Yet another meme:

(seen most recently on Sheila's blog)

Things I like but probably shouldn't:

Doo-wop music. I had a friend in high school (this is in the 80s, remember) who teased me about liking it. But it's so cool - I love anything where people can do that kind of harmony with their voices. (I also like the Everly Brothers and the Proclaimers, who are sort of a modern-day Scots version of the Everly Brothers). I don't like most rock, but I love the old doo-woppy R&B.

"Little Bear" (the cartoon version). It's a television show where everyone is nice and polite towards everyone else. Even the snakes in the garden get a fair shake (he's called "No Feet") rather than being chased with pitchforks or hoes. Yes, it's a kids' show. (I think it is somewhat sad that the most consistently polite show on television is a children's cartoon).

Those horrible floppy unattractive knit pajama-type pants you used to be able to get at Old Navy (maybe you still can, I don't know. I've not been to one in like, a year.). I know they look awful on me. I know they invite sloth and unlike jeans or tailored pants don't cause me to think "gee, this waistband is a bit snug - maybe I better cut back on the snacks." I know they are the number one thing that the What Not To Wear people would force me to throw out. But I love them, and it's a good day when I can come home from work and put a pair of those and a big old floppy Oklahoma Blood Institute free blood-donor t-shirt on. Partly because that means it's a day I don't have to go back out in the evening.

Shopping. As an ecologist, I shouldn't enjoy the acquisition of more stuff I don't really need. But I love to shop - love to go out and float among the merchandise and look at all the stuff and know that most of it, I could afford, if I really wanted it. A fellow-ecologist friend (a woman) of mine was simply aghast when I said I liked to shop.

Little Debbie Snack Cakes. Yes, they're horrible for you. Yes, they're loaded with sugar and HFCS and trans fatty acids and all that stuff that you're not supposed to eat. And they're empty calories and I suppose take up the space of that ninth serving of vegetables you are really SUPPOSED to eat if you actually want to live for a long, long time. And yes, they're terribly lowbrow. And yeah, some of them are coated in what I've publically denounced as "chocolate wax" (well, it IS). But I still like them. (I like Ding Dongs too). No, I don't buy them often - not more than once a year. But I own up to liking them. I also like Peeps, even though they are little pink and yellow sugar bombs.

The Simpsons. Yeah, I've been told by so many people that it passed its heyday in like Year Two, but I still watch. And it still usually has the power to crack me up.

Oatmeal. I've heard so many people rag on oatmeal, and frankly I don't get it - it doesn't have a bad taste, if you cook it right, it's not gluey, you can put raisins and nuts and dried cranberries and stuff in it to make it good. And it's warm. And it's easy to make, even if you just got home from work at 9 pm and you haven't eaten since noon and you're a walking hunger-zombie.

Children's books. I suspect the people at the bookstore think I'm some kind of stalky weirdo when I walk into the children's section alone, but I really do like the books - not in an ironic way, not in a sick way, nothing like that. I like them because many of them are better written, funnier, and more kindhearted than what's marketed at adults. And it's really unlikely you stumble across a nasty graphic sex scene (unless, maybe, in a book for 'teens)

Things I probably should like, but don't:

"American Idol," "Amazing Race," "Survivor" - all of those big-name reality shows that people seem to be glued to the television over and that they discuss endlessly. I just can't get into them. Just can't bring myself to like them.

Broccoli and cauliflower. Yes, they're good for you. Yes, I should be eating them for all the reasons I should NOT be eating things like Little Debbie Snack Cakes. But you know - I loathe them. To me, they smell like used dishwater and they taste somewhere between that and peppered mud. I beg off on eating them in public, claiming "supertaster" status (which probably isn't really true about me, or else I'd hate sugary things too, and I don't)

Beer and wine - I've not yet tasted a wine that didn't remind me of the air coming out of a recently-flooded basement. I've tried - I want to like wine, I want to be a connaisseur, but I just can't like it. Beer is even worse - and I've tried "fancy" beers, not the "American horse pee" (as friends of mine have said) ones. So when I go out for pizza with a group, I'm usually the one ordering a glass of Sprite or something. (Well, at least I can be the designated driver).

