divulgences from the depths of new york

My life is a firmly-held contradiction. I grew up in the middle of the country, where I have come to believe that people calculate the exact center of every political issue or social problem, and plant their feet firmly there – fringes scarcely being tolerated – in ideas or people. I suppose conformity would have been a nifty goal, but I struggled to remain somewhat true to myself, wandering and pondering, sometimes my tendencies and actions not easily understood, even by me. While I would consider myself private, reticent, enigmatic, and intentionally veiled; occasionally I am daringly-comfortable exposing more of myself than others would. Contentment comes from that newness found in exploration of the mental and physical world, pushing myself, unprepared for the luster to fall from the fruit as it consistently does.

"The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves." Victor Hugo

"So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work." Peter Drucker

"We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything." Thomas A. Edison

"Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." Mark Twain

"The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men." George Eliot

"Be obscure clearly." EB White

"Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing." Robert Benchley

"Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free." Jim Morrison

"Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives." C.S. Lewis

Shelter Me
The Things They Carried
Joyful Noise - I am Phoenix
The Year of the Hare

Summer reading: June through August was the first break I've had from school, including summers since 2005. To celebrate the 77 days of break, I decided that I would read 31 books from my TBR list during that time.

Here goes it...

Atonement
The Quickening
The Illumination
Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart
How to Speak and Write Correctly
I Think I Love You
The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay
The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Snow Crash
Life by Keith Richards
If You Were Here
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Bent Road
Classic Irish Short Stories
Townie
Untouchable
Between Shades of Gray
Tale of Two Cities
Have a New You by Friday
Bill Warrington's Last Chance
Women Food and God
The Day of the Jackal
A Curse Dark as Gold
Kahn & Engelmann
Alcestis
Then Everything changed
The Best of Franz Kafka's Short Stories
Brain Bugs: How the Brain's Flaws Shape Lives
Half a Life
My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands

I completely lost my mind track of time in 2010. Gone are the days of tearing through two novels a week, so gone that I don't remember what it's like anymore and am beginning to doubt (much like those who question critical incidents in history) if they even existed.

I read plenty of needlessly boring texts and wrote dozens of papers, but this year was paltry in the reading-for-pleasure department. I'll have to add a few months onto the end of my life to make up.

My favorite of the year was Life by Keith Richards. In this respectable semi-autobiography, you feel you are nearly there during the recounting and if you tried hard enough might be able to play the guitar too. Lovely work and impressive, considering I am not a big fan.

2010 includes:
The World's Greatest Books, Volumes VII - IX
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
The Girl Who Played with Fire
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Anna Karenina
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Change Your Brain
Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know
El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha
The Complete Poetical Works by Poe
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Iliad
The Odyssey
The Last Time I Saw You
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Long Tail
Too Big to Fail
The New Financial Capitalists
Saving Rachel
Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart
Treasure Island
The Solitude of Prime Numbers
Henry VIII: The King and His Court
Angry Candy
Glass Soup
The Last Campaign (Robert F. Kennedy)
Chagall
Hitler's Private Library
Posthumous Keats

2011 will bring more texts and hopefully something Italian as we near the time in Tuscany.