Book MeMe and the Plank in my Eye

Niobe at dead baby jokes tagged me for the ever-popular book meme last week, and I'm only now getting around to completing it. Here's how she explains the rules: "Look up from the computer, look around the room where you're sitting and pick up the closest book. And closest really means closest. No cheating by running upstairs to unearth your pink-highlighted college copy of The Critique of Pure Reason or the Prolegomena. Open the book, turn to page 123, count down to the fifth sentence on that page, and then post the next three sentences."

In total honesty, here's what you get -- an excerpt from my Biology Lab Manual. Hang on to your seats.

M: abduction of humerus

Biceps brachii - muscle of anterior part of upper arm

O: scapula

Oh, the excitement. I actually feel smarter.

I think despite the fact that my lab manual is book-shaped, has an author, and is protected by copyright laws, it should not really be considered a book because it's boring and painful to read -- completely unlike real books. So, because I'm not wholly convinced that a lab manual is an actual book (you'd agree with me if it were the only book-shaped object nearest your laptop), here's an excerpt from the nearest widely-accepted actual book.

It seemed like a really far-out, outrageous thing to do, but he tried it. And the idea's been catching on ever since. I heard about a gal who said she didn't know where her husband was every night.

-- Disciplines of the Home by Anne Ortlund
Excerpt from The Ninth Drastic Do: Learn to Cocoon

There are two things that really irritate me about this particular meme:

1.) I have no idea where this book came from and why it was on my bookshelf. I've really been into learning more about spiritual disciplines lately, and I must have picked this book up somewhere along the way thinking it would enlighten me with regard to applying spiritual disciplines in my home. That's not at all what this book appears to be about, and I am extraordinarily irritated by the fact that this book was closest to me when it shares a shelf with other books that are so much better. Seriously, here's a list of every other book on that particular shelf:

The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction by R.V. Cassill
Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster
Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith by Rob Bell
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
Divine Discontent: Pursuing the Peace Your Soul Longs For by Michael Youssef
Three by Flannery O'Connor
Life Management for Busy Women by Elizabeth George
The Oxford Book of Essays by John Gross
An Introduction to Literature by Barnet, Berman & Burto
The Unofficial Guide to Beyond Disney by Bob Sehlinger (okay, maybe that one's not so great, but we are going on vacation in a few weeks)
As Silver Refined by Kay Arthur

2.) Why do authors, when they have the privilege of writing a book, do cutesy little things like titling a chapter "The Ninth Drastic Do," instead of simply calling it "Chapter Nine"? Things like that really, really get under my skin for some reason. I don't know. Obviously, I've not read this book, but just in glancing through it, I can see it is not a book I would finish. The author uses words like "bonkers," and "gal," and "far-out." This is a book about centering the home in family life, and in that context, such colloquialisms irritate me to no end. Another peculiarity that belongs on my weird list perhaps?

3.) I don't think the excerpt for this meme reveals anything about me, save for the fact that I'm irritated by really odd things. But perhaps that's what it was meant to reveal: that I'm a real weirdo who owns books she doesn't recall buying, and who finds cutesy, colloquial writers deeply abhorrent (though I am incapable of penning anything better). Hello speck, meet my friend plank.


Alrighty, enough about my being strange and judgemental and all. Time for tagging:

Elizabeth
Randi
The Queen of Payne
Someone Being Me
Emily (Laundry and Lullabies)
Adventures of an Awesome (Sometimes) Mother