I’m judgmental.  My mom knows it, my sister, my husband, my friends, even I know I’m judgmental.  Actually, my official title is Judgie Judgerson unless I’m feeling Irish, then it’s Judgie McJudgerson. 

I think it’s important to know your flaws and work with them, so instead if judging and condemning inwardly, in a mean spirited fashion that would lead to ill will, I judge outwardly and vocally so there’s no question.  If you choose to be my friend you know what that means.  It’s like my own little warning label. 

Hello I’m Vida, but my friends call me Judgie Judgerson.  If you do something stupid I’ll most likely tell you that you’re being stupid, but it’s only because I love you. 

And I can’t stand it when people with perfectly good brains don’t use them.

That and I can’t stop myself. 

I had never heard the of the word meme until I was looking up Danity Kane.  If you have any idea who Danity Kane is, you should be hanging you head in shame like I am.  If you are normal adult you and have never heard of Danity Kane, it’s an all girl band that P. Diddy put together through 3 seasons of Making the Band 3.  They have single out called Show Stopper and I was looking for critiques on the band. I know, I know…embarrassing.

But that’s not the point.  I found this thing called a meme and I looked it up and then I found a Book Meme, which I thought was really cool so I’m going to share it.

1book that changed your life: El Alquimista (The Alchemist) by Paulo Coehlo for two reasons.  First, the book is written very simply in an almost Little Prince type manner but the ideas are profound and thought provoking.  Second, I read the book in Spanish which was an accomplishment in getting through the words but also in thinking on a deeper level in another language. 

1 Book you have read more than once: The Secret of the Unicorn Queen by Josepha Sherman and Gwen Hansen.  It’s a series I read when I was younger, but I read it over and over.  It’s about this teenaged girl who time travels and a band of women warriors take her in.  She eventually takes on the evil sorcerer and outwits him with objects from her backpack like her walkman.  How cool is that?

1 book you would want on a desert island:   Is a desert island automatically  deserted?  Because that would change my answer, but if it’s just a desert and not deserted, then I pick A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev by Clinton Bailey.  If it’s deserted then I choose Dopamine Addict by Zachary Forrest so it would be like my (used to be man-whore)  husband was there too.

1 Book that made you laugh: Me Talk Pretty One

Day, by David Sedaris.  Laugh out loud funny, but in a weird twisted way.  Here’s a little piece of one of the most well known stories, “You can’t Kill the Rooster.”

 ”The Rooster” is what Paul calls himself when he’s feeling threatened. Asked how he came up with that name, he says only, “Certain motherfuckers think they can fuck with my shit, but you can’t kill the Rooster. You might can fuck him up sometimes, but, bitch, nobody kills the motherfucking Rooster. You know what I’m saying?”

1 Book that made you cry: Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes.  Not to be  confused by the bastardized version, Charlie.  It’s an amazing story that does the reverse of most books.You experience the triumph in the middle and you’ll pour out tears with the tragic end.

1 Book you wish you had written:   I wish I would have written either, He’s Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt and Liz Truccillo  or  Be Honest–You’re Not That Into Him Either by Ian Kerner.  Both are  indispensable books for the relationship challenged or the women who just keep wondering why “all the jerks seem to find me.”  Right.   That’s because it’s your own freaking fault.  Read these two books and work on manifesting a spine.

1 Book you wish had never been written: The Rules by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider, this ties in exactly with the previous comment.  People who end up with messed up relationships have “The Rules” mentality.  If you think people’s feeling are to be played with, and that relationships are a game, you’re a sick sick monkey.

1 Book you are currently reading: This Present Darkness by  Frank Peretti, my husband is making me read it.  It’s all dark and goth-ish on the cover but it starts with an amazing verse.  Ok, I’ve only read the amazing verse and the first page. More than loving the book, I think this is Zach’s nicer version of duct tape so he can read in silence.

1 Book you have been meaning to read: Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov.  I’m only about a quarter of the way into it, and to say it’s well written would be woefully inadequate.  You are so creeped out by the protagonist but awed by his pubertal fixation. Verbose doesn’t even begin to cover it, which of course means I love it, so I get to learn about 3 new words per page, i.e., manque, cabal, minatory.

So my husband and I have a different perspective on music. Ok, music and humor. Well, music and humor and family. Fine. We differ or just about everything but my point here is music since it is a particular passion of both of ours.

I love music, but I mostly love music as a catalyst for something else. Emotion. I don’t particularly care what type of music it is as long as I can somehow get behind it. Zach on the other hand is looking for something very different. He wants originality, creativity, complexity of lyrics, intricacy of music, and overall talent. I couldn’t care less about these things. (more…)

1. Jenny

My mother, whose name is Rita.  My mom gets weird about things she doesn’t like.  Some things really upset her., take for instance people dealing with some sort of mental complication.  There are two stories that really got to her.  The first is Of Mice and Men, wonderful story but there’s this part at the end where George has to kill his feeble minded friend Lenny.  As Lenny sits down, he asks his friend to talk about the rabbits, which always made him happy. It’s a really moving part of the movie that sends my mom into wretched crying jags.  The second story is Forrest Gump where Forrest is enamored with Jenny.  So I called my mom Jenny, or rather Jen-ay which sort of got under her skin, but when I felt particularly wrong by parental figures I would mix the two saddest stories and come up with something like this, “Hey Jen-ay, what about dem rabbits, tell me ‘bout dem rabbits Jen-ay.â€?  Cruel, I know, but funny. (more…)