Meme me

I never do memes (Who made up the word meme in the first place and what does it actually mean? Is it short for something? I don't get it and I'm too lazy to Google it) but I'm going to do one tonight 'cause I don't feel like doing anything more worthwhile.

Four jobs I was really, really bad at:
1. Hostess at my dad's restaurant. I wasn't so much bad at this job as I just HATED it. I hated being at the bottom of the food chain and having to do all the server's bitch work, I hated side work, I hated waiting for the dishwasher to finish his job so I could roll one last tub of silverware before going home, I hated how when I finally got to just stand still and zone out for a while my manager would think of some stupid job that needed to be done like dusting the plants...basically, I hated everything about it.
2. Student teaching. Okay, so I actually wasn't too bad at this job either (as evidenced by the fact that I did actually earn my teaching certification), but I could have done much better. I was late pretty much every day, I was hungover twenty percent of the time (and just damn tired the rest of the time), and I used to spend my conference periods sleeping in my car in the back of the parking lot of a nearby Wal-Mart instead of planning exciting and engaging lesson plans. Yeah, I totally phoned that one in.
Since I think I was actually semi-decent at my other jobs and more or less enjoyed them (waitressing, bartending at Bass Hall, and anything theatre-related I've ever had to do) I will finish this list up with things I've never actually done but that I just know I'd be terrible at:
3. Any job that involves drawing and/or cutting straight lines. I'm not sure what sort of job that might be (architect?) but I am absolutely 100% physically incapable of creating straight lines, even with the help of tools.
4. Any sort of pyramid scheme-type thing (Amway, Avon, etc) where I had to convince people to not only buy my products but come to work under me as well. I HATE having to convince people to buy stuff I'm selling. The minute someone tells me they're not interested I say, "Cool. I'll leave you alone then." I don't think this trait would make me a very good salesperson.

Four movies I could watch over and over:
1. Closer
2. Tootsie
3. Oliver! (or pretty much any musical movie made in the 60s/70s, but Oliver! is my favorite)
4. The Graduate

Four childhood memories and/or dreams.
1. I remember being at the first daycare center I ever went to. It was before I was even old enough to be in preschool, my mom would drop me off there for just an hour or so at a time so she could go to the gym. I remember sitting on the floor in the corner playing with a set of rainbow-colored stacking rings. Gloria, the babysitter, turned on a radio and all of the "big kids" started dancing in a big circle. I watched them for a minute and then Gloria said, "Somebody go get Ashley so she can dance, too!" and one of the big kids (who couldn't have been much older than five now that I think back on it) picked me up and held me and danced with me. This is probably my earliest clear memory, and I don't think I could have been older than two.
2. I remember playing "Watching for Lightning" with my brother and sister on stormy summer nights. We'd all stand on Shane's bed staring out the window, and whenever there was a flash of lightning we had to fling ourselves down onto the bed and cover ourselves until we heard the thunder. Then we'd pop up to look for more lightning.
3. My mom was watching Ghost on TV but wouldn't let me watch it with her. I was supposed to be in bed sleeping but I kept sneaking into the family room and hiding behind the armchair to see parts of the movie. I happened to sneak in just in time to see the bad guy get impaled on the window glass. It really traumatized me, and the worst part was that I couldn't cry to my mom about it because I wasn't even supposed to be watching it in the first place and I didn't want her to know I'd seen it. It was YEARS before I got brave enough to watch Ghost all the way through.
4. Waking up in the mornings when I'd spend the night at my grandma's house. The first thing I always wanted to do was feed her goldfish. I called him Monstro, but I don't know if that was actually his name. She'd hold me up so I could sprinkle food into the tank. Then I'd sit on the kitchen stool and talk to her while she made pancakes.

Some celebrities I worshiped when I was little.
I don't think I was really aware of celebrities when I was little, other than to be afraid of them. So instead I think I'll make this list "Celebrities/Characters that Scared Me For Absolutely No Reason"
1. David Bowie
2. Pee-Wee Herman
3. Lady Elaine from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood
4. Nancy Reagan. (I feel as though the above three are at least somewhat self-explanatory. Nancy Reagan, though. I was scared of her because I overheard this joke as a little kid about Nancy Reagan's breasts being in a jar on her husband's desk. Disgusting, I know. And I still don't really get it, either. Did she have breast cancer? A mastectomy? Something like that? I don't know. Anyway, it was something I probably shouldn't have overheard in the first place and after that I always had this idea that she was some sort of robot person with removable body parts and so the idea of her scared me).

Names I wanted instead of Ashley:
1. Jessica (Remember the whole Baby Jessica thing? I think that's where this one came from)
2. Elizabeth (or maybe I was just into the Sweet Valley Twin books)
3. Vanessa
4. Maggie

Four injuries I have sustained:
1. This time last year I was on crutches because I had a sprained ankle from falling down some stairs in a parking garage at a theatre conference in Dallas. That was FUN.
2. I have a chip in my bottom front tooth from getting hit in the face by a line drive at softball practice when I was 8. That experience pretty much ended my sports career. I finished that season of softball and then said NEVER AGAIN, a verdict I have stuck to ever since.
3. When I was 9 we were on a family vacation driving across Texas and we got caught in this weird mini-tornado storm that blew a giant sign into our car. I was sitting in the backseat of the van and the sign hit the window beside me. The window shattered all over me and I got a cut at the base of my thumb. I still have a little scar.
4. I have a matching scar on the base of my other thumb because when my next door neighbor Marion and I were young we were always coming up with "projects". One day the project was to make a car out of cardboard (don't ask me why the hell we were doing this, we were about ten at the time). She stole her dad's exacto knife and I ended up slicing my thumb with it as I was trying to cut the cardboard. Once again, I was traumatized but couldn't tell my parents or her parents about it because we weren't supposed to be playing with knives and I didn't want to get into trouble.

Four celebrities I have bothered:
1. George Strait. I used to work at a performance hall and one night I worked a movie premiere there. It was a movie about a county fair or something so all these country singers who had participated in the movie were there. After the premiere we all got to go to the after-party. I could care less about country music, but my coworker Robyn wanted to see George Strait so she kept making me walk by his table with her so she could stare at him.
2. Maggie Smith. I was with my friends Meg, Holly, and Erin and we were at the National Theatre in London to see A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. We were running late so we were literally running up the stairs when Meg almost collided head-on with a woman on the way down. We had a nagging feeling she was someone important but we didn't have time to figure it out. A couple of days later Meg realized it was Maggie Smith.
Those are the only celebrities that I think I've actually bothered. I've had very few celebrity encounters. So here are a couple of other celebrities I've seen very up close and in person (within twenty feet)
3. Maya Angelou
4. Dave Navarro and the rest of the members of Jane's Addiction.