I have
always been a very
driven, goal oriented person. It is one
of the reasons I did well in the software business for so long, I was able to
strive toward a goal; work to a
deadline and pull many (sometimes unwilling) colleagues along with me, by sheer
force of will (and occasional threats of violence).
But it
is very difficult to set goals when you are chronically ill. Surprisingly (to
me), even the small goals proved a challenge.
I
tried. I took some classes. I had to drop out of the PhotoShop class halfway
through because I was having seizures or auras.
I stopped the yoga class because they were doing a lot of moves that are
ill advised for a person with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and/or Syringomyelia. I kept
having to bail on my neighbour for our dog-walking runs because of seizures
and fatigue or pain. I was fired from Physical Therapy because I kept having
seizures there. And I grew tired of missing goals I set for myself around the
house (like repaint the upstairs bathroom, which is tiny); unable to perform
them due to pain, fatigue, seizures or dizziness.
There
are a lot of things I would like to do and learn. Ambitious (and currently
impossible) projects like an MBA aside; there are many classes I would like to
attend, just for laughs: Knife skills, sewing, ballroom dancing, (an ambitious one, that), yoga, pilates,
pottery, jewelry making, beading, painting -... the list is endless! But right
now, I can't do it. I cannot spend money I don't have on a class I may not be
able to attend. It is very limiting. And
soul destroying.
Recently,
my seizures and dizziness have been even worse, leaving me even more bored and
isolated. I have been spending less time on the computer because the screen
bothers my eyes. I was stuck for something to do, because I CANNOT sit and watch
telly for hours on end. I knit until my hands hurt. I listened to all my CD a gazillion times, got bored with all of them, but was too poor or stingy to seek new music. So I finally renewed my
relationship with the public library.
Cool.
And I
decided that now is the perfect time; -while I am pretty disabled, and until I
can get some decent treatment, to do something I had been meaning to do for
many years. Read some classic novels. Oh
yeah baby! Here is an opportunity to set
some goals AND to improve my tiny little mind.
My butt may suffer, but it was suffering anyway. Without good medical guidance,
there is no helping the butt right now.
I decided to set myself a list of 26 classic
novels to read, one for each letter of the alphabet. When I am finished that
list I will assign myself another one. I was unsure where to begin, so I shouted
out to my Facebook friends for some recommendations which they readily gave
(thank you!). And then I gathered a few
"100 best..." lists off the Internet, went through those and -somewhat
randomly- came up with my final list. I thought to keep it to one per letter of
the alphabet where possible, because that would place some books on there that
I probably would not have chosen otherwise -just to mix things up a bit. And it
stops me from reading only books that start with "G" or
"H", or from reading six books by the same author at once; both habits
towards which I gravitate.
There are some obvious holes in this list because I may have read the book already a gazillion times, (Wuthering Heights) or because I just couldn't be arsed (Ulysses). I couldn't find any J, K, X and Q books, so I substituted those with a few other letters. I am sharing this list just to keep myself honest (but I reserve the right to stop reading a book if I hate it)!
A
Anna Kerenina by Leo Tolstoy
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
B
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
C
Cat's
Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Crime
and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
D
Dracula by Bram Stoker
E
Enders's Game by Orson Scott Card
F
Frankenstein by Mary Shelly
G
Germinal by Emile Zola
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
H
A Handful of Dust Evelyn
Waugh
(Mrs whatsername with the hand-knit Fair Isle sweaters from high school will be
happy that I finally crossed something off me High school reading list after
all these years. Although I didn't
realize until today that Waugh wrote "Brideshead Revisited", which I
had read before high school, or I might
have lost one less brownie point from her.)
The Heart of the Matter by Graham
Greene
I
I , Claudius by Robert Graves
(loved the TV series with Derek Jacoby!)
L
Loving by Henry Green
M
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
N
Nostromo
by Joseph Conrad
O
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
by Ken Kesey
P
Play it As It Lays by Joan Didion
R
Ragtime
by E.L. Doctorow
S
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
T
Tender
is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
U
Under
the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
V
V. by Thomas Pynchon
W
The
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Y
Yarrow by Charles de Lint
Z
Zuleika
Dobson by Max Beerbohm
I have no idea how long this will take me, and I am setting myself no timeframes for completion of this task. The satisfaction should be in the journey, anyway.
I hope.
Wha...no Jodi Picoult;)
Posted by: Roanmom | June 09, 2009 at 10:40 PM
That looks like quite a journey to enjoy.
Hey, are you on goodreads? I have a list of books I've read/am reading/want to read on there. It's handy. :) Although I haven't looked at it in a while...
Posted by: Quirky Mom | June 09, 2009 at 10:44 PM
Roanmom,
Feck off!
QM,
No. No goodreads. I am on ...something. I forgot what. But I couldn't be arsed with a lot of that stuff, to be honest. If I want to discuss a book, I prefer to do it with someone I know and care about.
And the level I go into is "I liked it" or "I hated it" I couldn't be bothered analyzing what we think the author might be thinking. I'm sure the author had a therapist for that ;)
OSM
Posted by: One Sick Mother | June 09, 2009 at 11:20 PM
Interesting list you've got there, OSM! You've inspired me to create a list of my own for the summer. Even though I've read lots and lots of the great books -- that happens when you teaching English and Comparative Literature -- there are still more than enough of them for me to make a decent list. I think I'll order them by author just to be different.
Posted by: Carleen | June 10, 2009 at 10:31 AM
I really need to proofread before I click on that POST button -- "when you teaching. . ." ROFL!!
Posted by: Carleen | June 10, 2009 at 10:32 AM
Hello from the UK. If it helps I am exactly the same with regard to achievable goals - I have EDS Hypermobility Type (formerly K/A Type III) so I guess the goalposts constantly move for me with regard to goals. Keep blogging you are an inspiration.
Posted by: achelois | June 11, 2009 at 08:39 PM