I was content/ A princess asleep and enchanted/ If I had dreams/ Then I let you dream them for me

All right, folks, let's take stock of November! At first I was afraid that I'd have to write about how this was a failure of a month. Largely because of my South Korea venture, I had a pretty hectic month. And to be honest, my regular life doesn't really lend itself to the project to begin with. Yes, I the trip involved some long flights (the two longest flights of my life, actually), but a few things conspired against those flights being productive:

• I tried to sleep as much as I could, and I'm a pretty good sleeper.
• My return flight had wifi. Amazing.
• I binged Serial.
• In addition to the New Yorker, I generally indulged in non-fiction (I even bought the Lena Dunham book).

So, you can see why I didn't think I'd be in good shape. To my relief, though, I actually did all right, largely thanks to a ninth-hour disciplined march through Sentimental Education and some semi-cheats with short books, I have to read nine books in December to meet the 100 for the year. That's not so bad; it's not great, it's not a cushion, but considering that I was expecting a deficit, I'm very relieved.

Even if everything else turns to dirt/ You'll be the one thing in this world that won't hurt

And now, a dialogue:

Me: Reading 100 books a year is hard; I don't think you appreciate how hard.
Josh: Oh, I appreciate it. I just don't understand why you want to do it.
Me: I just want to be done.
Josh: Maybe you should take a break. God wants you to take a sabbatical.
Me: Questioning look.
Josh: In the Sinaitic Covenant God made the Jews take a sabbatical every seven years where they had to stop tending their crops and let their fields fallow.
Me: Well, I've not been doing this for seven years; I should take a break when I'm 29.
Josh: That doesn't matter. It's not like you're Jewish or anything.
Me: But then why should I take a break?
Josh: Because God wants you to.

And you know that it's just a sonata away/ And you play/ And you play/ And Everything else goes away

I read many great books as a child: The Betsy series, The Austin Family series, The Chronicles of Prydain, The Enchanted Forest series, Little Women, Secret Garden, Jane Eyre, Diamond in the Window, Song of the Lioness Quartet, Princess and the Goblins, the Narnia books, Lord of the Rings, virtually everything by E. Nesbit, Anne of Green Gables, Little House series, Sherlock Holmes, Baby Island, the Oz books, Wise Child and Juniper, Catherine Called Birdie, Tattooed Potato, etc., etc., etc. We were an intensely book family.

I also read a number of not so good books. Most of these were mass-produced series and extremely formulaic. I can recognize now (and to some extent I did then, too) how bad these really are, but I still remember them with a bit of nostalgia.

Saddle Club: truly epic. This is the story of three privileged friends who live in Virginia and ride horses. They eventually come to own their own horses in most cases, they travel to exotic horse-related places, ride competitively, outsmart kidnappers, save horses from a forest fire (maybe? my memory is not great), and hand out a lot of soda. Lisa, or "Mary Sue" gets movie stars, handsome Italian men,"bad boy" ranch hands, and almost anything with a pulse to crush on her (she is like 11 or 12). Sarah and I still play a game where we try to name as many of these in order as we can; there were like 100 of them.

Nancy Drew: I didn't even really get into the original books, but I did read a lot of the later era ones, like one where Nancy and co. go to Arizona or New Mexico or something to solve a crime or where they have to join the Renaissance Festival as performers to ferret out something or other (these were really memorable). Later in my life I read this amazing book that analyzes Nancy Drew from a Jungian perspective; it is beyond description and I will gladly loan it to anyone.

Boxcar Children: So, I stand by the first few in this series when they were actually written by Gertrude Chandler Warner; they weren't so formulaic. But later they started to be extremely formulaic, and also much shorter. Basically Henry, Jess, Violet, and Benny solve some mystery, usually while traveling. You can see why I loved these books, since traveling and mysteries were/are two of my favorite things. Still, you can never get back the hours you spent reading these.