Most of the new "modern novelists." Just not to my taste. I'm kind of lowbrow in a lot of my reading anyway - I like happy endings, I like characters where I know whether they're good or bad, I don't like situations where a character I like "breaks bad" on me and turns out to be a child molestor or something. And so many of the popular modern books seem to follow this outline:

1. Your life sucks
2. It's your parents' fault. Or the fault of your camp counselor. Or the fault of the person who ran over your little brother with his car and you happened to see it. Or the fault of the first person you had sex with because he or she was unkind about it. Or the fault of your first grade teacher. Or the fault of anyone but you.
3. You wind up screwing over people who care about you, so now their lives suck too
4. It's because you don't know a better way to treat people
5. Then you die, or you wind up in an unhappy marriage, or you wind up divorced and bitter, or you wind up living with someone you really don't like that much because you screwed over the person who SHOULD have been the love of your life back in step 3.

Adam Sandler. Yeah, he's supposedly a comic genius but part of my dislike is that he reminds me of a guy who used to torment me in middle school.

Jim Carrey. Similar reasons. And I just don't enjoy the hyperactive rubberfaced look-at-me-look-at-me brand of comedy. I could probably tolerate something like The Truman Show, but most of his other movies are just off-putting to me.

Shoes. I'm just not a big shoe person. I have a pair of brown dress shoes, a pair of black dress shoes, a pair or two of Birkenstocks, a pair of trainers, a pair of field boots, and a pair of clogs. That should be enough. None of my shoes has a heel on it larger than 1 1/2" in height and none are what you would properly call pumps (the highest heel is actually on the clogs). I'm just not into pain for looking good. And I'm usually too much in a hurry in the morning to find myself asking "apple green shoes, pink shoes, or white sandals with this dress?" Instead, I can ask myself "does black or brown look better with this?" Having fewer pairs of shoes also obviates the need for many purses.

Purses. I tend to carry the same one until it wears out. I'm just not into purses. I also hate the "migrating" of all my stuff from one purse to another when I change shoes or wear an outfit that calls for a different purse. (I suppose I could keep a pen, tissues, breath mints, lipbalm, business card case, and all that in ALL my purses, but that seems like an awful lot of organization and expense to go to...not to mention the horror of finding a fossilized lipbalm that's leaked in a purse you've not used for almost a year).

The recent Bill Murray movies, at least the ones since "Groundhog Day" (which I loved) - they all seem to have the common theme of people being unable to connect, of people being unable to communicate with each other, and everyone seems to me to be locked in some kind of frozen emotional hell. I actually cried at the end of "Lost in Translation" because it was so unfulfilling for me. I don't know, LiT and Rushmore just left me cold. (I've not seen "Royal Tenenbaums" but I don't think I'd like it from what I've seen/read/heard of it, and I've not seen "Life Aquatic"). Again, I guess it's the unsophisticated desire for a happy ending, for some kind of actual wrapping-up of things.

Dating. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to be alone and sad when I'm old. I'm not going to have a shot at having kids unless I go to a sperm bank. Boo hoo. I just don't enjoy going out and trying to make a good impression on someone (and to balance that with 'if this gets serious, he needs to see the 'real me' too'). And I don't enjoy wondering "Is this the real person or just a facade they're using to try and impress me?" I don't like wondering about what to wear. I just don't enjoy the pressure. I don't like the feeling that I might be rejected, and the thought that "he might discuss me with his friends after this is over, and talk about my horrendous table manners [well, really they ARE. Four years of prep school didn't do much to civilize me in that respect] or the fact that I'm kinda chubby, or my tendency to use a big word when a little one would do..." And I don't know - I'm to the point in my life where an evening that I can spend quietly at home is a GOOD thing. And I don't like the whole third-date rule thing, or whatever it is now - I need a good long time before I even CONSIDER the step that the third-date rule applies to, and it makes me sad to think that it's just become an expected part of the game.

Babies. They just don't do much for me. I'd rather deal with a four or five year old kid, where they can actually TELL you what's wrong rather than just crying. And give me potty-trained kids, please. Even better is a seven or eight or ten-year-old, where they're still young enough to be funny and sweet and little-kid entertaining, but old enough that they are fairly reasonable and can pretty much take care of themselves as far as feeding, cleaning, going to the bathroom, etc., etc. is concerned.

Hugging. Personal space, please. I wasn't even a huggy child, my mother tells me. (Which is kind of why I get a little surprised and almost creeped out when some of my youth group kids will come running up to me and hug me - I don't push them away or anything but it's just not a response to them I'd've thought of (or, for that matter, when I was a kid, it wasn't a way I'd've responded to an unrelated adult). I'm just not a very touchy-feely person. (Honestly? I'd rather shake someone's hand than hug them.)