Awkward Turtle

So I realized today-my life tends to be a series of awkward moments. Pretty much whatever I do, I realize at some point that some aspect of whatever I did could have been done better. Then there's always that period of decision-should I go back and explain myself, or try to subtly bring it up in conversation so they'd know what it is that I really meant, etc, etc. Maybe I should just drop it. Maybe I should blog about it in the hopes that people will read it, and the next time I do something stupid, they'll be like "Oh yeah...Bri said she often does stupid, awkward things. That's just her. I'm sure she didn't mean to blow me off or belittle me." That's really my hope of what happens.

I also realized that my reading list has grown and grown and grown, but I'm not knocking stuff off very fast. So I'm going to write it down and possibly add to it, and just maybe actually get reading.

1.Winesburg,Ohio-Sherwood Anderson
2.A Farewell to Arms-Hemigway
3.The Old Man and The Sea-also Hemingway!
4.In Our Time-Hemingway again.
5.The Sun Also Rises-the last of my Hemingway list.
6.Maggie-Stephen Crane
7.The Red Badge of Courage-Stephen Crane
8.The Natural-Malamud
9.Anna Karenina-Tolstoy
10. The Grapes of Wrath-Steinbeck
11.Tortilla Flat-Steinbeck
12. Collected works by Flanner O'Connor. (Note: I have bought copies of most of 1-12, using my prize money from my poem. That was about two years ago. I have not read them.)
13. Not My Will. The book from Katie that I borrowed probably a year ago and haven't read yet.
14. Brisinger. 170 pages in to a 700 page book. Read in the 30 minute intervals that I'm doing, I might have it done by Christmas. Thankfully, my friends thath have read it understand the importance of NOT SPOILING THE ENDING.
15. Mere Christianity-C.S. Lewis.
16. The Year of Magic Thinking- Joan Didion
17. Two or Three Things I Know for Sure-Can't remember the author
18. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius-Dave Eggers
19. Of Mice and Men-Steinbeck
20. Secret Life of Bees-Too lazy to look up the author
21. The LOTR trilogy- J.R. R. Tolkien
22. Something, ANYTHING, by James Joyce, basically so I can say I read him.
23. Something by Salman Rushdie, for the same reason as 22. And because I think I can name-drop and sound pretty pretentious.
24. Pere Goriot- Honore de Balzac
25. Moby Dick
26. The Great Gatsby
27. To Kill a Mockingbird
28. Slaughterhouse-5
29. Love In the Time of Cholera
30. Water for Elephants (just because I'm behind on reading the NY Times bestsellers that were hip and cool to have read and talk about a year ago (example-20,29,30...) doesn't mean I don't want to read them and be hip and cool TOO.)
31. Lolita
32. Animal Farm
33.One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
34. Reading Lolita in Tehran
35. The KJV Bible, all the way through
36. Most of Shakespeare's major works
37. One Hundred Years of Solitude
I think that's where I'll stop for now. Yes, I am an English senior, and I have not read those books on that list. That was basically a 37-point admission of guilt right there.

I shall also start a list of books I want to add to my collection. This is not a hint for birthday presents, it's more just a reminder to myself so I can keep track of the books I'm coveting. Pretty much, anyway.
1. The Chronicles of Narnia
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy
3. The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson collections of fairy tales. Notably, the ones at Borders that are beautifully bound and presented, at $19.99 each. I have coveted these for a while. I would not mind these ones as a birthday gift.

I guess that's really it for now. I'll wait to add to this one after I've read the ones on my other list and decided if it's worth owning.

What a strange tangent this post took.