First off, thank you so much for your answers. This site is so helpful and the people here so friendly, it's been great!
I guess my biggest problem is in my massive collection. In my younger feeverish days, I amassed a canon of videos and books, skimmed em for a few good tricks and then went on to the next big thing. I have been doing that since I started, always feeling the effect of "not having the best" and wanting more. I am such a victim of advertising. (*)
Now, at 44, I turn and look back at this HUGE pile and think. There is several lifetimes of magic in there. I don't need to go forward, I need to go back. In every other part of my life, I have had a teacher, a mentor, but in magic... it's very solitary and you end up learning magic from the internet, which... like has been said earlier... has no rules.
I kind of like rules. Especially when I learn. I value someone smarter and wiser than me telling me where to go. After all, I don't know much - even after having done magic for 20 years. I can still say, "Yea, I'm a noob." (ha ha)
* Just to give you an idea, I'm going to post my library in my introduction thread
http://aethercards.com/discourse/introduce-yourself/magic-orthodoxy-from-texas-california-and-regions-beyonf/