The thing about blogging is that one day you'll not be able to resist a meme.

I've encountered this meme at numerous blogs in the past week. I like it. Here are the instructions.

1. Pick up the nearest book.

2. Open it at page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence/phrase.

4. Blog the next four sentences/phrases together with these instructions.

5. Don't you dare dig your shelves for that very special or intellectual book.

6. Pass it forward to six friends

There are three books next to me as I lie in bed with my laptop on my lap (There are often more.) - Managerial Economics & Organizational Architecture; The Coming Generational Storm; and The thing about life is that one day you'll be dead. The choice is obvious.

Went to Page 123 of The thing about life is that one day you'll be dead by David Shields. Found the fifth sentence. Here are the next four sentences.

"Earlier this year, it was just the two of us alone in the pool. I was doing laps and flip turns -- my back was feeling weirdly trouble-free for the moment--while he was tottering in the shallow end. After just a few minutes, he got out, toweled off, and headed over to the sauna, carrying the sports page. . .(next chapter) . . . As soon as animals, including humans, reach sexual maturity, many of their functions weaken."

I had no idea this was a new book when I ordered it on Amazon. It was one of the books that popped up as a suggestion based on my previous purchases, the - if you liked that book we know who'll like this one. Maybe it was that other irresistible Amazon trick of bundling a second book with your first choice, buy these two together and save. It actually ends up being buy these two together and spend more, but at the time it often seems like a heck of an idea.

It turns out to be new and reviewed in the NY Times February 24 by Alex Beam, "The Man Who Wouldn’t Die." Here's a snippet:

Here is how Shields defines his genre: “An autobiography of my body, a biography of my father’s body, an anatomy of our bodies together — especially my dad’s, his body, his relentless body.” The 51-year-old author doesn’t mask his mixed feelings for his 97-year-old father, whom he calls “cussedly, maddeningly alive and interesting.” “I seem to have an Oedipal urge to bury him in a shower of death data,” Shields continues. “He’s strong and he’s weak and I love him and I hate him and I want him to live forever and I want him to die tomorrow.”

I haven't read it yet. Gotta finish my assigned reading in the other two aforementioned books first. Can't wait.