fireflies? Risk vs. Reward?

There is a "hit" song out by Owl City entitled "fireflies.". I use the term hit loosely as I can't quite understand how it is a hit... It's near the top of the charts on itunes and it's played all over XM/sirius..

My music sense must be off.. I'm a midwestern gal, who actually loves fireflies. I am fascinated by the history behind them and how it is the males that "blink" in order to attract a female and the female "mimics" the blink..not too different from "flirtations" and how people tend to mimic those they like.. Reality check, I've always been more intrigued in placing them in a mason jar with a few blades of grass and holes in the top (so they could breathe..the fireflies NOT people what do on Earthshmya do you take me for?)...such the humanitarian ... Or insectarian... I must have thought I was giving these fireflies a better life..as if I were sparing them from life outside of captivity, as if I were saving them from other ogres (children) who would dissect the "glowing" section and make it into a ring...sparkly! I can't believe I did that to an unfortunate firefly or two (hundred).. I didn't comprehend what I was doing (serial insect killer). I swear on my David Wright autographed baseball that I didn't mean any harm and that I rather- really-truly preferred to trap them in my mason jar and play "two if by sea.". Unleash, inner-Paul Revere.

Why am I writing this bloggery about fireflies? Well, the silly song that I can't place whether the intro belongs in a kiddie - television show or in outerspace (ironically my protestations seem foolish...it's about fireflies..what could I expect....however, it also makes me smile a little...because it was recent that my youth came back to me. I was walking on a summer night with a friend and I yanked a firefly clear out of mid air..it was flickering in the humid atmosphere...I swiped him and opened my fist..as it shown it's golden light..a glimmer of pride came across my friend's eyes and a smile as well, "that's the Iowa in you..."

"Yes, yes it is..". And I let the firefly go...to shine on another day and live the life free from my grasp and free from my opinion of the life that it should live. Sometimes that's what we need to do with our own lives and others hearts, turn it over unto something greater than us (and by that I don't necessarily mean God, but the belief that we are never really alone, surrounded by others...friends andfamily). Maybe we can dictate some things, mostly we can't understand everything. Maybe, that firefly will come back, maybe the firefly won't but we can take solace that we were lucky enough to witness a spark like a firefly in our own brief lifes.

A lot of people, obviously, love Fireflies (the song), I love the real things...not so much the song. Nothing wrong with that... Besides, the silver lining (and it's not thin)...is the memories of fireflies in my youth and in my grownup life and hopefully they abound and surround me in my future. Fireflies release their light and in that there is risk! They release that light and those that prey on them may see that, however the one that they wish to love them may also see their light and be drawn to them. It's like that risky new job, that bucket list, that trial by fire. Therefore, as cliche as it may be (and this whole blog no doubtedly is), it's pretty cool that they risk everything for that love...
Okay, it's likely nothing they control..it's purely a reproduction thing/mad science. Nah, that is so pessimistic! At least we aren't like that or we humanoids should not be like that!! I think it's still a risk, I bet some shine brighter than others! Just like some of those around us shine brighter than others. We are fortunate to get the choice to pick those people whom we want next to us on our short trip on this planet. You can be born into wealth of comfort in monetary wealth...you can live in a grand mansion, you can drive a ferrarri and you can circumnavigate the globe staying in the penthouse suite of the Ritz Carlton, but you cannot be born into the wealth of true friendship and commradery..that is earned and cannot be cheapened nor cheated. Friends are always free to go, there is nothing to keep them near aside from their own desire and want.
The most intriguing and interesting things in our life can develop from small things like fireflies. I know a little part of me hopes that if there exists larger ogre in this world/galaxy (whatever it is we live it) that if he/she/it/they/them..that if they grasp hold of me and the light goes dark around me that perhaps it is because my light is so bright that they want to capture it for a second because they too wonder just how I manage to glow, and just maybe they will release me again because they wish to see me blink and shine and glow and burn in the night until I just can't do it any longer, maybe they will set me free..

Because...I, myself, have never done too well in captivity. BURN baby BURN!

Flash!

I have a fairly elaborate (extreme) collection of SuperHero t-shirts. I won't give you and exact number (more than 4), I would give an explanation (excuse, alibi...) however it's simple I do not have one.  Chalk it up to my own superhero status, who wouldn't want me in that dark alley with them (you) in their (your) moment of need (not you?).

Don't laugh, it's not funny (dropdead funny), I have super powers.

My Super Powers:

1. I can run a really, really long way.

2. I'm liable to say I can do something and I won't even realize I can't actually do it until it's too late and that will give you plenty of time to flee from your dangerous encounter (diversion).

What does this Super Hero run on?

1. Starbuck's. Lot's and lot's of Starbuck's, preferably a mocha or caramel macchiatto (the skim kind-even super heroes have to monitor their figure-how else do they fit in those super tight Ab muscle showing suits?)

Kryptonite?

1. Doubt. This super hero doesn't like to be on anyone's "you can't do it radar."

2.  Negativity.  Who can stand it?


My favorite Super Hero t-shirt is my red "The Flash" shirt.

What I find most ironic about this shirt? I'm not surprised that a lot of people have it, but rather that a lot of exceptionally large individuals sport it (wrong use of words...sport?). It seems to me that it would be much better to wear Batman or Superman than to decide to not look thin in the shirt of a super hero (do not say figament of imagination). It's the FLASH not the overweight McGriddleman!

Before you claim that I am being cruel or arrogant, I promise I am not.  I really am a SuperHero.  I admit that I am not a sprinter so that officially, technically disqualifies me from wearing the coveted Flash shirt.    I'm an equal opportunity hypocrite, I simply look better doing it.

Don't forget to think about who you are with before walking down that dark alley...  Hopefully, it's not a McD's imitation Super Hero!

flu-zy

I'm frightened America has been attacked! Swine flu national emergency!

Get out your dry wall masks! Run to the stores and grab enough tampons for 5 years! That way you can sell them in 2012 or have them to barter with all the lackey's who didn't think that tampons would be the new form of currency in an Armaggedeonistic experience. It would be, don't doubt me! I know someone who built a bomb shelter for Y2K and stocked up on tampons too, he had the same idea. But think about how much the times have changed since then? How many years have passed? Think about the vaginistic technology that has transpired! Collecting them now is like owning an ipod compared with a CD player or a tape deck (even though I'm not quite sure what a cassette tape is).

Okay, I am just concerned you may not be prepared with what you need and need not do during this time of grave concern.

1. Sneeze-nation...sneeze all over strangers.. Builds up immunity.

2. French-kiss random strangers at the bar. You are hot it will be totally worth it for them to risk severe illness and even death to make out with you.

3. Wash your hands every two or three days, no sense in wasting water.

4. Stay away from pigs. Real pigs, chauvinst pigs, you get it, pretty good idea in general.

5. Wear that drywall mask with pride, and make sure you duct tape seal all the rooms in your house, place of work, etc. Take no chances!

6. Be coughorific! Run around coughing and talking on your cellphone about how you are positive for swine flu and have a fever of 104 degrees. Try it when you are waiting in line, watch the ants scatter!

Be safe, shake everyone's hands, but the swine flu is very good for that ackward situation that you will undoubtedly will experience in which you see someone you don't want to and the Swine Flu becomes a great and safe out. I would shake your hand/give you a hug but it's likely you have it and then go and hug everyone else you see. Nice big bear hugs!

Don't get sick!

The Crimes of Youth

I'm fully prepared to declare that the best video game of all time may not be the Pac-Man of my youth...  

The game in which my father encouraged me to continue playing...telling me just how great I was.  I was around 3 or 4 years old, amused by the lights and all things shiny (sort of like my grown up husband...or more likely the grown up me...)...I handled that joystick with the prowess of a future fighter pilot dodging Migs.  