Happy Hollisters: I have such a fondness for these books. My father had them all growing up, and we read from his collection of these books, each one crimson with a black silhouette of Hollister children (let's see if I can remember them: Pete, Pam, Holly, Ricky, and Sue; man the brain space). These were also mystery books. My absolute favorite was the cuckoo clock one where they go to Germany; we lived in Germany for a bit when I was young, and we read this book many times while in Germany. I'm sure reading these outloud got old for my parents, though; they are a very, very, very happy family.

I could keep going (Girlhood Journeys, Magic Attic, Dear America, Sweet Valley Twins, Cam Jansen, etc.), but I think tat I'll stop.

Why is it you still believe?/ Do you dream or do you grieve?/ You've got to let him go

So, as I recently mentioned, Drew is reading one of the list books out loud to me, specifically Perfume. This got me to thinking, does it count if you don't actually read the book but hear the book? One hand, why not? Other hand, well, you're not actually reading it.

It's a conundrum. My immediate reaction is that no, of course it should count. But the more I think about it the more I realize that I can't exactly back that reaction up, though, with any sort of logical argument. However, I tend to just descend further into the existential. After all, what does it mean, really, to read a book? What is the essence of reading?

While I try to figure that out, here are some other book that were read to me that are on the list:

• To Kill a Mockingbird 
• The Lord of the Rings
• The Hobbit
• Treasure Island
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
• Through the Looking Glass
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• The 13 Clocks

One light shines in the drive/ One single sign/ That our house is alive/ Our house, our own/So why do I/ Live there alone?

I think of life in terms of opportunity costs. Moreover, I get really irritated by people who don't (sure, this may not be a waste of time per se, but compared to everything else we could be doing at this moment, it is a waste of time). So, let's calculate some list opportunity costs.

There are 1001 books on the list. That's about 348,629 pages or 104,588,700words (~300 words a page); that should take about 582 hours to read (rate calculated using this site's estimations). So far I have read 624 books on the list (is that a lot? it feels like it should be more? Lord, I'll never be done with this project). So that means ~363 hours of reading. Right? Someone check my math. Also, does that gut check for you? I have no idea.

Let's assume it's correct. Here are some other things I could have been doing during that time:

• 181.5 flying trapeze classes
• 363 static trapeze classes
• 9 Rosetta Stone language levels
• 484 spin classes
• 24 scarves knitted
• 871 Focus T25 workouts
• 2.5 drives around the world (if there was a road that went around the earth's diameter and I drove continuously at 55mph)
• 653,400 pushups 
• 77.5 marathons (if I'm the median woman)
• An indeterminate non-zero number of Suzuki method violin books completed (I could not find a helpful estimate of time anywhere, but man are parents worried that their 3 and 4 year olds aren't progressing quickly enough).

So, is it worth it? Hard to say, though it is very unlikely that I would have done any of these alternative activities in the time I spent reading, so probably. 

It slits my skin, and trips my brain/ And feel the burn, when I don't feel the pain

In the continuing saga of Mint.com: I remain the worlds' most passive Mint user; I never log in (I still haven't remember my password), and I never categorize my expenses (rent shows up as "check"). I just glance at the emails they send me and get anxious.

Recently Mint helpfully informed me that I spent an unusual amount on "travel." Color me surprised, Mint. Mint also tells me every time I pay an ATM fee and cheerily keeps a running total for my fees for the year.

Mint, my darling, I get reimbursed for ATM fees by PNC. Actually, that's one of the two things that I love about my bank.

The other thing that I love is that if you go to a PNC ATM you can take out bills in any amount. I like to get $37; that way I get a $20, a $10, a $5 and two $1s. I realize that I could take out $36 and get a similar experience, but I prefer odd numbers.

I loved you once and though/ I love you still I know/ It's time for me to go

So, this happend:

It only hurts when I breathe/ It only hurts when I try/ It only hurts when I think/ It only hurts when I cry

The other day Drew and I were talking about how flying trapeze inspires intense emotions among people and speculating as to why that is. Take me for instance: I sometimes may get frustrated by a static trapeze class, but it never leaves me devastated the way that flying trapeze can, and it never brings the same amazing highs. Why oh why is this?

