Seven things

A tip of the enrevanche chapeau to Kimberly at Music and Cats, from whom this meme is lifted.

Seven things I plan to do before I die:

1. Take a trip to Antarctica with Carrie.
   
2. Raise another couple generations (at least) of Chow Chows, and maintain at least one cat on domestic staff at all times.
   
3. Write a book worth reading.
   
4. Finally learn a little something about wine.
   
5. Read the unabridged version of "Remembrance of Things Past."
   
6. And at least try one more time to make it all the way through "Finnegans Wake," dammit.
   
7. Get a copy of every recording Ella Fitzgerald ever made.
   

Seven things I can do:

1. Cook (except see #3 under "things I can't do," below.)
   
2. Write.
   
3. Sing.
   
4. Gas on endlessly about things I really don't know much about. (The word "gas" is used advisedly... my discourse expands to fill all available volume.)
   
5. Listen attentively to someone describing a personal problem, and at least two times out of three determine accurately whether they want advice, sympathy, both, or neither.
   
6. Listen attentively to someone describing a business or design problem, and help them figure a way out of it.
   
7. Hear the backbeat... that is, snap my fingers, tap my feet, or clap my hands appreciatively on the "correct" beats (that would be 2 and 4 in 4/4 time) when listening to jazz, live or recorded.
   

Seven things I cannot do:

1. Fold a freshly laundered men's dress shirt. Bright, patient people have tried to teach me this. It's hopeless.
2. Dance in a way that does not resemble a vertical grand mal seizure.
   
3. Make Indian Pudding that sets properly.
   
4. Speak any language fluently other than English, to my shame.
   
5. Reliably know when to quit.
   
6. Reliably know when to butt out.
   
7. Closely related to numbers 5 and 6: Keep my foot out of my mouth. To paraphrase the great New Yorker writer Joe Mitchell: When I enter a room, if there's something that absolutely should not be said to someone in that room, I always say it; I never miss.
   

Seven things that attract me to the opposite sex:

1. Intelligence
   
2. Wit
   
3. Highly developed sense of the absurd
   
4. Willingness to indulge one's appetites (take that however you want)
   
5. Sense of adventure
   
6. Sound notion of fair play
   
7. A nice smile
   

Seven things that I say most often:

1. "I love you."
   
2. "Aw, who's the (buddy/good girl/good boy/good Chow/good kitty)?"
   
3. (expletive deleted) (hey, I'm a New Yorker.)
   
4. "Coffee. Must have more coffee."
   
5. (in imitation of C. Montgomery Burns, while tenting fingers): "Excellent."
   
6. "Um, are you sure about that?"
   
7. "Don't get me started."
   

Seven celebrity crushes (in alphabetical order)

1. Anne Bancroft
   
2. Anne Parillaud
   
3. Audrey Hepburn
   
4. Bridget Fonda
   
5. Christiane Amanpour
   
6. Molly Ringwald (John Hughes era only, no offense, Molly; "Pump Up The Volume"-era Samantha Mathis will be an acceptable substitute.)
   
7. Queen Latifah
   

Note: While looking up those links, I was amused to realize that Anne Parillaud and Bridget Fonda both played the same female assassin character in two versions of the same movie, Luc Besson's exquisite "La Femme Nikita" (sadly inferior US version: "Point of No Return.") And Queen Latifah is certainly a lyrical assassin. Looking at that list, I seem to have a bad thing for smart, tough women. No surprises there.