Five Things Expanded

Sharon J. was kind enough to share my five things you may not know about me here, and to let me know she had. I realized after reading her post that not only are memes like slam books, as I once noted, they’re also like one of my all-time favorite childhood games, "gossip." I used to squirm in my seat (if that’s possible while sitting cross-legged on the floor), waiting to hear how the six words I’d whispered into someone’s ear had changed by the time it had gone through twenty other people. (Why is it that, although we had to play dodge ball, a game I despised, about fifty times during any given school year, we only got to play gossip about three?) I’m not quite sure why that game so fascinated me, except maybe that I’ve just always been extremely keen on how and why people perceive and translate things the way they do.

It’s interesting how many of us don’t know, by the time it gets to us, where a meme originated or what it first sounded like when it was initially whispered into the ear of that first person to help send it floating around out there in the blogosphere. Litlove recently posted her Thursday Thirteen, as did Courtney. Now, if I’d only read Litlove’s, I would have thought all Thursday Thirteens had to have something to do with books (maybe even with classics), but with Courtney’s, I realized they didn’t. Thus, I wasn’t aware until I got Sharon’s comment that those five things about me were meant to be inspirations for my writing efforts.

Ever since then, I’ve been thinking about my five things. I’d already planned to write about fears (I actually had ideas about that last month when I was on vacation), but then conversations I had when I was at the office last week got me writing about spelling in my head (I'm one of those people who walks around writing in her head all the time). I looked at my other three things and thought “I could easily expand on all of these.” I'm translating Sharon's meaning very liberally, as the famous five were really meant for writing stories and developing characters. I'm just going to develop my character a little by telling embarrassing stories about myself.

So, all this is to say that if you’re not interested in these things, I’m letting you know in advance, so you can take a vacation from my blog for the next ten days or so. Of course, I’m also planning a Thursday Thirteen, more along the lines of Litlove’s, because, as we all know, this is really the book talk site disguised as a telecommuter talk site. Then again, maybe I’ll do both and address books one Thursday and things that drive me crazy about my workplace/home on another.