The kicker?   The unearthly discovery..

The thing that my father continues to chuckle about to this day....


The thing that has left a traumatic scar, too which I will likely never recover from??

The evil and horrible events that actually occured?

My father allowed me to giggle in my amusement all while I was only playing these games in my MIND...

My father had given me no Benjamin Franklin's, no Andrew Jackson's, no Abraham Lincoln's not even a single lowly George Washington...


In fact, my father didn't even give me a shiny quarter.  


No quarters.

That has to be some sort of crime.  There should be some sort of law against misleading a young child into thinking they are the all time best at Pac-Man.  The all-time best at a videogame in which quarters or dollar bills are a necessity.  I thought that I surely had set all kinds of world records.  I was giggling and proud of myself.  I remember turning around a big cheesy grin on my face, running back and forth from the video game to the table where my parents downed pizza and beer.  My parents laughing approvingly, I'm sure spreading the story amongst their other "adult" conspiratoral friends, just look, how cute our little girl is?  She is sooo adorable  (Now on that I couldn't agree more).

However, I am long over those scars and now possess not only a Nintendo Wii but also a Sony PS3.  Fortunately, I have bypassed the need for coins of any kind.  The game is mine and I can play it whenever I want.  I may be hanging onto my 20's however I can still take my ball and go home!

I have come to the revelation that Pac-Man has been surpassed by one of the greatest video game creations of all time...

SINGSTAR!!

This is not your mother's karaoke.

This is main stream with the music video pumping in the background.  You can rap to Eminem, you can sing ABBA or Queen or U2.

One of my personal favorites....  

Vanilla Ice and his famous "Ice Ice Baby."

The last time I played this game I was two very loaded margaritas deep with one of my best friends.  


We were rapping to Vanilla Ice..  My friend ended up on speakerphone with her husband "Honey, can you hear us we are rapping?"

I was in tears....and the best part is that my pocket was still fully loaded with shiny quarters and they are all mine, too!  

The Closet...

Excuse me blog reader.  


For I have not been forthright.


I have a confession, I have been living in the oceanic abyss of my closet.  Not the linen closet but instead entombed behind a closet full of Abercrombie & Fitch jeans, Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses, Zara high heels, Dirtee Hollywood tshirts and JCrew suits is a Cimmerian secret.


I have been suppressing my true feelings.


I am a closet female peruser of Men's Health magazine.  Gasp.  Gasp.  The Horror! 


Let me give you a few minutes to collect yourself.


I admit that I hide behind my husband's subscription.  I may have encouraged (forced) him to order the magazine under his name.


Mark me guilty as charged.  I am the reader.  Every half naked man in the magazine is fitness-in-a-bag and could have been in the movie 300 so CHA-CHING!!  Need I say more other than .. napkin please, the drool..  Are you with me ladies?


I am quite aware that there exists a Women's Health magazine.  I am too crack for that. I mean do they really think those are workouts? Don't get me wrong if I were trying to pick up guys at the gym I would probably do those exercises (pelvic thrusts) as well...but I am not....soo....let me just say that Women's Health does women as much justice as Nike shoes did in the 80's. Not that Nike cared they were selling Air Jordan's by the bushel (to yours truly included!!).  


I have decided to drop the cape and admit .  My most recent pull-out workout from the magazine is enough for me to declare proudly that I READ, indulge, fawn over Men's Health magazine.  I have finally found the most challenging, self-gratifying workout on the face of the planet and therefore I am admitting I was a closet supporter of Men's Health magazine.  





Where did this obsession come from? The euphoric feeling I get everytime I attempt that Drew Brees workout... No wonder he can throw a football out of this stratosphere.

Or on second thought it could be the inquisitive questions I am asked everytime I workout about where I picked it up...and now I confidently scream from the rafters: Men's Health, baby..how do you like them apples?

It's my hotness (insert laughter..or see a previous post where I was likened to Hilary Swank...it must have been after she was bludgeoned in Million Dollar Baby, but I will take the comparison), the point is, I am okay with being the chick reading Men's Health, buying Men's Health, having her name attached to Men's Health. The workouts are fantabulous and the receipes are pretty damn delicious as well...some killer chipotle pork chops!

Out and proud! So kick rocks with your haterade!

Books that I actually did read...

Since I posted the other day all of the books that I have yet to read and would like to read I am now posting a list of books in which I have actually read (from those same "lists"), you will be pleasantly surprised that they are not all picture books.  Just finished The Gulag Archipelago (Solzhenitsyn) and Girls in Love (Wilson) and currently reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac (with nice shout-outs to my hometown)!!  *No, the previous list has not been re-edited yet but at least it is now three books shorter!*

1.  The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2.  Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
3.  The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
4.  Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
5.  1984 by George Orwell
6.  An American Tragedy by Theodore Drieser
7.  Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
8.  Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
9.  Atlas Shruggled by Ayn Rand
10.  The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
11.  To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
12.  The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
13.  Animal Farm by George Orwell
14.  As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
15.  The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
16.  A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
17.  Beloved by Toni Morrison
18.  The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
19.  Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
20.  A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
21.  A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
22.  Kim by Rudyard Kipling
23.  A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
24.  The World According to Garp by John Irving
25.  Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
26.  The Call of the Wild by Jack London
27.  Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
28.  Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
29.  The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
30.  The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
31.  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ernest Hemingway
32.  Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
33.  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling
34.  Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
35.  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis
36.  Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
37.  Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling
38.  Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling
39.  Harry Potter and the Prisoner's of Azkaban by JK Rowling
40.  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
41.  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Ronald Dahl
42.  Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson
43.  A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
44.  Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
45.  Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
46.  Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dosoyevsky
47.  A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
48.  Matilda by Roald Dahl
49.  The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
50.  Are You There God?  It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
51.  Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
52.  The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
53.  In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
54.  The Metamorphisis by Franz Kafka
55.  One Hundred Year's of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
56.  The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
57.  The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud
58.  How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
59.  The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
60.  The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams
61.  The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes
62.  The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
63.  Hiroshima by John Hersey
64.  Night by Elie Wiesel
65.  The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
66.  Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
67.  The Road by Cormac McCarthy
68.  A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
69.  The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
70.  Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
71.  Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
72.  The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
73.  The Giver by Lois Lowry
74.  Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
75.  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon
76.  Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
77.  The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
78.  America by John Stewart
79.  Paradise Lost by Milton
80.  The Bell Jar by Plath
81.  Illiad by Homer
82.  Republic by Plato
83.  Curious George Learns the Alphabet by Rey
84.  The Nature and Destiny of Man by Reinhold Neibuhr
85.  Principia Mathematica by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell
86.  A Theory of Justice by John Rawls
87.  Prinicpia Ethica by GE Moore
88.  The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
89.  The City in History by Lewis Mumford
90.  Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King, Jr
91.  The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro
92.  Orientalism by Edward Said
93.  The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
94.  Moby Dick by Herman Melville
95.  The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn
96.  Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson
97.  On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Bulletproof....

I want my MTV!!

That is all I have to say!

I will be off circling the globe again in a few weeks and what am I looking forward to aside from the culture and the sightseeing.....  I can't wait for MTV!

No, I'm not talking about the reality show, nonvideo showing MTV that has taken over, check that-infested, rather-infected the American airwaves to a greater scale than the H1N1 scare.

I am talking about MUSIC VIDEOS!  Real MUSIC VIDEOS!

With the recent death of Michael Jackson, the topic reached it's heights...  Kids used to wait by the TV for the release of Thriller...  (which is my absolute favorite "line" dance song..."hey, Matty, it's THRILLER!!!!")...okay I was still too young at that point in my life...sorry you oldies, it's okay..it's a classic I can relate!