We never found a really satisfactory answer. Some is just that it's already such a charged experience for me because of the fear factor; some is that you just get few turns and one mistake can waste a whole turn; some is just that trapeze is magical and unique, I guess. I do think that some is also that trapeze invites comparison, since there are levels and privileges and objective facts (you caught or you didn't; you're ready to remount or you're stuck on roll-ups for another week, etc.).

That said, there are great things about having a hobby at which you are terrible, a fact that I remind myself pretty regularly. Here are some of them:

• If you stick it out, you know for sure that you truly love it and that you aren't just doing it to achieve something; because you're really not achieving, as it were.
• There is something luxurious about doing something at which you are bad; it's the ultimate self-indulgence.
• This one may sound a bit arrogant, so I apologize, but if you are like me and a bit type A, good at the things that the world asks you to be good at (standardized tests and academics and getting people in authority to like you and interviewing and "leadership"), then being bad at stuff and struggling with things helps with your empathy. When much comes easily, it's good to struggle.
• It forces you to genuinely focus on process rather than product, which is an important skill to apply to many areas of life.
• You never have to agonize about wanting to quit your day job for your hobby, because you know it would never make sense.
• You can make other people feel better about their skills and abilities comparatively speaking (yes, I'm still working on my shooting star, but hah, at least my take-off isn't as bad as hers).

Basically, even though I feel hyper aware of product and destination sometimes with flying, the more I can focus on process and journey the happier I am and perhaps not surprisingly the better my flying is. (Side note: this is an interesting contrast to my immediately prior hobby, hip hop; with hip hop I just got really good without trying or noticing at first till the instructor told me that I was really good; in fact, my hip hop journey is perhaps completely encapsulated in that description, in being so caught up in my own world of being me to not notice the effect I was having on my surroundings, which is something that happens to me not infrequently). 

Can you keep the cup from tipping?/ Can you keep the grip from slipping in despair?/ For just another day

Speaking of the rules, I appreciate this article's points. Finish the books that you start! It's a cornerstone of this project for good reason. I know some people say that life is too short but:

• Life isn't really all that short.
• Even if it were, it cuts both ways; leaving a trail of unfinished books in your wake doesn't mean you somehow only got to have great moments in your reading life because:
• I can think of so many list books that took awhile to hit their stride, some that I didn't love till the very, very end, and if I had given up I would have missed so much. That more than makes up for the few that I didn't want to finish.
• It's a slippery slope. Once you start not finishing books, I think that it becomes harder and harder to finish books.
• I'm sort of an expert at reading lots of books at this point, so you should just trust me (ethos and such).

What happens if the cut, the burn, the break was never in my brain/ Or in my blood, but in my soul?

Now that we are well into November, let's assess October. So, it wasn't a great month. I had hoped to read 10 list books and get a real jump on the rest of the year. Instead, I read eight and a bit. I probably read nine books worth, but at the end of the month I had three books going so I didn't actually finish them.

So, two observations here:

1) I broke one of my main rules, which is one book at a time. I want to hyperlink to previous blog posts where I write about this, but I can't find them and it's late and I'm tired. I justify it because one book was my at-home read, one was my metro read, and one was a book Drew is reading out loud to me.

2) I read basically the bare minimum to stay on track for the year, which is not ideal. As I've said before, December can be a rough month so ideally you have some cushion going in. That said, I'm trying not to be too hard on myself about all of this. My life is crazy busy, I do a lot, and reading eight books is still a lot for a month.

In general I'm pretty bad at being nice to myself, but I'm trying to work on that. Another non-list project blog post will be coming up soon on that topic.

With you always beside me/ To catch me when I fall/ I'd never get to know the feel/ Of solid ground at all

So, this happened:

Verdict: I liked silks more than I expected to. As Josh said, though, silks are probably good for a control freak.