This thing called an meme

I'm not sure what it is exactly but it was provided to me by Mr. D. And I thought, what better way to celebrate getting the Internet than by copying someone else's clever idea.

5 Books You Think Are Great
1. Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link. It's a collection of short stories which sort of combine surrealism, fantasy, and Nancy Drew. It sounds really pretentious and it could be but it works.
2. Babel-17 by Samuel Delany. A science fiction novel from the 70s that's really about poetry and language. Also really sounds super pretentious but it works, although as my mom once commented, "Samuel Delany is too smart for his own good."
3. Love and Rockets, particularly the books by Jaime Hernandez. Love and Rockets is this comic book series that has been put out since the 80s by two brothers Jaime and Gilberto Hernandez. Jaime's half of the series is about Maggie and Hopey, two Latina (more or less) girls growing up in Southern California. The series has grown up with them and they're both in their 30s or maybe 40s now and are trying to figure out what the hell they're doing. However, they're almost perpetually in a state of limbo. I've found this increasingly appropriate since leaving school.
4. Same Difference and Other Stories by Derek Kirk Kim. Another comic book. The main story, Same Difference in particular is really good, about two friends and their roadtrip. Both characters are people that I wish I knew.
5. All short stories done by Sylvia Townsend Warner. She's sort of forgotten now, but she's an English writer, a generation behind Virginia Woolf. She wrote these fantastic sharp edged short stories. They aren't necessarily really showy but they all have a bite to them and the best ones are hilarious and yet quite true. Also, Lolly Willowes, her first novel is quite fantastic too.

5 Alleged Pieces of Wisdom that You Would Like to Share
1. In the end, no one else is living your life for you, so you should do what you want to do, not what other people tell you you should do or what you think they would tell you to do if you ask.
2. Stupider people than you have lived their lives and been fine. So you'll be fine.
3. People make their own reality and in the end, you make the reality you want or deserve.
4. If you write things on the internet, people, including and especially your friends will read them.
5. Telling someone who is unhappy that they should smile more never makes anyone smile, it just makes them want to punch you.

5 Places You Would Like to Revisit
1. Los Angeles where I was born although not raised. I'm not sure I would like it anymore but it would be fun to try.
2. Hawaii, my other motherland. I'd like to learn to speak pidgin and eat manapua
3. Paris and London sans American relations
4. San Francisco and not be a "tourist"
5. Portland just because I liked it so much.

5 Turnoffs in other people
1. People who "like" Asians in that way. I just think it's fucked up, enough said.
2. People who have clearly spent a long time thinking up a self-important motto for themselves such as "I'm a zagger. When other people zig, I zag." or "The sun never sets on cool."
3. Girls who say "I'm sorry I'm such a mess today," when it's quite clear they're really not talking to you.
4. People who say something begining with the phrase, "I'm not a racist but..." That kind of sentence NEVER ends well.
5. People who wax rhapsodic about the experiences they've had in third world countries and the mystical connection they had with the people.

5 Things that Were Probably Invented By the Devil
1. Active Listening, the way in which people are trained to pretend to listen like they care. Favorite MO for PR and HR departments all over the world.
2. Cockroaches
3. SPAM and telemarketers, essentially the same thing
4. Christmas card newsletters
5. Family reunions