In Europe, the music hits the airwaves quicker, they play it on the videos and I dance on my bed in my hotel bathrobe with my slippers, using my brush as  my microphone...  I can be La Roux..oh, right I'm preaching to an American audience.  La Roux sings "Bulletproof" a highly popular song on the European airwaves as far back as July, when I danced in the Ritz-Cartlon bathroom in my heels in mother Russia.  I was just recently able to add it to my iTunes list in the United States.  On that same trip I discovered Cascada....Evacuate the Dancefloor.

This wasn't the first trip I ever took in which I discovered the fruits of Europe's musical tastes!  Europe is just miles and miles and miles ahead!

On a trip to Paris I was introduced to a phenom you may have heard of....drumroll please.........

LADY GAGA!

That's right.

No one had heard of her but after an absolutely fantastic, on a whim, stroke of fabulous luck, four-leaf clover, Lucky Charms, Willy Wonka Golden Ticket sort of luck...I was able to score tickets to a Madonna concert in Paris of all places.  Not just regular tickets....Golden Circle tickets......see I said it was a Golden Ticket sort of experience.

I met some fabulously amorous Frenchmen whom I was able to woo with my charms...(see above and try not to laugh!).  I can be when I want to.  I really believe they were taken by my attempts to dress in the "French" style (see my yellow velour jacket)...and my love of French wine and willingness to try to take in the entirety of the French lifestyle.  Let's face it, I admit, I could live in Paris.  Nothing against my current lifestyle but the forced relaxation of a few glasses of wine (seriously:  bottles), a few hours at dinner trying everything from escargot to fondue and foie gras...and FRIES...French fries (I eat them..don't drink the haterade!).

I speak a little bit of french (bonjour) and therefore immediately won their affections.  Okay, I speak a little more than bonjour... (au revoir).

My love for Madonna and my immediate determination and recognition that the purchase of those outrageously expensive tickets was one of the very best decisions I had ever made.  How else do you learn to navigate the Paris train system, impressing your friend with your abilities to speak french and earn smiles from virtually every French person you encounter...it's amazing they do smile....as well, as navigating after a few Heiniken (kegs) back to your hotel after asking a French police officer if he spoke french in french?  SO brilliant, I realized it the moment it spewed from my mouth...he smiled laughed and repeated that "yes, he did indeed speak french."

My charm (clumsiness) must have once again took over as I smiled a big toothy grin and turned beet red and repeated, correctly what my brain had intended to ask, "do you speak English" in french.  He did and pointed us in the right direction.

The next several days Madonna was all I could talk about and so in return one of those lovely french gentlemen that I had won the affections of (suckers) made me a mixed CD of Madonna music along with a few other artists to serve as filler.  He dedicated one particular song to me...  "Just Dance" by Lady Gaga.

It fit.  I admit and I was hooked on the Lady!  Crazy name, crazy dress, no idea whom she was at the time, didn't matter...I sung that song loud enough to blow my french amigos (I know that's Spanish) cigarette flames out!

They (the french) had me at hello...

They read me like I devour my kindle and they drank me like I drink red wine....

I fell in love with the french at that moment.  That song is a battle cry that everything is going to be all right and they were right and the song is right.  Life moves way to fast to get caught up in anything, all you can do is keep dancing right on through because everything is going to be alright!

Scream it from the roughtops!  I WANT MY MTV!

I can't sing, I can't dance but I love the music and I can make people smile and go into convulsions laughing at my silly performance so I will dance and sing on!  Coming to a karaoke bar near you......  I will turn beet red and you will have six-pack abs when I'm done!

I WANT MY MTV!

Reading List

****** I was tired when I typed this (many errors...editors are expensive and I'm too tired right now..I will fix the list tomorrow or in a few days)......it took way too much effort to type this list...so much of it may be repeated...but that will actually make me happy because it will mean it is shorter...  I apologize this is mainly a reading list for me and not much of a blog....  Happy blog returning day coming soon!*****


I have combined several lists of "must-read" books from many different sources and the following is my "bucket list" for reading....  Of course, I will always be throwing in a few other books as well....  While this list is numbered, it does not indicate the order in which I will tackle these books..nor do I have a time frame for when I expect to finish these.  I am not planning on locking myself away in order to finish this monster list...I still expect to sing karaoke (aka SingStar..the greatest game ever invented), go to concerts, workout and do many other things however on my way to and fro these will be in my "library."  I pulled this list of books from The Modern Library's 100 Best Nonfiction Books (Both Reader's List and Board's List), American Foreign Service Reading List, Modern Library 100 Best Novels (both Board and Reader's List),  the BBC Top 100 Books (or Big Read), Time Magazine All-Time 100 Novels, New  York Public Library Books of the Century, Entertainment Weekly (The New Classics 100 best reads from 1983-2008).  and the Harvard Book Store's staff favorite 100.

How did I come about this list?  Well, I decided it would be best to pull from several sources and topics. It is easy to read what you want to and if you notice there is no Vince Flynn (inside joke...if you are a fan....I'm sorry....).  Anyway, as I was saying...  It is hard to educate yourself if you are familiar with the topic already.  This list will certainly not be easy to complete but I think it will be great to gnaw away at it one or two books at a time.  OH, and the list would be much longer however I have actually read a few books on these lists...that list will be posted later, mainly just to prove I have read more than picture books and also in case you find the lists interesting.

I am currently reading book number 376:  The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Sozhenitsyn.  This book was only recently removed from the banned books in Russia.  It's actually a collection of three books however only one is listed on this list (I will read all three....so my list should be about 744 books long...that is if I haven't repeated books 20 times..I actually hope I have so that the list will be dramatically shorter).

Anyway excerpt from the book:

"Indeed, only a revolutionary has slogans on his lips that are crying to be uttered aloud; and where would the uninvolved, peaceable average man come by such slogans?  He simply does not know what to shout.  And then, last of all, there is the person whose heart is too full of emotion, whose eyes have seen too much, for that whole ocean to pour forth in a few disconnected cries.  As for me, I kept silent for one further reason:  because those Muscovites thronging the steps of the escalators were too few for me, too few!  Here my cry would be heard by 200 or twice 200, but what about 200 million?  Vaguely, unclearly, I had a vision that someday I would cry out to the 200 million."

