Caitlin in Wonderland

Recently, after patiently listening to me talking about drama with my friends and celebrity gossip, my boyfriend told me I never have anything intelligent to say anymore. The worst part is, I knew he was right. I graduated college last year and it's like since I've been out of school I've gotten a little stupider every day. A little less smart and a little more blonde. My sweet, caring, albeit harsh BBF (best boyfriend) suggested I get a hobby.

Until recently my list of hobbies included shopping, reading fashion magazines and lounging around watching TV while eating chips and salsa. Those who know me can vouch for this. But over the past few months I've been setting goals for myself. For example, I want to run a marathon in a few years. Right now I can only run about 2 miles straight but this is a vast improvement from the quarter mile I used to jog and then proceed to pass out in a panting, sweaty mess. So you can see I'm making progress. And when my boyfriend made me feel like a blithering idiot I decided I needed to make over not only my body, but also my mind.

So this is my new hobby. It's more of a challenge really. I am far from being well-read so I'm having my literary-buff mom compile a list of 50 classics that I should read. You know, those books that everyone is supposed to have read. As part of my assignment, I will blog about each novel, a nod back to all the book reports I wrote in high school. (Except this time around, I will actually read the books, not just the back covers.) I may not understand every book I read, and I'm sure it will take me years to get through the list, but I'm going to make it make it my business to complete this difficult task.

Number one on my lengthy list is Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I just saw the Tim Burton movie and since you can't walk through Barnes and Noble without running into a gazillion versions of the book, I thought it was a good one to start with. Well, I also thought it was an easy one to start with. I wish I had a better reason for choosing this novel to begin my challenge. I've been trying to think of an insightful way to compare my coping with post-grad syndrome to Alice being confused and lost in Wonderland but I couldn't - sorry!

My copy of the Alice also includes Through the Looking-Glass so it looks like I'll be knocking out two books pretty quickly. Hopefully, after doing some reading, I'll have something smarter to say in my next post. I'm currently on page 55 of the book and not really loving it...more to come!