Playing meme keep-away (By Guest Blogger Candace)

So it is sort of pretentious to begin your guest blogging with completion of a meme that's essentially your life story in five written snapshots, but enough of my people still haunt Alarming News (hi darlings! gosh do we miss you) that I thought I'd make full use of my squatting privileges.

Oh, and also, if you didn't like me on Candied Ginger, you probably still won't, but feel free to keep mean comments to yourself, or risk the distinct possibility of my hiring some of Karol's Brooklyn people to stalk your doorstep, where they will wrap your head in raw flank steak and force you to admit that I'm your second-favorite person in the world and that George W. Bush is your political hero. And if you're the kind of jerk who usually leaves mean comments for me, then I'm guessing this is something you do not want to have happen.

Phew. Now that that's done, I'll post the meme, which methinks will come in handy if I ever post a personal ad.

Caution: was drafted on Sunday.

10 years ago: I had just finished 6th grade, where I was mysteriously popular, despite not having a flat enough stomach to wear the “sunflower shirt.” I was hanging out all summer with neighbors, Billy and Rachel, digging up worms and looking for shapes in the clouds and jumping on the trampoline and getting really obsessed with the idea of being skinny, because I feared (rightly) that starting 7th grade without a bikini tan would be socially fatal. My best friend Cassie and I lived for Dairy Queen runs on Saturday nights and boys for me to watch her flirt with, in awe. I would watch as she bleached her hair and painted her nails in the tiny bathroom of the dilapidated house that would be condemned just a couple of years later while her parents chanted along with TBN in the living room. I don’t think I thought about anything but social survival – ever – made increasingly difficult by my refusal to do drugs and my inability to wear tiny t-shirts.

5 years ago: It was the only summer I had a car, and I spent it working retail and driving this guy friend of mine all over the world because I was convinced that we were best friends but really I was just really sexually frustrated and cried a lot, mostly over stuff he did. We saw Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney play at the Gorge, which was basically the highlight of my summer. By this time I had lost a number of friendships as my smart kid friends figured out they could spend their paychecks on E, skip school on Wednesdays to get high, and still ace everything, and I had no interest in lying to my parents and buying a rainbow jumpsuit and cuddling with perfect strangers. At this point, I began to be aware that a world outside the Fhetto existed, but I never pictured myself in it. I had not been further east than Salt Lake City.

1 year ago: I was in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in a house with no air conditioning, studying econ at UMich’s Ford School. In other words, I was in Starbucks, taking impossible midterms and crying very, very hard over them. I was very, very blonde. I had a moderately successful little blog with a girl I met for the first time that 4th of July and really loved. I was trying on a new, rather unsustainable, and ultimately ridiculous version of myself. I was for some godforsaken reason shopping a lot at Urban Outfitters. I was galavanting all over the Midwest and actually managed to enjoy myself. I met Karol and was, like, totally in love from the moment I saw her, which is pretty much how I felt about her blog and emails, and that feeling has pretty much grown over time. I was worried I’d never get into grad school. I disappointed Peter by wearing flip-flops. I had never left North America.

Yesterday: I had the most amazing café au lait and salmon crepe of my entire life at a French café near my future graduate school. I then had the most amazing gelato of my life, from an Argentine café next door. I went to the gym. I went to the park, read about nostalgia, got a sunburn on my eyelids, and explored pretty much every inch of park territory in the whole of NW DC past 23rd street. I watched “White,” a film gifted to me by the lovely and thoughtful Petitedov. I solidified my plans to go to Germany for Christmas, which will be my whopping fourth foreign country visited. I can’t wait.

Today: Took a whirlwind tour of DC coffee shops (they’re no good), where I re-read chapter III of On Revolution. Decided to go into sugar detox. Watched “Igby Goes Down” with some friends. Ravenously ate a bunch of beef (it doesn’t have any sugar). Might go see “March of the Penguins.”

Tomorrow: My thrilling workday life: gym, work, a couple of phone calls to a dearly missed friend on her birthday, and then I will probably cook so that I can survive my first full day of sugar detox by reorienting my cravings. Toward more meat.

5 snacks I enjoy: I have been on sugar detox for all of three hours, which means I can’t say cupcakes, strawberries, ice cream, gelato, and Judy’s dark chocolate-covered marshmallows. Shoot. Um, celery with peanut butter, slices of dill havarti, cashews, hard-boiled eggs, and, um, olives.

5 bands that I know the lyrics of MOST of their songs: I’m so bad at discerning lyrics. You’d think I was half-deaf. Nonetheless: Sixpence None the Richer, Faith Hill, The Shins, James Yorkston (& the Athletes), and, um, M.I.A.

5 things I would do with $100,000,000: There’s a lot to be paid for/off: my parents’ debts, my sis needs a car that’s everything-proof, my siblings and my godbrothers need college educations, and I need to pay off some credit cards. I’d also like to establish a well-paid position for a strong comparativist in the political science department at my alma mater. Girl can dream. Now, if it weren't such a huge, conscience-crushing stack of money, I'd probably take an extended field trip to the Caucasus, buy another Dior bag, and buy a couple of plane tickets home, where I'd take my siblings to the fair and get them all new cowboy boots. But $100,000,000 is just too daunting for such thoughts.

5 locations I’d like to run away to: “Run away” implies seeking shelter or seeking adventure. For the former: Seattle (I miss you so much, lovely city), Salt Lake City. To: Karol’s apartment, for an extended vacation; Prague, because; and Tbilisi, but the reasons are jinxable so I’ll keep them to myself.

5 bad habits I have: Eating sugar, losing expensive things, undervaluing myself, judging rich people, turning off my alarm clock without realizing it.

5 things I would never wear: Under specific circumstances, I could probably be talked into wearing just about anything, even (my immediate thoughts) converse, thigh-high boots, and a string bikini. However, there’s no chance of my ever wearing: a t-shirt making unseemly references to the President or Vice President and genitalia, or anything with the likeness of Che.

5 TV shows I like: That new Paula Abdul show where people dance, that Andy kid on MTV, the Surreal Life, and the Gilmore Girls. I have a feeling I will really love Tucker Carlson’s new show. That kid. He’s so freaking cute.

5 movies I like: Lost in Translation, Virgin Suicides, Almost Famous, Repentance, Anchorman.

5 famous people I’d like to meet: Presidents Bush and Saakashvili, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Milan Kundera, Jessica Simpson. And I'm sorry, but that girl was genetically engineered by Mattel. There is no other possible explanation for the "These Boots Were Made for Walkin'" video. Hot damn.

5 biggest joys at the moment: Beef, the waterfront, Kate Earl, the Hirshhorn, air conditioning.

5 favorite toys: Little machine, digital camera (rest in peace), and if the dry sauna at my gym counts as a toy, then baby, that makes three.

And I don't generally tag people anymore since I graduated to guest-blogger, but Ginger, if you're reading this, then HA -- it's your turn, babe.