1.  Ulysses by James Joyce
2.  A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
3.  Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
4.  Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
5.  Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
6.  The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
7.  Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
8.  The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler
9.  I, Claudis by Robert Graves
10.  To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
11.  The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
12.  Native Son by Richard Wright
13.  Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara
14.  USA (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
15.  Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
16.  A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
17.  The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
18.  The Ambassadors by Henry James
19.  Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
20.  The Studs Lonigan Trilogy by James T. Farrell
21.  The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
22.  The Golden Bowl by Henry James
23.  Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
24.  A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
25.  All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
26.  The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
27.  Howards End by E.M. Forster
28.  Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
29.  Lord of the Flies by William Golding
30.  Deliverance by James Dickey
31.  A Dance to the Music of Time (series) by Anthony Powell
32.  Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley
33.  The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
34.  Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
35.  The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence
36.  Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
37.  Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
38.  The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
39.  Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
40.  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
41.  Light in August by William Faulkner
42.  On the Road by Jack Kerouac
43.  The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
44.  Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford
45.  The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
46.  Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
47.  The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
48.  Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
49.  From Here to Eternity by James Jones
50.  The Wapshot Chronicles by John Cheever
51.  Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
52.  Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
53.  The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
54.  The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durell
55.  A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
56.  A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
57.  The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
58.  Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
59.  The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
60.  Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce
61.  A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
62.  Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
63.  The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
64.  Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
65.  A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul
66.  Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
67.  Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
68.  The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett
69.  Loving by Henry Green
70.  Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
71.  Ironweed by William Kennedy
72.  The Magus by John Fowles
73.  Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
74.  Under the Net by William Styron
75.  The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
76.  The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
77.  Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard
78.  Anthem by Ayn Rand
79.  The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein
80.  We the Living by Ayn Rand
81.  Mission Earth by L. Ron Hubbard
82.  Fear by L. Ron Hubbard
83.  Dune by Frank Herbert
84.  The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein
85.  Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
86.  A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
87.  Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
88.  Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
89.  Shane by Jack Schaefer
90.  Trustee from the Toolroom by Nevil Shute
91.  The Stand by Stephen King
92.  The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
93.  The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Edison
94.  Moonheart by Charles de Lint
95.  Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
96.  Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
97.  Someplace to be Flying by Charles de Lint
98.  Yarrow by Charles de Lint
99.  At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft
100.  One Lonely Night by Mickey Spillane
101.  Memory and Dream by Charles de Lint
102.  To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
103.  Trader by Charles de Lint
104.  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
105.  The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
106.  Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
107.  On the Beach by Nevil Shute
108.  Greenmantle by Charles de Lint
109.  Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
110.  The Little Country by Charles de Lint
111.  The Recognitions by William Gaddis
112.  Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
113.  The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
114.  The Wood Wife by Terri Windling
115.  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
116.  The Door into Summer by Robert Heinlein
117.  At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien
118.  Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
119.  Watership Down by Richard Adams
120.  Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton
121.  The Puppet Masters by Robert Heinlein
122.  IT by Stephen King
123.  V. by Thomas Pynchon
124.  Double Star by Robert Heinlein
125.  Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert Heinlein
126.  Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
127.  The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
128.  Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey
129.  My Antonia by Willa Cather
130.  Mulengro by Charles de Lint
131.  Suttree by Cormac McCarthy
132.  Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock
133.  Illusions by Richard Bach
134.  The Cunning Man by Robertson Davies
135.  The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
136.  His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
137.  Wurthering Heights by Emily Bronte
138.  Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
139.  Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
140.  The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
141.  Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
142.  Captain Coreilli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
143.  War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
144.  The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein
145.  Tess of the D'Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy
146.  The Pillars of Earth by Ken Follett
147.  David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
148.  Persuasion by Jane Austen
149.  Emma by Jane Austen
150.  Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
151.  The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
152.  Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
153.  Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian
154.  The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
155.  The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
156.  The Stand by Stephen King
157.  A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
158.  The BFG by Ronald Dahl
159.  Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
160.  Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
161.  Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
162.  Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman
163.  Memoirs of a Geisha by Arhur Golden
164.  The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCollough
165.  Mort by Terry Pratchett
166.  The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton
167.  Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
168.  Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
169.  Perfume by Patrick Suskind
170.  The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell
171.  Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
172.  Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
173.  The Secret History by Donna Tratt
174.  The Women in White by Wilkie Collins
175.  Bleak House by Charles Dickens
176.  Double Act by Jacqueline Wilson
177.  The Twits by Ronald Dahl
178.  I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
179.  Holes by Louis Sachar
180.  Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
181.  The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
182.  Vicky Angel by Jacqueline Wilson
183.  Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
184.  Magician by Raymond E. Feist
185.  The Godfather by Mario Puzo
186.  The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
187.  The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
188.  Katherine by Anya Seton
189.  Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer
190.  Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
191.  Girl in Love by Jacqueline Wilson
192.  The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
193.  American Pastoral by Philip Roth
194.  The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
195.  Atonement by Ian McEwan
196.  Loving by Henry Green
197.  The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead
198.  Money by Martin Amis
199.  The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood
200.  The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
201.  The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
202.  The Bridge of San Louis Rey by Thorton Wilder
203.  Call it Sleep by Henry Roth
204.  The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
205.  The Corrections by Jonathen Franzen
206.  Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
207.  Neuromancer by William Gibson
208.  Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
209.  The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski
210.  Play it as it Lays by Joan Didion
211.  The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
212.  A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
213.  The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
214.  Falconer by John Cheever
215.  A Death in the Family by Elizabeth Bowen
216.  Ubik by Philip K. Dick
217.  Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone
218.  The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
219.  Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
220.  Possession by A.S. Byatt
221.  The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
222.  The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
223.  Rabbit, Run by James Updike
224.  Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
225.  Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
226.  Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
227.  Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
228.  The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth
229.  The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
230.  The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carre
231.  Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
232.  Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
233.  Herzog by Saul Bellow
234.  Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
235.  A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
236.  Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
237.  Under the Nest by Iris Murdoch
238.  Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
239.  White Noise by Don DeLillo
240.  White Teeth by Zadie Smith
241.  Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
242.  The Color Purple by Alice Walker
243.  Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
244.  Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally
245.  The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
246.  The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
247.  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
248.  Lady Chatterly's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
249.  The Awakening by Kate Chopin
250.  My Antonia by Willa Cather
251.  Howard's End by E.M. Forster
252.  Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
253.  Jazz by Toni Morrison
254.  Sophie's Choice by William Styron
255.  Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
256.  A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
257.  Orlando by Virginia Woolf
258.  Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
259.  Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
260.  Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
261.  A Separate Peace by John Knowles
262.  The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
263.  Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
264.  Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
265.  In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
