden I had the energy to do a rather big and optional physical project:
I painted my 10'x10' bookshelves deep watermelon pink, trimmed with honeydew melon pale green---on the hottest days of the year (near 100, high humidity). While I painted, I listened to cassette tapes of my mother reading aloud P.G. Woodhouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories.

Five things on my to-do list:

1. File my rent-credit (tax rebate for renters) forms to the IRS, if it's not too late.
2. Check to see if I can order the photo of me and Leonard Nimoy yet. (Photos taken on the last day of the con get mailed out, but you have to request it online).
3. Go to the theater to pay for my Improv class. Like DefCon, this theater doesn't take credit cards. Though I doubt it's because they're hiding their records from the Feds?
4. Read the manuscript that the publisher e-mailed me this morning. Like this meme, it's good because it will help me shift gears.
5. Look into film/video classes and/or buy a video camera and hit the streets.

Five snacks I enjoy:

1. the pineapple-filled cookies from Marissa's, the local panaderia (Mexican bakery)
2. "a little piece of fresh fruit," (as Stef's grandmother used to say)
3. Chinese White Rabbit candy (creamy toffee)
4. Japanese snack mix (with those spicy dried green peas, sticky-puffy rice squares, and orangey sesame sticks), in Bink's backyard, with a beer
5. brewed coffee with a shot of espresso (called a depth charge, or TNT, or red-eye, etc.); laptop on the side

Five things I'd do if I were a billionaire:

1. Oh geez. Sorry to be so sincere and literal here, but first and foremost, I would feel entirely responsible for trying to help the world in a material way, like Jimmy Carter does. Hmmm...maybe I'd just give a lot of it to an already existing organization, like the Carter Center. I mean paying for really basic stuff, like setting up clean water systems around the world.

2. Share it with friends and family, in big lump sums, no strings attached. So, for example, I imagine Bink could set up a sculpture studio where wire-haired fox terriers could roam; Stef and Jim, a music studio; Sister and SJG could move to Paris and open a restaurant; Barrett and I could go to London for tea at the Russell Hotel; the Viz Sisters (Salesian nuns) could build a guest house; Lee could focus only on writing his novel; Rudy in Paris could buy an island off Maine and establish a matriarchal society; Jen could attend a Star Trek con; all my blogosphere pals could buy the computers of their dreams, etc. etc. etc.

3. I always thought it would be fun to hand out large amounts of cash to strangers, anonymously. Like, surreptitiously on the city bus.

4. For myself, I'd pursue some sort of filmmaking projects--maybe film school? (On the way home from the airport, I saw a billboard for film school in NYC...) Or maybe I'd just jump in and start. Documentaries especially appeal to me as a way to mix journalism with storytelling.

5. Buy a house and rebuild the Enterprise bridge in the basement. (In Las Vegas, I met a couple who'd done this.) Throw ridiculous theme parties and hold film screenings there.

What are five of your bad habits?

1. Not bothering to file my rent-credit rebate forms with the IRS. You can extrapolate the other four from this one.

What are five places you have lived?

1. "Little World," a make-believe place on a mossy riverbank with Helen, my best friend in 4th grade
2. Chicago, Illinois, 1986-1988
3. Late Antiquity (the world of Saint Augustine, 4th-5th century Roman Empire/Christian Church)
4. the movies
5. Las Vegas, August 6-10, 2008

What are five jobs you've had?

1. Janitor at the Landmark Theater, pre-video, when they played old movies. Loved it.
2. Grill cook. Nothing like the rush of breakfast cooking on weekends!
3. Exercise instructor at the YW, briefly in 1989. Yep, really. My one time of being fit and trim.
4. When I was studying mortuary science at the U here (for one semester), I was hired to work preparing human corpses for dissection at the Medical School. I got a tour of the lab and thought I was fine, but I couldn't sleep that night, and in the morning I called and said I would not be showing up for my first shift.

5. Sacristan: schlepper of sacred objects (fire, precious blood, holy water, golden chalices, discs of wheat) in the Catholic Church. I loved this job more than any other, except for the politics of the Church.