Don't worry about reading SICP or becoming an expert at some technology. That will come automatically over time. Just choose one stack for your side project and go with it.
It doesn't matter if you code your project in C, clojure, or ruby. What matters is that you produce something that you feel good about. If you make a goal to produce something good, you will learn the technologies and you will become a good hacker over time.
I write all this because I was in the same position as you a couple years ago, so I scrapped my ambition of reading theoretical CS books and learning all the latest hot new technologies (I will do all that stuff later). I decided I'd make a game, and learn what I need to add the features that I imagined. And I progressed. It was so much more fun that way.