266.  The Autobiography of Alice B. Tokias by Gertrude Stein
267.  The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
268.  O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
269.  The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
270.  The Bostonians by Henry James
271.  This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
272.  Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
273.  The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
274.  Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster
275.  The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov
276.  Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Prouse
277.  Tender Buttons:  Objects Food Rooms by Gertrude Stein
278.  Renascence and Other Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay
279.  The Wild Swans at Coole by William Butler Yeats
280.  Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello
281.  The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
282.  The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
283.  Gypsy Ballads by Federico Garcia Lorca
284.  The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue by W.H. Auden
285.  Waiting for Godot:  A Tragicomedy in Two Acts by Samuel Beckett
286.  Fitctions by Jorge Luis Borges
287.  The Life of the Bee by Maurice Maeterlinck
288.  Treatise on Radioactivity by Marie Sklodowska Curie
289.  The Meaning of Relativity by Albert Einstein
290.  A Field Guide to the Birds by Roger Tory Peterson
291. A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
292.  King Solomon's Ring:  New Light on Animal Ways by Konrad Z. Lorenz
293.  Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
294.  The Double Helix:  A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA by James Watson
295.  Smoking and Health (known as the Surgeon General's Report 1964)
296.  The Diversity of Live by Edward O. Wilson
297.  The Battle with the Slum by Jacob Riis
298.  The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B Du Bois
299.  Twenty Years and Hull House by Jane Addams
300.  The House on Henry Street by Lillian Wald
301.  The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens by Lincoln Steffens
302.  Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans
303.  Strange Fruit by Lillian Smith
304.  Growing Up Absurd by Paul Goodman
305.  The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
306.  And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts
307.  There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz
308.  Non-Violent Resistance by Mohandas K. Gandhi
309.  The Stranger by Albert Camus
310.  United Nations Charter (1945)
311.  Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
312.  The Family of Man:  The Photographic Exhibition Created by Edward Steichen for the Museum of Modern Art by Edward Steichen
313.  The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fannon
314.  Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb el-Salih
315.  Guerrillas by V.S. Naipaul
316.  The Bride Price by Buchi Emecheta
317.  The Emperor by Ryszard Kapuscinski
318.  I, Rigoberta Menchu by Rigoberta Menchu
319.  The Lover by Marguerite Duras
320.  Suicide:  A Study in Sociology by Emile Durkheim
321.  Studies in the Psychology of Sex by Havelock Ellis
322.  The Varieties of Religious Experience:  A Study in Human Nature by William James
323.  The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
324.  Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell
325.  Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead
326.  Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre
327.  The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by Dr. Benjamin Spock
328.  The Holy Bible
329.  The Courage to Be by Paul Tillich
330.  The Politics of Ecstasy by Timothy Leary
331.  On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
332.  The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim
333.  Dracula by Bram Stoker
334.  The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
335.  The Hound of Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
336.  Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
337.  Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey
338.  The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
339.  Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
340.  Ball Four:  My Life and Hard Times Throwing the Knuckleball in the Big Leagues by Jim Bouton
341.  Carrie by Stephen King
342.  The Age of Innocency by Edith Wharton
343.  Woman Suffrage and Politics:  The Inner Story of the Suffrage Movement by Carrie Chapman Catt and Nettie Rogers Shuler
344.  My Fight for Birth Control by Margaret Sanger
345.  Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston
346.  The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
347.  The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
348.  The Feminine Mystique by Betty Frieden
349.  I Know Why the Caged Birds Sing by Maya Angelou
350.  Sisterhood Is Powerful:  An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement by Robin Morgan
351.  Against Our Will:  Men, Women and Rape by Susan Brownmiller
352.  The Theory of the Leisure Class:  An Economic Study of Institutions by Thorstein Veblen
353.  The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber
354.  The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich A. von Hayek
355.  A Theory of the Consumption Function by Milton Friedman
356.  The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
357.  Superhighway-Super Hoax by Helen Leavitt
358.  Small Is Beautiful:  A Study of Economics as if People Mattered by E.F. Schumacher
359.  The Whole Internet:  User's Guide and Catalog by Ed Krol
360.  The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
361.  The Jewish State by Thedor Herzel
362.  Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens by J.M. Barrie
363.  Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
364.  Lost Horizon by James Hilton
365.  Walden Two by B.F. Skinner
366.  Armenian Atrocities:  The Murder of a Nation by Arnold Toynbee
367.  Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed
368.  The War Poems by Siegfried Sassoon
369.  The Good Soldier Schweik by Jaroslav Hasek
370.  Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
371.  All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
372.  The Gathering Storm by Winston Churchill
373.  Requiem by Anna Akhmatova
374.  Quotations from Chairman Mao by Mao Zedong
375.  Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee:  An Indian History of the American West
376.  The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956:  An Experiment in Literary Investigation by Aleksandr I. Sozhenitsyn
377.  Dispatches by Michael Herr
378.  Maus:  A Survivor's Tale (2 vol) by Art Spiegelman
379.  The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett
380.  The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
381.  The Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
382.  Platero and I; An Andalusian Elegy by Juan Ramon Jimenez
383.  Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
384.  Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home by Emily Post
385.  The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
386.  Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather
387.  The Joy of Cooking: A Compilation of Reliable Recipes with a Casual Culinary Chat by Irma S. Rombauer
388.  Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
389.  The Best of Simple by Langston Hughes
390.  The Complete Poems by Elizabeth Bishop
391.  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
392.  The Snowy Days by Ezra Jack Keats
393.  Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
394.  The Liars' CLub by Mary Karr
395.  Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
396.  Selected Stories by Alice Munro
397.  Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
398.  The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murikami
399.  Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
400.  Blindness by Jose Saramago
401.  Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates
402.  Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
403.  On Beauty by Zadie Smith
404.  On Writing by Stephen King
405.  The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
406.  The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
407.  Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
408.  The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
409.  Naked by David Sedaris
410.  Bel Canto By Anne Patchett
411.  Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
412.  Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch
413.  The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
414.  The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
415.  The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
416.  Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
417.  Birds of America by Lorrie Moore
418.  The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
419.  LaBrava by Elmore Leonard
420.  Borrowed Time by Paul Monette
421.  Praying for Sheetrock by Melissa Fay Greene
422.  Sandman by Neil Gaiman
423.  World's Fair by E.L. Doctorow
424.  The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kinsolver
425.  Clockers by Richard Price
426.  The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcom
427.  Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillian
428.  Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware
429.  The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
430.  The Night Manager by John le Carre
431.  Drop City by TC Boyle
432.  Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Dnticat
433.  Nickel & Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
434.  Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralnick
435.  Pastoralia by George Saunders
436.  Underworld by Don DeLillo
437.  A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace
438.  The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
439.  Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
440.  Secret History by Donna Tartt
441.  The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Ann Fadiman
442.  Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger
443.  Cathedral by Raymond Carver
444.  A Sight for Sore Eyes by Ruth Rendell
445.  Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
446.  Backlash by Susan Faludi
447.  Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
448.  The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
449.  High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
450.  Close Range by Annie Proulx
451.  Comfort Me With Apples by Ruth Reichl
452.  Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
453.  Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow
454.  Kaaterskill Falls by Allegra Goodman
455.  A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
456.  Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson
457.  The Predators' Ball by Connie Bruck
458.  Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
459.  A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
460.  The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
461.  Brothers Karamozov by Dostoevsky
462.  Don Quixote by Cervantes
463.  Cry the Beloved Country by Paton
464.  The Eagles Die by Marek
465.  Emotionally Weird by Atkinson
466.  Kitchen by Yoshimoto
467.  London Fields by Amis
468.  Moise and the World of Reason by Williams
469.  Movie Wars by Rosenbaum
470.  Tortilla Curtain by Boyle
471.  Wild Sheep Chase by Murakami
472.  Counterfeiters by Gide
473.  Blind Owl by Hedayat
474.  Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe
475.  Dealing With Dragons by Wrede
476.  The Earthsea Trilogy by Le Guin
477.  The Ecology of Fear by Davis
478.  History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
479.  How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Alvarez
480.  Kabuki:  Circle of Blood by Mack & Jiang
481.  Tristam by Shandy Sterne
482.  Well of Loneliness by Hall
483.  Wicked Pavilion by Powell
484.  Dora by Freud
485.  Babel 17 by Delany
486.  Empire Falls by Russo
487.  Girl in Landscape by Letham
488.  Ham on Rye by Bukowski
489.  Like Life by Lorrie Moore
490.  Mao II by Belillo
491.  Humboldt's Gift by Bellow
492.  Bastard Out of Carolina by Allison
493.  Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills by Bukowski
494.  Delta of Venus by Nin
495.  Ficciones by Borges
496.  Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
497.  On Photography by Sontag
498.  Shockproof Sydney Skate by Meaker
499.  Society of the Spectacle by Debord
500.  Strangers in Paradise by Moore
501.  Dubliners by Joyce
502.  The Breakfast of Champions by Vonnegut
503.  No Logo by Klein
504.  Aeneid by Virgil
505.  Ariel by Plath
506.  Enormous Changes at the Last Minute by Paley
507.  The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by McCullers
508.  Henry VIII by Shakespeare
509.  The Lost Continent by Bryson
510.  Master and Margarita by Bulgakov
511. Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington
512.  A Room of One's One by Viginia Woolf
513.  The American Language by H.L. Mencken
514.  The Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas
515.  The Frontier in American History by Frederick Jackson Turnery
516.  Black Boy by Richard Wright
517.  Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forester
518.  The Civil War by Shelpy Foote
519.  The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
520.  The Proper Study of Mankind by Isaiah Berlin
521.  The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand
522.  Dianetics:  The Modern Science of Mental Health by L. Ron Hubbard
523.  Objectivism:  The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff
