Sordidness

I've been tagged for an internet meme by my beloved husband. My link to his blog is on my sidebar. By participating in this meme, I am to reveal 5 sordid things about myself. "Sordid" for this game is to be defined as: adj. wretchedly poor; filthy; morally degraded.

The rules are:

1. Link to your tagger, and post these rules.
2. Share five wild crazy facts about yourself.
3. Tag five people at the end of your post, and list their names, linking to them.
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

Before I start, let me address the debatable merits of participating in such a game. Anyone who reveals 5 truly sordid things about themselves which would come back to haunt or hurt them, is too stupid or naive to be using the internet. I am assuming this is a game to be done in the spirit of fun. the fact that the rules also use the description "wild and crazy facts" gives a lot of leeway. Also, since I have not had an outrageously sordid life, my facts will be too tame to be used for gossip or blackmail. I have gotten beyond my embarrassment of them and they now are simply whom I have been, am currently or possibly may be in the future. Nor am I a perfectionist in any form or shape. My hope in life is in God's grace. So, with no further ado....

1. I have cleaned my toilets on average once a year since we have had children. I was raised with much cleaner standards of hygiene than this, so it is still something I hope to change in the future. But in my current reality, it is what it is.
2. Besides the fact that I was raised in this country as an English speaking person, went through very good schools all the way through graduate level, and (I like to think) am a contemplative person who thinks before I speak, I have produced some uses of the English language that are truly wretched and thoroughly amusing. I am constantly making my husband laugh on nearly an everyday basis on my strange and ill-starred word choices. It doesn't come out nearly so bad in print.
3. As a librarian I have what in the profession is almost considered a moral deficiency in that I can toss a book in a trash can with no compunction at all. To those of you outside of this profession, I must explain. You see the library profession tends to attract bibliophiles (that is people who love books). In fact many of these people are so extreme in their love of books that they have a physical revulsion of discarding in any way any book. They may try to save their consciences by trying to find the book a loving home by way of book sales, book swaps or donations to other groups, but eventually some books for a variety of reasons just need to be tossed on the garbage heap. The dislike of having to take responsibility for such a decision and actually doing it is such that some libraries have to hire an outsider to come in and do the dirty deed. It has crossed my mind that I could swing that as a part-time job if I get the right connections.
4. I have punished my children for things that were not their fault and treated them harshly when they were needing extra compassion. There is not one parent on this planet that hasn't done that at some time or another. It helps keep us all humble.
5. I lied to my second grade teacher about finishing my math workbook so that I could go play the cool math games that some of the faster students were doing. I don't think I ever finished that workbook and my subsequent troubles with the multiplication tables may have been a direct result of my trying to skip ahead before I was ready. I reaped the consequences of my error and finally got back on the straight and narrow learning my math properly and managed to go all the way through calculus before I decided I had enough. Looking back on this I now see that although I idolized this teacher at the time, she wasn't that great of a teacher. She did not deal with her students justly, she was petty and lazy. This doesn't excuse my behavior, but it does explain how a second grader could get away with not having her work checked.

That is my list for your amusement. However I am not passing this meme on to anyone. I just think passing things along like that is too much like a chain letter. I always hated those. Feel free to participate if you wish.

For your reading pleasure

I have been tagged for a meme by Wendy who's blog is here. The rules are to pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more, find page 123, find the fifth sentence, post the next three sentences, and then tag five people. There seems to be a dispute about whether this means sentences 5-7 or sentences 6-8. But since the book I am taking a selection from has really long sentences and sentence five is near the bottom of the page, I will assume 5-7.

I am not currently reading any books, but one of my favorite history books was within reach. It is How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill. Here is the selection from page 123:

This thirty-year span of Patrick's mission in the middle of the fifth century encompasses a period of change so rapid and extreme that Europe will never see its like again. By 461, the likely year of Patrick's death, the Roman Empire is careening in chaos, barely fifteen years away from the death of the last western emperor. The accelerated change is, at this point, so dramatic we should not be surprised that the eyes of historians have been riveted on it or that they have failed to notice a transformation just as dramatic--and even more abrupt--taking place at the empire's periphery.

I'm not sure if this selection will convince anyone to read the book, but it at least captures the idea that the book tries to communicate. Which is that something important was happening in Ireland during this time of history and that most people have completely ignored it because we have a tendency to concentrate more on the Roman Empire or other Important Empires rather than the barbaric edges of civilization.

Well, I would recommend the book to anyone who enjoys reading history.

However I do not like passing along things like this. So this meme ends here. You may do it yourself if you like.