huh.

I've noticed (and if I'm wrong, please correct me) some of my college friends started blogs around the same time that I did. I was searching (read: creeping) on some of them the other day and noticed that a lot of them stopped blogging in 2010. Or, they blogged extremely intermittently. Now, I'm not so good at this that I blog once a week (some people blog every day. yikes) but I'm wondering why this happens. Real life? Lack of interest? Maybe you're on some other form of social media that I'm not invited to see?

The break that was supposed to be very productive, but instead I did absolutely nothing but watch Dr. Kildare movies.

I guess that about sums it up. At the beginning of my holiday break, I looked at my gigantic pile of unread books (maybe 15... not THAT gigantic) and decided then and there that I would read them all over break. And I didn't read a single word. As much as I kind of regret not reading, I came to the conclusion that I needed that break. No, I didn't need a break, I NEEDED a break. If I hadn't taken time off from thinking and doing, I may have gone off the deep end. I wound myself up too tight and needed that time off from work to unwind myself.

I spent a lot of time with my family and felt like a complete outsider the entire time, but there's nothing new about that. I spent time with friends, which was nice. And I watched all the Lew Ayres Dr. Kildare movies. I don't know if I've ever mentioned my love for Lew Ayres before. Just know. He's awesome. Lionel Barrymore? Awesome. The way they moved Laraine Day out of that series because she was an up-and-coming star? Maybe not as awesome. Definitely unexpected.

My lofty goal for this year is to read 65 books. I've got 5 relatively long books that I'm reading, but none of them are grabbing my attention in the way that I like books to. I'm going to read them as quickly as possible so I can start other books that I might really enjoy. I'm going to finish The Mysteries of Udolpho today. I've got 400+ pages left, but I'm gonna do it. It's supposed to be one of the archetypal Gothic novels. The book is mostly detail and description, and the action is so fleeting that I feel like I'm missing a lot. Sentences are about 4 times too long, and I keep getting stuck reading and re-reading because every sentence sounds the same. Apparently it was redone as The Veiled Picture; or, The Mysteries of Gorgono and most of that flowery useless stuff was removed. Since I'd already started the longer version, guess I'm going to stick with it. Let it not be said that I ever gave up on a book. Except Valley of the Dolls. That book drove me crazy.

W