524.  101 Things to do til the Revolution by Claire Wolfe
525.  The God of the Machine by Isabel Paterson
526.  Ayn Rand:  A Sense of Life by Michael Paxton
527.  The Ultimate Resource by Julian Simon
528.  Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
529.  Send in the Waco Killers by Vin Suprynowicz
530.  More Guns, Less Crime by John R. Lott
531.  Psychiatry:  The Ultimate Betrayl by Bruce Wiseman
532.  Fingerprints of the Gods by G. Hancock
533.  Classical Individualism:  The Supreme Importance of Each Human Being by Tibor Machan
534.  Free To Choose by Milton and Rose Friedman
535.  Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do by Peter McWilliams
536.  America's Great Depression by Murray N. Rothbard
537.  The Roosevelt Myth by John T. Flynn
538.  The True Believer by Eric Hoffer
539.  Vindicating the Founders by Thomas West
540.  The Declaration of Independence by Carl L. Becker
541.  Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders by Aaron T. Beck
542.  Death by Government by RJ Rummel
543.  Longitude by Dava Sobel
544.  Ordinarily Sacred by Lynda Sexson
545.  Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto
546. The Art of Memory by Frances Yates
547.  The Golden Bough by James Frazer
548.  Undaunted Courage:  Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen E. Ambrose
549.  A Modern Prophet by Harold Klemp
550.  The Flute of God by Paul Twitchell
551.  Real Presences by George Steiner
552.  Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
553.  Ways of Seeing by John Berger
554.  The Shadow University:  The Betrayl of Liberty on America's Campuses by Alan Charles Kors
555.  Property Matters:  How Property Rights Are Under Assault and Why You Should Care by James V. De Long
556.  Storming Heaven by Jay Stevens
557.  The Texan by C.S. Barrios
558.  Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
559.  An American Dilemma by Gunnar Myrdal
560.  The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould
561.  The Mirror and the Lamp by Meyer Howard Abrams
562.  The Art of the Soluble by Peter B. Medawar
563.  The Ants by Hoelldobler and Wilson
564.  Art and Illusion by Ernest H. Gombrich
565.  The Making of the English Working Class by E.P. Thompson
566.  Philosophy and Civilization by John Dewey
567.  On Growth and Form by D'Arcy Thompson
568.  Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein
569.  The Age of Jackson by Arthur Schlesinger
570.  The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
571.  Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West
572.  Science and Civilization in China by Joseph Needham
573.  Goodbye To All That by Robert Graves
574.  The Autobiography of Mark Twain by Mark Twain
575. Children of Crisis by Robert Coles
576.  A Study of History by Arnold J. Toynbee
577.  Present at Creation by Acheson
578.  The Great Bridge by David McCullough
579.  Patriotic Gore by Edmund Wilson
580.  Samuel Johnson by Walter Jackson Bate
581.  Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey
582.  Working by Studs Terkel
583.  Darkness Visible by William Styron
584.  The Liberal Imagination by Lionel Trilling
585.  The Second World War by Winston Churchill
586.  Jefferson and His Time by Dumas Malone
587.  In the American Grain by William Carlos Williams
588.  Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner
589.  The Sweet Science by A. J. Liebling
590.  The Open Society and it's Enemies by Karl Popper
591.  The Art of Memory by Frances A. Yates
592.  Religion and the Rise of Capitalism by R.H. Tawney
593.  A Preface to Morals by Walter Lippmann
594.  The Gate of Heavenly Peace by Jonathan D. Spence
595.  The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn
596.  The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward
597.  The Rise of the West by William H. McNeill
598.  The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
599.  James Joyce by Richard Ellman
600.  Florence Nightingale by Cecil Woodham-Smith
601.  The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell
602.  How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff
603.  But is it True? by Aaron Wildavsky
604.  A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper by John Allen Paulos
605.  Anatomy of Criticism by Northrop Frye
606.  The Mainspring of Human Progress by Henry Grady Weaver
607.  Modern Times by Paul Johnson
608.  Men to Match My Mountains by Irving Stone
609.  American Gay by James D. Watson
610.  The Sense of an Ending by Frank Kermode
611.  Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson
612.  The Western Canon by Harold Bloom
613.  The White Goddess by Robert Graves
614.  Healing Our World by Mary Ruwart
615.  Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
616.  Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia
617.  Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill
618.  A Life of One's Own by David Kelley
619.  Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
620.  The Discovery of Freedom by Rose Wilder Lane
621.  More Liberty Means Less Government by Walter Williams
622.  Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson
623.  The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
624.  Studies of Iconology by Erwin Panofsky
625.  The Face of Battle by John Keegan
626.  The Strange Death of Liberal England by George Dangerfield
627.  Vermeer by Lawrence Gowing
628.  A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan
629.  West With the Night by Beryl Markham
630.  The Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff
631.  A Mathematician's Apology by G.H. Hardy
632.  Six Easy Pieces by Richard P. Feynman
633.  Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
634.  Shadow and Act by Ralph Ellison
635.  The American Political Tradition by Richard Hofstadter
636.  The Contours of American History by William Appleman Williams
637.  The Promise of American life by Herbert Croly
638.  The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm
639.  The Taming of Chance by Ian Hacking
640.  Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott
641.  Melbourne by Lord David Cecil
642.  Libertarianism:  A Primer by David Boaz
643.  Beyond Liberal and Conservative by William Maddox and Stuart Lilie
644.  A Conflict of Visions:  Ideological Orgins of Political Struggles by Thomas Sowell
645.  Parliament of Whores by P.J. O'Rourke
646. Separating School and State:  How to Liberate America's Families by Sheldon Richman
647.  The Future and its Enemies by Virginia Postrel
648.  Why Government Doesn't Work by Harry Browne
649.  Out of the Crisis by W. Edwards Deming
650.  Not Out of Africa by Mary Lefkowitz
651.  The End of Racism by Dinesh D'Souza
652.  Behind the Mask by Ian Burma
653.  In A Dark Wood by Alston Chase
654.  Private Parts by Howard Stern
655.  The Telephone Book by Avital Ronell
656.  The Minuteman:  Restoring An Army of the People
657.  Waking and Dreaming by Joseph Hart
658.  Radical Son by David Horowitz
659.  The Greatest Story Never Told by Lana Cantrell
660.  Under the Sign of Saturn by Susan Sontag
661.  A Feeling for Books by Janice Radway
662.  The Hero of a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
663.  The Job by William Burroughs
664.  Silent Interviews by Samuel R. Delany
665.  Slats Grobnik and Some Other Friends by Mike Royko
666.  Rise of Unmeltable Ethnics by Michael Novack
667.  Reverse Angle by John Simon
668.  Placing Movies by Jonathon Rosenbaum
669.  Right from the Beginning by Patrick J. Buchanan
670.  Diplomacy:  Theory and Practice by G.R. Berridge
671.  A Dictionary of Diplomacy by G.R. Berridge
672.  Negotiating Across Cultures:  International Communication in an Interdependant World by Raymond Cohen
673.  Inside a U.S. Embassy:  How the Foreign Service Works for America by Shawn Dorman
674.  Arts of Power:  Statecraft and Diplomacy by Charles Freeman
675.  American Foreign Policy:  Theoretical Essays by John Ikenberry
676.  A World Restored:  Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Problems of Peace, 1812-22 by Henry Kissinger
677.  Inside an Embassy:  The Political Role of Diplomats Abroad by Robert Miller
678.  Diplomacy under a Foreign Flag:  When Nations Break Relations by David Newsom
679.  Diplomacy by Harold Nicolson
680.  Colossus:  The Price of America's Empire by Niall Ferguson
681.  Fixing Failed States:  A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World by Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart
682.  The Opportunity:  America's Moment to Alter History's Course by Richard Haass
683.  The United Nations, Iran, and Iraq:  How Peacemaking Changed by Cameron Hume
684.  The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel Huntington
685.  Untying the Afghan Knot:  Negotiating Soviet Withdrawl by Riaz Kahn
686.  America and the World:  How We are Different and Why We Are Disliked by Andrew Kohut and Bruce Stokes
687.  The Case for Goliath:  How America Acts As the World's Government in the Twenty-First Century by Michael Mandelbaum
688.  Promised Land, Crusader State:  The American Encounter with the World Since 1776 by Walter McDougall
689.  Special Providence:  American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World by Walter Russell Mead
690.  Inventing Public Diplomacy:  The Story of the United States Information Agency by Wilson Dizard
691.  America's Dialogue with the World by William Kiehl
692.  Soft Power:  The Means to Success in World Politics by Joseph Nye
693.  Communicating with the World:  U.S. Public Diplomacy Overseas by Hans Tuch
694.  Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations by William I. Cohen
695.  "Emperor Dead" and Other Historic American Diplomatic Dispatches by Peter Eicher
696.  Dangerous Nation by Robert Kagan
697.  The American Consul:  A History of the United States Consular Service 1776-1914 by Charles Kennedy
698.  John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy by Samuel Bemis
699.  Toussaint's Clause:  The Founding Fathers and the Haitian Revolution by Gordon Brown
700.  The American Ascendence:  How the United States Gained & Wielded Global Dominance by Michael Hunt
701.  The Congress of Vienna, A Study in Allied Unity:  1812-1822 by Harold Nicolson
702.  Uncle Sam in Barbary:  A Diplomatic History by Richard Parker
703.  Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power by Howard Beale
704.  Guests of the Ayatollah:  The Iran Hostage Crisis:  The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam by Mark Bowden
705.  The Cold War:  A New History by John Gaddis
706.  Two NATO Allies at the Threshold of War-Cyprus:  A Firsthand Account of Crisis Management 1965-1968 by Parker Hart
707.  Romania Versus the United States:  Diplomacy of the Absurd 1985-1989 by Roger Kirk and Mircea Raceanu
708.  The Ugly American by William Lederer
709.  Paris 1919:  Six Months that Changed the World by Margaret Macmillan
710.  In Retrospect:  The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam by Robert McNamara
711.  Vietnam and Beyond:  A Diplomat's Cold War Education by Robert Miller
712.  Peacemaking, 1919 by Harold Nicolson
713.  The Mission:  Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military by Dana Priest
714.  Losing the Golden Hour:  An Insider's View of Iraq's Reconstruction by James Stephenson
715.  Islam:  A Short History by Karen Armstrong
716.  Ozone Diplomacy:  New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet by Richard Benedick
717.  A Strategy for Stable Peace:  Towards a Euroatlantic Security Community by James Goodby
718.  The Outlaw Sea:  A World of Freedom, Chaos, and Crime by William Langewiesche
719.  Illicit:  How Smugglers, Traffickers and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy by Moises Naim
720.  The World is Flat:  A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Friedman
721.  The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers:  Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 by Paul Kennedy
722.  Commercial Diplomacy and the National Interest by Harry Kopp
723.  Business Solutions for the Global Poor Creating Social and Economic Value by V. Kasturi Rangan
724.  The End of Poverty:  Economic Possibilities for our Time by Jeffrey Sachs
725.  Financial Statecraft:  The Role of Financial Markets in American Foreign Policy by Benn Steil and Robert E. Litan
726.  Globalization, Biosecurity and the Future of Life Sciences by National Research Council
727.  Worldchanging:  A User's Guide for the 21st Century by Alex Steffen
728.  Beyond Change Management:  Advanced Strategies for Today's Transformational Leaders by Dean Anderson
729.  The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
730.  Crisis Leadership:  Using Military Lessons, Organizational Experiences, and the Power of Influence to Lessen the Impact of Chaos on the People You Lead by Gene Klann
731.  Thinking in Time:  The Uses of History for Decision-Makers by Richard Neustadt and Ernest May
732.  Developing Executive Talent:  Best Practices from Global Leaders 2007 by Jonathan Smilansky
733.  Defiant Diplomacy:  Henrik Kauffman, Denmark, and the United States in World War II and the Cold War 1939-1958 by Bo Lidegaard
734.  Chester Bowles:  New Dealer in the Cold War by Howard Schaffer
735.  Present at the Creation:  My Years in the State Department by Dean Acheson
736.  Foreign at Home and Away:  Foreign-born Wives in the U.S. Foreign Service by Margaret Bender
737.  Behind Embassy Walls:  The Life and Times of an American Diplomat by Brandon Grove
738.  Memoirs 1925-1950 by George Keenan
739.  American Diplomats:  The Foreign Service at Work by Charles Kennedy and William Morgan
740.  Realities of Foreign Service Life by Patricia Linderman
741.  Mr. Ambassador:  Warrior for Peace by Edward Perkins
742.  In Those Days:  A Diplomat Remembers by James Spain

