The title space is intimidating so this post shall remain nameless

I had lots of ideas for my first post, but then I got sidetracked by the blinking bar calling to me in the title space. I felt pressured to name my work before I'd even met it yet. I think a better place for the title space to be is at the end of the post; it's less unnerving there.
Recently I went to Africa (oh, how I love saying that!) and I plan to write much about my whole adventure, but not today. Today (or more accurately the night preceding this day) I thought about reading and writing. I've quietly lurked around good writing blogs and blogs of readers I admire for quite a while. I want to be friends with the people I find there, but friendship is a two-way street. I love these blog writers for putting their true selves out there, for writing true truths. It's easy for me to contemplate writing like that for people who don't know me, but will the people who do know me still love me? Yikes.
I'm interested in gentle constructive criticism of what you read here. I can't do much about the content (it's just what's in my head and in my life) but I am interested in your thoughts on my presentation. I think my writing tends to the overblown and wordy with a sprinkling of mild arrogance sometimes mixed in. Sometimes I think my personality's a lot the same. If so, both could use improvement.
I'm also interested in what you're reading and what you have read that's mattered to you. I read a lot, but I often forget to record what I've read. I'm going to do better at that, mostly because I love talking with people who can remember books that resonated (which is the perfect word-I love to think of violin strings vibrating long after the fingers have stopped playing) with them and why. I feel foolish when I can't contribute because I can't remember. Plus I think no one really believes that I read anything worthwhile if I can't remember it in a pinch.
Right now I'm reading Lonesome Dove, Olive Kittredge, and The Day the Falls Stood Still. Well, I'm kind of reading Lonesome Dove. I got bogged down a few hundred pages in so I flipped through till I found a section that interested me and picked back up from there. Is that cheating? When I'm at the library I like to read the first few pages and the last few pages before I check something out. The last few pages are important because I can usually tell from them if the conclusion warrants reading the whole dang thing. Not always, though-plenty of times I've brought a book home, picked it up, and then wondered what I was thinking when I checked it out.
So, timshel. East of Eden is one of my favorite books of all time, one that I actually can remember reading. Well, really, the first half is my favorite. I don't care for Aron and Cal particularly. They're kind of superfluous-I think the story is really Adam's. Anyway, timshel is (according to John Steinbeck) the English spelling translation of the original Hebrew word God uses when speaking to Cain after Cain has murdered Abel. I've thought about researching it to find it if it's really accurate or not, but I like leaving magic alone sometimes. And the basic idea, that we MAY choose, I believe. It's maybe the core of all I believe. It's why my religion makes sense to me and how I make sense of the world around me. We're none of us stuck where we're at right now-there's always room for 'thou mayest' make a different choice.