No Dreams of Memes

Before I entered the World of Blogging, I'd receive them in my email inbox: "chocolate or vanilla?", "coke or pepsi?", and a lot of other trivial questions from friends. The arrival of these emails would always be met with a groan and most probably a delete, occasionally if in a beneficent mood I'd answer them and send them on to at least "five other friends". Now that I've entered the blogosphere I find that these little questionnaires have an actual name-meme.

I will admit that the first couple of times I saw the word meme I was perplexed. Huh? WTF? Thank goodness for Wikipedia. Wikipedia has a wealth of information about the subject however, I was able to find a simple definition by psychologist, Susan Blackmore: Whatever is copied from one person to another person, whether habits, skills, songs, stories, or any other kind of information.

Another confession I have is I don't really care for memes. In the short time I've been blogging I've developed a list of folks I visit everyday, their writing makes me smile or think or reminisce. Not all of these people write daily, but I check anyway because I need my "fix". When I go to a blog and I find a meme I feel let down; as if I've gone to see a much anticipated Broadway show and found the lead being played by the understudy. The lines may be the same but something is lost in the delivery.

Does that make me a curmudgeon? Certainly, better and more eloquent bloggers than myself have participated in memes, maybe they're able to let down their guard a bit more.

I will also confess that when I was recently "tagged" for a meme by my friend, Conan_cat I was pretty close to answering it. My young friend said he'd tagged me because "technically, you've haven't reached your menopause yet." How could I not love that? Why, I felt rather like one of kids chosen first for a team in school.

I mentioned to SO that I might be answering this meme and was met by an ominous, "remember, what you write remains forever on the internet." While SO can occasionally be in possession of large, pointy, needles to insert in my balloons, I can't negate the statement. What I write, how much information I give directly stays for all to see and I guess, I'm not ready yet.

So I'm memeless for the moment. By the way, it's chocolate, and coke.