105 Ways to Give a Book

Meme-palooza

I’ve been putting off some meme taggings. First, because I was involved in the whole 48 Hour Book Challenge thing and didn’t want to break my flow. Second, because I didn’t know what to say. Third, because I’m always one step behind.

So I’m knocking two out with one blow. Snippets and Blabbery tagged me with a Seven Interesting Things meme and Tea Cozy passed on the meme from Robin Brande to re-post one of your older entries. The following is my answer to a Six Strange Things meme — pretty close to the Seven Interesting Things — that I wrote in April of last year.

The meme is Six Strange Things/Facts/Habits About Me. I’m going to approach it in biography form, because I have already listed 100 Things About Me, and I don’t want to repeat myself (numbers 95 and 96). So here goes.
  1. I was a shy child. This fact will only seem strange to those who know me as the raging extrovert that I am today. Or to those who have been paying attention to the fact that I will write about anything personal on my blog — my messy clothes pile, shaving my legs, my overindulgent evening — as long as it is a little funny. But indeed, I was a shy child, preferring my books to people until eighth grade. At that point, I started at a new school, realized that no one knew me, and thought why not act like I was confident and secure and see if it stuck? Apparently it did.

  2. I was raised as the last hippie child. My mother and father were potters for most of my young life. My dad threw pots and mugs on the potter’s wheel. My mom sculpted in porcelain and made wind chimes. They sold some of their work to retail shops, but also traveled around the east coast on weekends to participate in craft shows. My brother and I most often went too, learning the finer points of display, selling, and sitting around. When I was about fourteen, I would go with my father — or sometimes my mother — as the second salesperson. It was certainly a different after-school job for a high school kid, and I had a great time.

  3. I was voted “Most Unique” in my high school senior class. I considered it a badge of honor, and far better than “Most Likely to Succeed,” which would have been far too much pressure. When I started high school, I realized I was never going to fit into this rural, southern school as a northern-bred, half-Jewish, hippie child, so I might as well make the most of it. I was well-liked, but I did not fit the mold, so I drove my 1974 Karmann Ghia, and wore my turquoise blue blazer and dared to look foolish sometimes. Oh my God, I was the Pretty in Pink girl!

  4. I worked in a psychiatric hospital for one year. After majoring in psychology in college, I got a job in a psychiatric hospital working with children who had been committed for short-term stays. I was very good at working with these children. Somehow, though it’s not in my nature, I became patient when I walked through those doors. However, I would come home after an eight-hour shift where I had barely had the time to eat or use the bathroom, and I would cry at Hallmark commercials. I was good at this job, but I just couldn’t take it.

  5. I started my career in libraries by accident. I wanted to move up to the D.C. area, but I needed a job. The whole psych thing hadn’t worked out, and otherwise I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I grew up. But I had worked in my college library as a part-time job, and that had been okay, so I decided to apply for library assistant jobs. I worked first in a law library, then in a children’s health library, and then in the public library. It could have gone the other way, and I’d currently be making and selling pottery at the Sugarloaf Craft Festival.

  6. Most of what I live by can be broken down into three tenets (three again). One: We aren’t saving the world here — good to remember whenever I, or others, take things too seriously. Especially useful for PTA meetings. Two: Things usually happen for a reason — many of the bad parts of my life have led directly to some of the best parts. Three: The worst thing about a person is often the best thing about them, in a different way. My youngest daughter cries too easily (can’t imagine where she got that from), but she is also the most loving child. She just feels things deeply, which is good and bad. I try to remember this tenet when I get frustrated with other people — or with myself.
Wasn’t that fun? Actually, I’m going to use this for the meme from Mentor Texts and More, which was about my Personal Policies. I’ve thought about this for quite a while, and I couldn’t come up with anything. However, I’m going to defer to the last point above where I list the three tenets by which I live. Close enough.

I still owe a Summer Goals meme, for ten personal/professional goals. I think that was from Mentor Texts and More too, but I don’t remember anymore. You know, let’s knock that out too. My goals:
  1. Get rid of the donation books at work. Add, buy, or sell them.
  2. Clear out immense piles of paper at work.
  3. Get back to blog reading.
  4. Try JacketFlap to condense blog reading.
  5. Get tree stump removed and plant a new tree.
  6. Devote Monday and Tuesday mornings to clutter removal.
  7. And Friday mornings to paper control.
  8. Use time off in August to write — a book, essays, an article.
  9. Go to pool three times a week — hey, we’re paying for it.
  10. Plan at least one vacation.
I’m not tagging anyone since it’s been so long, but feel free to pick up any of these and move it along.

Later today: how to find me at ALA.
Category: 4 comments

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, Miss Most Unique, I think you've fulfilled your high school's expectations perfectly. How many other last-hippie-child/librarian/blogger/filmmaker/Mo Willems-stalkers are there? None. Just you.

I also really like your philosophy about everyone's weakness really being a strength. I'm trying to figure out a way that my chronic procrastination could be a strength, though, and so far nada.

MotherReader said...

Ah, sometimes you have to look behind the weakness to see what's really the cause. Maybe the big factor in your chronic procrastination is a drive to do it perfectly - which takes time, so you put it off. But that drive to do it perfectly means that you produce good work, like your blog interviews. Maybe there's another root. Look at some of the things you like best about yourself, and work from there to see where you procrastination fits in.

(BTW, procrastination is one of my issues too. I think my issues fall between the need to do it RIGHT or the desire to put off the boring things to make more time for fun. The flip sides, I often do it right and I fit a lot of fun in my life.)

Anonymous said...

Whoa. You really were a psych major, weren't you?

Anonymous said...

Hey! Yet another thing that we have in common...I was a very shy child (used to walk from class to class with my nose in a book) until we moved in 9th grade. It was then that I "blossomed" into the outgoing extrovert that I am today (actually always was an extrovert, just a shy one).

Still love my books though and now that I have kids, I actually crave alone time...