My life is an open book

Well, actually, my life is reflected in how I react to books. Really, life is reflected in how we react to everything. But books are what I'm talking about now.

Yeah. It's Monday.

So it's been a while since I updated on resolution progress. As for running and paying off the car...yep. Still doing both. Making progress, although not as much as I would like to make.

Same goes for the books, but here is the progress that I have made. It seems that I'm taking longer to read than I normally would because the books I'm reading strike me with something about my life. I've been more introspective than usual lately (which means it's amazing that I leave the house at all) - writing in my paper journal more. So these "reviews" may give a little away about the books, but they're really more about how the books affected me.

Ok, since I'm even boring myself here, I'll move on.

Previously, in coffeesnob's journal...
1. The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning
2. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
3. Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller
4. Flipped by Wendelin van Draanen
5. Yeah, I said it by Wanda Sykes
6. Found in Translation by Kim Moor
7. My Point...and I do have one by Ellen DeGeneres
8. Why Girls are Weird by Pamela Ribon
9. Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith by Rob Bell

And now....
( 10. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd )

( 11. Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella )

( 12. The Velveteen Woman: Becoming Real Through God's Transforming Love by Brenda Waggoner )

I'm about a third of the way through the next one - Down to the Dirt. It's a little different than I'm used to reading. Someone in Toronto called it Angry Young Man Fiction. Interesting. I picked it up because I am always thinking, whenever I read something by certain feminist authors, "If only ____ (insert name of one of a myriad of highly conservative Texas men that I am graced to know) would read this and really try to understand, it would do him a world of good." It's so easy to say, "If you would just...it would be good for you," until you = me. I have this compulsion. I want to help people undertand others who are very different from themselves. And in Texas, particularly when I go to visit The Parents in West Texas, I'm that weird other. But I can't make other people understand my point of view. Sure, I can share it - and it's my responsibility to do so if I want to be heard. But I can't make them want to listen. Even if I can get them to agree that it is good for us as humans to hear things we don't agree with, they usually just take that as an invitation to share their point of view. I get a lot of chances to understand things outside my bubble. In that sense, Texas is a friggin' cornucopia of opportunity. But I can't make anyone want to return the favor.

What I can do is be the change I want to see in the world (thanks for the tip, Gandhi). I can choose to listen - not just to the messages which inevitably bombard me, but to those that would never reach me unless I decide to become a willing audience. So picking up this book is my decision to do just that.

So far, so good. I'm not as offended as I expected to be. I am expecting to disagree with a lot of the attitudes portrayed - either by a character or by the author himself - but so far, I'm finding that angry young men and angry young women are more similar than different. It's been interesting so far.