It’s like we never learned the lesson from Mitt. Binders full of women or men will never work out in the long run.

I am trying to remain steadfast. It’s just hard when every other post on Facebook is of someone getting engaged or married or having a baby.

Ok, fair - so maybe a binder that lists both, with section 1: strengths/reasons why you want to date me and section 2: flaws/reasons why you don’t want to date me.

I’m inclined to say no because my binder would be a foot high, also with appendices featuring diagrams, and footnotes so in depth, they might as well just be in the actual writing itself. And though I know that I am awesome and brilliant and accomplished and motivated, my problems got problems.

That’s the thing: it would work with a very thorough binder that had both strengths and weaknesses, but otherwise it isn’t helpful. In my case, for instance: I like to think people would appreciate my desire to buy thoughtful gifts, love of giving backrubs, and empathetic listening—but would that be successfully…

UNLEASH...the BINDER OF STRENGTHS!!!

That’s a great accomplishment! I love reading giant books. :-) Every New Years, I do a reading challenge. 2014, I read 100 books, 2015, I read all of Dickens, 2016, all of Shakespeare, this year, I’m rereading all of George Eliot’s novels. It’s a fun thing I like to do every year to stretch myself.

The assholes who aren’t buying new and good characters, not the publishers who are publishing them.

I think most of my dates can already see my binder. I am attempting to hide it better, but it is a cumbersome and unwieldy foe.

i never knew i could enjoy a book so much that spent so much time making references to whale penises. but melville makes it work.

i put off reading moby dick (even though i inherited a nice old hardcover edition from my dad) for a long time because i thought it would be a dull slog. i ended up falling in love with ishmael’s (and melville’s) humour and simple and poetic profundity. it was both dark and delightful.

Yes it is, I had to read it as part of Enligh IV AP my senior year but we had like 5 or 6 weeks to read it or something I finished that thing in a week. I took it with me to all my classes and read it in free time. I couldn’t put it down. Easily one of my favorite stories I’ve read.

I get sucked into books when…

I finally read Confessions of an English Opium Eater. I’ve also successfully meal planned for 5 days. Oh, and I’m doing my K skin care regime twice a day and the difference it has made is amazing.

I am doing an analysis for my PhD that literally no one else in my department (and certainly not my advising committee) understands. I barely do....

I love Dumas! You get the cache of reading Classic Literature, but they all end up being big revenge/adventure/romance novels - pure entertainment!

I totally get this. As a kid I read Matilda and wanted so much to be like her. I read voraciously and wanted to some day read the whole list of classics it claims she read. I think I’ll start that this week. I’ve only read about half.

If you like maximalist fiction, big sprawling epics like War and Peace, you might like Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon. It may be the funniest book I’ve ever read, with hundreds of scenes that made me chuckle or burst out laughing. It is from M&D that I learned of this:

Clearly they didn’t grow up wishing that Atticus Finch was their dad. Teaching Scout to read before she started school was part of the reason I loved To Kill A Mockingbird so much.

I’m hoping to stand apart from the 12 people a week who suck ass. I’m very very much looking forward to getting onto my next “thing” (which includes looking up the company - glad I’m already going to stand apart on that point!