(2) i used to like blogmemes. in those early heady days whenever i got tagged, i was so flattered to be noticed that i would jump at the chance to respond. i like blogmemes less now, for a couple of different reasons:
(a) there are just too many. once you start responding and mark yourself as "taggable", you get hit all the time. sometimes i would respond to a meme and then, a couple of weeks later, the same meme would make its rounds back to me and hit me again. i could easily turn this blog into a blogmeme response blog. but i don't want to do that, which means i have to turn at least some blogmemes down.(3) blogmemes are not all bad. sometimes they can be entertaining. who doesn't want to write a bunch of stuff about themselves? but for the above reasons, i really do resent them when i get hit. at least sometimes. i want to feel free to turn them down. which raises the issue of how i decide which ones to turn down. and that gets all tangled up with issues of fairness, which of my blogging friends i like better, etc. i.e. stuff i really don't want to get into. so how do i make a coherent blogmeme policy?
(b) i don't like it when other people tell me what i should blog. i realize that blogmemes don't have to be seen that way. but they always have had that edge for me. as i've grown from being a new shiny blogger into an old crusty one, the edge has gotten sharper for me. the memes seem less fun and more of a chore. and i'm not blogging to add more chores to my life. sometimes when i get tagged, i just want to blog about something else. once i feel responsible for responding to someone else, it interferes with the free-form rant-style of blogging that i'm so into.
recently my policy has been really idiosyncratic, really it's a non-policy. i have responded in the past, if i happen to get tagged while i'm in the right mood. but when a meme catches me in different moods, i just completely ignore it, often with an apology to the tagger in which i lie and say i don't respond to any blogmemes. but when i'm tagged, respond, and then am tagged again shortly thereafter, i feel bad about blowing it off. plus that lie about how i don't respond to blogmemes doesn't hold up all that well when a response to another meme is still sitting on my front page. it all comes back to that fairness issue.
(4) a week and a half ago, susie gave me a ride home from drinking liberally. it really wasn't on her way, but i appreciated being spared my dash for the train. as i stumbled out of the car and thanks susie for the ride, susie joked "well, now you owe me big time."
(5) so i've been mulling over how to come up with a blogmeme policy. the most obvious one is simply to ignore all of them. i've done that before, but it always seems to be a little mean. if someone's gonna bother to link to me, sent me a little traffic, the least i can do is acknowledge it. plus, as annoying as the memes are, they are still also flattering. of all the people susie could choose, she chose me! me! me! (okay, and two other people. and i was listed last, but still...) hell, when blog-celebrity michael berube added me to his blogroll a couple of weeks ago, it made my day; even though officially i don't care about such things. i've even spent the last few weeks trying to figure out how to work it into a post to brag about the link without looking like i'm bragging.
did i pull it off or what?
wait, where was i? oh right, the list.
(6) another possible standardized blogmeme response i came up with was something that was both responsive and retaliatory. for example, susie tagged me to write 8 random things about myself and then tag three more people to spread the meme virus a little further. what if i responded but used all my tags on susie? then she would have to respond three times, coming up with twenty-four random things about herself and tagging 9 people. snap! that would show her
except that what if susie did it and then tagged me back all nine times? i'm not sure if i could come up with 72 things about myself. i don't think i have that many.
so i decided to stop the madness and not go the retaliatory route. did i mention i went to a quaker school? there's one random thing about me. in any case, i'm a little scared of how the retaliatory policy could escalate, so i've decided not to go that route.
(7) my new blogmeme policy, indeed the only policy i've ever managed to come up with shall henceforth be this: if tagged, i will acknowledge that tag and then link to this post to explain why i don't do memes. that's my response. i won't pay attention to what i'm supposed to do. i won't link to anyone else. for all you future taggers out there, this will simply have to do.
(8) ah crap, that's only 7.
i came up with this post in my head as i rode my bicycle around the neighborhood. i've been really bad this spring. despite the number of good bike riding weather days we've had i've been opting for a good ass-sitting instead. my last ride was a month ago. this morning when i noticed what a bright sunny day it was, the guilt got to be too much for me, so i went on a ride. i decided to go on what in past year's i've called the "easy route." but i'm so out of shape, it still kicked my ass. to get through it i mental blogged this post as i rode. and it helped. before i knew it i was home banging out this post on the laptop.
so thanks again, susie. i guess i owe you another one.
