In the weeks leading up to my thirtieth birthday, I began making a conscious list of thirty things I wanted to accomplish in my thirtieth year. I’ve never been good at making, and sticking to, New Year’s resolutions and so I thought it would be fun to attempt a Thirty Whilst Thirty list. One of the first things that popped into my mind was Read 30 Books. It didn’t seem challenging enough to simply read 30 books, so I decided that I would Read 30 New Books. New as in a book I’ve never read before. I ran it by Clark Kent and asked him if he wanted to come on board. He did! So, as part of our joint birthday celebration in London, we went to a couple of used bookstores on Charing Cross Road in search of our first of thirty books. Nothing jumped out to either of us and so I thought it’d be best to wait until his birthday outing in town on June 30. We could go to our local Oxfam and surely there’d be something good for each of us!
I was right! Within five minutes of arriving at Oxfam, we each found what we were looking for: Wicked for me and Fast Food Nation for CK. I have known about Wicked, both book and musical, for years now and resisted it as I labeled it Too Trendy and Definitely Not for Me! I guess all those trips to London in the last 8 months and seeing the Wicked posters in the Tube stations served to begin turning me until a few weeks ago when I said, “I really want to see Wicked!” And so, I’m 50 pages in and CK and I made a deal: when I finish the book, we can in turn book two tickets to the show.
I’m giving myself until June 30, 2010 to complete my 30 New Books challenge. That’s exactly 2.5 books a month.
As for the other twenty-nine items on my Thirty Whilst Thirty list: I’ll be revealing each item on my list as I start or check it off the list.