No labels on this list...it's too long.  Unless I want to write:  crazy, looney tunes....etc...etc....

100 Reasons to Run a Marathon cuz 10 just doesn't cut it!

Since their isn't a natural reason to run a marathon...the first guy died (that should be a clue!)..I have decided to write 100 reasons TO run a marathon. I have ran two so I am considering myself an expert (come on that's funny...I don't even train for these things...okay..I started to but I got "sidetracked"... next time I will train...)

100. It's like a tattoo...you forget it hurts to complete...but then you are hooked (relax, Mom...your precious daughter still only has the one that brought shame to the family....HA! But I'm considering another).

99. Run your self-doubt into the ground. After completing a mararthon you feel like you can do anything.

98. When you burn nearly 2700 calories in one run...there is NO room in your vocabulary for "I'm on a diet."

97. That really awesome aroma you exude in the car on the way home...I think I will leave that description to your creative brain cells.

96. That wall you hit .2 miles in....it's awesome...

95. Gummy bears....gummy bears a whole lot of sweaty, stinky, runny nose wiping runner's hands grab in the middle of flu season.. I love me some gummy bears but I stayed away!

94. That guy in the lion suit standing on the flatbed of his truck singing "The Eye of the Tiger."

93. The scenery....

92. If you are really fast you can finish in 2-3 hours...not me...but maybe you!

91. Half-marathons are for wusses....

90. You lost a bet...

89. You can get that 26.2 sticker to put on your car declaring to the world you are insane.

88. It would be pretty cool to say "that's right. I qualified and ran the Boston Marathon."

87. You have decided to donate your body to medicine/science...

86. Carbloading!!!! Who doesn't love pasta and BREAD!!

85. More cowbell!!!

84. Masochistic tendencies...

83. Bubble bath..

82. Massages..

81. Runner's high.

80. No I promise, runner's high does exist..

79. Powergels and powerbars never tasted so good.

78. Beer run!

77. That really cool finisher medal... It's called a "finisher" medal for a reason...it's a big deal!

76. You have already skydived
(I haven't YET, but I'm a little crazy).

75. A nice foot massage..

74. Losing toenails and getting blisters (fortunately this isn't my problem!).

73. An excuse to wear really cool looking, tight fitting t-shirts and short shorts! For you to do that anyway not that old guy...


