I'm going to attempt to begin reading the Man in the Iron Mask. I began this once before but, as it wasn't as interesting to me as the Three Musketeers, I put it down. I have to stop doing that. I've gotten into this bad habit of beginning books and not finishing them. It must end!

I have to get into this because, well, I just do. I completely understand what Stickboy saying about time. There are times when I am so busy I beg for that reprieve of just being able to stay home and veg. out to an action movie- no thought involved- and I won't go out, even for my friends because, frankly, (and this is going to come out badly but there's no other way to say it) I come first. I agree that I would have to be ludicrisly interested in someone in order to take the time to crawl out from that state of mind. I haven't had that happen yet.

That being said, my big beef is with those stupid ass games that people insist upon playing! The whole, "I'll call you!" and then they don't and then wonder why you didn't call them. Because you said you would call me. I can't stand that stupid deception and men and women do it. I don't because I mean what I say when I say it. Duplicity sucks!

I really appreciate everyone's input into the book thing. Frankenstein is definitely one to add, especially considering that it won the contest amongst Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and Mary Wolstonecraft Shelley. Let's face it amongst that crew, it can't be a slouch! Enough of my mini-history lesson... I have a tendency to do things like that. I think it has something to do with the fact that I absorb information like a sponge.

The real topic of this e-mail is my misery over my other best friend being away. Trisha is one, and she has not gone away for the present, but my other best friend is Dina, a very bohemian, artist, who I rely on probably more than is actually healthy. She is my guru, the one person that I turn to for everything and have been doing so since I was fourteen. Sometimes it amazes me that we've been friends for nearly 12 years and other times it just seems like she's been there forever, that there wasn't a time before we were friends. And now, she has been camping for weeks and I'm freaking out because I need to talk to her! It never fails, she goes away, stuff happens in my life and then I'm practically going into convulsions because I can't talk to her! I wish I knew what it was about her that has this crazily calming effect. She is my sanity.

God, I miss her!

Thanks, MK. I had read "To Kill a Mockingbird" and it is also one of my favourites but it had slipped my mind when I was writing that impromptu list. I also read, believe it or not, "Peter Pan" and "the Wizard of Oz" which for those of you who have not read "the Wizard of Oz"- it's frikken' Great! And I love to see compare and contrast it to the movie. Especially now, after I'd gotten my history degree to understand what he was REALLY saying, the hidden meanings that the piffle of the movie covered up by completely gutting the book... Before I get lynched, I love the movie but I have to appreciate it as far away as possible from the book. That's all. TTFN ;)

After reading other entries, or talking to other people, I am sometimes left with the realization of how my education is lacking. Upon reading Stickboy's second to most recent entry, it occurred to me all of the "Classics" of literture that I have not read.

I have not read 1. The Huntchback of Notre Dame
2. The Grapes of Wrath
3. Crime and Punishment
4. the Count of Monte Cristo
5. Wuthering Heights
6. the Scarlet Letter
7. Jane Eyre
8. A Tale of Two Cities
9. A Christmas Carol
10. Emma
11. Frankenstein
12. Dracula

And that's all I can think of for now, but I know that there are Many, Many others.

I have read Ivanhoe, A Farewell to Arms, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, The Three Musketeers (so Fabulous!)... and some P.G. Wodehouse (of which I am sure my spelling is off!) I feel so illiterate! I shall just have to knock these off one by one. Any other suggestions for my reading list would be appreciated, but keep in mind, they must be "Classics". I'll let y'all know how it goes. If it goes at all!