72. All the spectators are cheering for you

71. You just love that pain-filled feeling...

70. Run, Forest, Run

69. 50k is too far for you

68. Your shrink is out of town.

67. You are an overachiever

66. It's too nice out to go to the movies.

65. You are trying to buck the Americans are getting fatter trend.

64. You can buy new shoes.

63. The t-shirt!

62. I thought it was 26.2 feet...what did you sign me up for???

61. Where else is it cool to run to Shakira?

60. Unless you are getting passed by the juggler, you can consider yourself a success!

59. You are saving the environment! Human-hybrid.

58. Mmmmm....how good food looks when you can finally eat again!

57. Great excuse to sleep!!!!

56. You get to take atleast a week off to recover!

55. You have already ran with the bulls...(Yes, on my bucket list..don't hate it 'til you try it).

54. Guilt-FREE alcohol!

53. Guilt-FREE lazy bum

52. You can have an internal dialogue for 24 miles about just what Lady Gaga means by "disco stick.."

51. Runner's "do it" longer...

50. You are Type A

49. All the normal weekend warrior slots were filled up.

48. NFL/college football doesn't start until later in the day, you can do both and no one can call you lazy with a straight face.

47. You can walk anywhere looking like a train hit you, but as long as you have your finisher medal around your neck no one can judge.

46. The really flattering photos on MarathonFoto.com

45. Have I mentioned alcohol masks pain like Advil? My only medical advice DO NOT mix them!!!

44. You can go to Singapore and request a massage and no one can really question why you went...... I mean your legs were really sore...

43. Diving with sharks was fully booked for the weekend.

42. After party

41. Free Beer

40. Free Spaceblankets!!

39. Singing "hotel room serice" will never be this much fun, although dancing to it probably will be. "You can bring your girlfriends...."

38. Just finishing...

37. It makes you different

36. It's one thing no one can take it away.

35. So you can try a 50 miler next time.

34. Because the human body is a fascinating thing.

33. Runner's are hot!

32. Because you Livestrong.

31. 26 miles spread out over a week seems to take up too much time...Advocate procrastination do it in one day.

30. You use Advil like Fat Albert eats M & M's.

29. Because what is a bad running day?

28. Celebration cake!

27. Did I mention alcohol?

26. You can dance if you want to...

25. Every mile is a memory ...right, Dierks?

24. They'd do it too if they were you (say it with attitude like Madonna).

23. It's really not that far...

22. It really is that far but you can check that box!

21. Fight your internal demon!

20. No one else's time matters.

19. Guilt free doughnut holes! Awesome!

18. You can eat a horse everyday afterwards for a week!

17. That drunk without the hangover feeling...

16. Who doesn't love a runner?

15. Everyone checks out runners....you know you do! I do!

14. You can run to "Fire Burning"...the body is a masterpiece.....only one in a million years..". "Somebody call 911"

13. You would run it in 2 hours but you are like me and had enough trouble dwindling your marathon Itunes playlist to 4 hours of quality listening heaven!

12. Sportbeans! Sportbeans!

11. Gluttony no longer a deadly sin because you just permanently removed sloth from your vocabulary!

10. Human hybrid...again.


9. Because even you can surprise yourself.

8. You already scaled Everest.

7. The bragging rights are cool.

6. All the men complaining about their nipples chaffing....welcome to our world! Listen th the experts boys...it's one time sports bras become lifesavers! Lube men...lube!

5. You have an excuse to not shave for a week you can't bend over...

4. You are only sore for a few weeks.

3. IcyHot makes you smell great and irritates your skin enough to make you think it actually works!

2. You are crazy to say you are going to run a marathon.

1. Certifiable to actually finish one and do it again. Your friends say that with love. Wink. Wink. Yeah, with love.

Lurking....

Am I the only one who while using a computer likes to work without someone hanging over them.  


It is a major pet peeve of mine and always has been.  


I have never liked grade school teachers hanging over me watching and cringing as I misplace that decimal point in my math problem and they cringe.  I hadn't even had a chance to double check my work yet.  


I have never liked someone reading a few paragraphs of my unfinished story and I certainly never have liked anyone looking over my shoulder while I'm paying my credit card bill online.  It doesn't matter who you are.  It doesn't matter if I have known you all my life, if you are my best friend or my foe.  If I invite you to view something or ask for your opinion that is quite another story.  About the only thing I enjoyed people watching my every move was when I was coaching, playing basketball or softball myself.  I assume that is because we are all most confident in what we are the very best at.


I have come to the conclusion that no one should take offense to someone trying to protect what they are working on or protect the information that is dear to them whether it is intellectual or financial and let's face it if it is so hurtful that you can't lurk like a gargoyle over someone when they are working on something or you can't avoid asking twenty questions every time someone is typing furiously on a computer whether you are a friend, boss, wife, husband or other relative then there are much grander issues to contemplate.  The issue of trust.  


I find that many humans are inappropriately curious in their coworkers, friends and relatives lives.  How often are we in a hurry to spread or hear the newest rumor we hear around the water cooler?  How often do you spy what someone is working on when you are sitting on an airplane?  Is it our right?  Now imagine that being a friend or relative of yours...  Would you like them to include you by telling you themselves or would you rather keep running up to them begging to see it and telling them that if they trusted you...if you really loved them...if you were really friends you would share it... ?    Or would you like them to include you when the project, paper, thesis when they were done?  Would you like to see your birthday gift on your birthday?  


These are questions that we all need to ask ourselves.  Sometimes human beings need their own space.  They need to find out things on their very own.  They don't need someone hanging over their shoulder.  We don't always no the background. Some people's every move has been critiqued since the moment of their conception and some are simply shy and others still are perfectionists who seek to have some sort of idea well thought out prior to unleashing it to the wrath of what can be a cruel world.


I urge you to treat life as the French..   Slow down, have a glass of wine, enjoy your dinner, take a walk, watch a sunset...  And as hard as it may seem try to believe that not everything that happens is about you.  Not every conversation is about you.  Not everyone is out to get you.  Not everything is a secret.  Not everything is a sin.  Understand that things will be that are supposed to be.  


Don't force what shouldn't be forced.  


Most importantly place yourself in another position.  Would you like the neighbors to take in your every move through the windows even if you have nothing to hide?  It is disrespectful to do the same thing to our friends and family.  Even more so.

Compassion

I have always had a question in my head.  I can hear the laughter now, and I know it's not simply the laughter that manifests itself in my head but it's yours or the laughter of those who know me.


Truth is I have many questions.  I often feel that my opinion is the most logical.  I don't mean that I am always right.  I am far from it.


The question I pose is how does one make a difference?


I understand that not everyone will be Mother Theresa or Gandhi or solve cancer.  The cancer one would be great wouldn't it?  How amazing would it be the one who wiped all of our tears away?  Cancer has touched us all in so many ways, how amazing would it feel to be that scientist?  The scientist who cures cancer will become instantaneously rich, but something tells me the money won't be the real reward.  


I don't believe it ever is.


I have received the frightened phone calls from friends stricken in worry that they or a close relative have cancer.  I have sat waiting and praying for the call that said "the coast is clear."  We have all been there.  Some of us have cried the happy tears or remission others the sad tears of a life that was taken too early.


So, if we can't be the ones with the scientific prowess or talent to solve that mystery...or we don't have the exact saintly qualities of a Mother Theresa or the calm and patience of Gandhi?


We continue to do the little things that matter.  We show compassion even when we are hurting ourselves.  We show love even when we feel something is missing.  We run even when we feel like walking.  We get up even when the lines under our eyes are as deep as the Grand Canyon.  


Compassion.  


Compassion is a way to make sure that your life makes a difference to someone else.  


When I was in the first grade, I brought a garden spider to class for show-and-tell.  


The garden spider escaped and made a web high up in the corner of the ceiling.  Rather than sweep it clear and kill it.  Or leave it be to it's Darwinian fate.  My teacher put up a sign on the wall indicating:


"Kim's spider.  Please leave web."


It's simple.  But, I will always remember that.  


Truth is you never know what people will remember.  


You never can be sure just what will make a difference or brighten someone's day or what they will remember for a lifetime.


A smile.


A thank you.


A held open door.