Creative Writing Professor Calls Creative Writing Degree “A Waste Of Time”

A professor who teaches Creative Writing at a university in Kingston had some decidedly harsh words for his field of study:

Creative writing courses are a “waste of time”, according to the novelist – and creative writing teacher – Hanif Kureishi, who says that “a lot of my students just can’t tell a story”. . . They can write sentences but they don’t know how to make a story go from there all the way through to the end without people dying of boredom in between. It’s a difficult thing to do and it’s a great skill to have. Can you teach that? I don’t think you can,” said Kureishi.

Ouch.

But is he wrong?

I graduated from the University of Arizona in 2010 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Creative Writing. I feel that this gives me some perspective on Kureishi’s criticism, even if novelist Lucy Ellman agrees with Kureishi and claims that she “can’t stand it when authors announce they have a degree in creative writing. So what? They’re a dime a dozen.” I guess she’s talk about people like me. Again, ouch.

I don’t think a Creative Writing degree is going to make you into a writer any more than getting a Music degree will turn you into a world-class musician.  Most of the students who enter such programs will likely stop writing once they finish. Few who graduate with such a degree will go on to publish.

Even when I was in the program, I could tell that many of my peers weren’t going to be writers and that there was nothing the professor could do to make them into such. I would even go as far to say that some of my classes were relatively worthless to me as well.

However.

I had the same professor for my final two classes. I won’t post his name out of respect for privacy, but he’d published a few books before teaching those classes and last I heard, he’d gone on sabbatical to write another book. His comment on the first day of his class stuck with me to this day: “if you need to get an A in this class to keep your scholarship or keep your GPA up, register for another class.”

It was a terrifying and sobering warning.

His were the best two classes I ever had. It took me five years to get my degree and all of that time was worth it just for those two classes.

That sort of speaks to Kureishi’s point in that an entire Creative Writing program isn’t worth it. His advice is to find one really good teacher. And he’s right, that would be better. I think of how much time and money I could have saved if I’d been able to pair up right with my one professor from the very beginning.

Sadly, that’s not something that most of us can do. You don’t know who’s going to be “that one professor” for your work and often you don’t realize it until your time with that individual is over.

So while I agree with Kureishi’s point that most of the people who enroll in Creative Writing can’t tell stories and I agree that having a mentor would be better than a program, I look at my own choices and I see the chain that led me to a teacher who helped me write the best work of my life.

I’m hesitant to ever make judgments about my fellow writers because such things reek of ego-massaging. Author Matt Haig said something similar in the same article”

“To say, as Hanif Kureishi did, that 99.9% of students are talentless is cruel and wrong. I believe that certain writers like to believe they arrived into the world with special, unteachable powers because it is good for the ego,” said Haig.

More has been said about the relationship between talent and hard work than I could ever hope to summarize in a single blog post. I try not to believe in some mysterious, super-special writing powers to describe why I do what I do. I like to imagine that what I’ve managed to do so far comes more from the fact that I read a lot and I write a lot and over time I’ve managed to learn a few things along the way.

The Creative Writing degree may not be valuable for everyone who earns it. It might be a waste of time and money for 99.9% of the people , exactly as Kureishi says. If I had the choice to start over, I’d still study it. I don’t know if I’m worthy enough to be considered in Kureishi’s elite 0.1% of students according to his estimation, but I certainly feel that way about myself.

On a side note, I also can’t imagine how emotionally cutting it would be to have be one of Kureishi’s students and read this article. It certainly can’t feel very good to know that your professor basically told the world that you suck.

Apparently, Fencing Isn’t For Adults

This is a post about fencing, as in sword fighting. Not fencing as in building fences around things. This is a crucial difference that search engines don’t seem to understand. When you Google fencing, you’re going to learn a lot about the cost of installing convenient and attractive fences around your property. I was thinking about a nice picket fence for myself until I remembered that I live in a second-story apartment building.

I started boxing last summer and I really enjoy it. It’s good to feel in shape again. I’ve been idly contemplating trying some other forms of physical activity to complement my current training. I don’t really feel the need to go back into a martial art since I’m already learning how to hit people with my hands.

What I really want to learn is how to hit people with a sharp piece of metal. I want to learn fencing because I’m a nerd and nerds seem drawn to swords as a general trend.

I did an idle Google search the other day and came up with a few websites about fencing classes local to my area. The initial results were not encouraging. Most hadn’t been updated in over five years.

Regardless, I plunged ahead and finally located a phone number that was in service. I called it and a woman answered. I was expecting the usual greeting: “thank you for calling such-and-such academy of stabby things, this is . . .”

Instead, my call is answered with a curt “Yes?”

“Uh,” I say. “I found this number because I was looking for fencing classes.”

“Yeah, yeah, I do fencing,” the woman on the other end of the phone says.

Well, okay, that’s encouraging. We got off to a rocky start but at least I’ve found something more promising than an abandoned website. I ask her if she’s taking new students; she says she is. I ask her if she’s taking complete beginners, she says yes, as long as they’re already in shape.

Translation: Fatties need not apply.

I assure her that I’m fairly active and I’m in good shape, which is true.

I ask about her specialty and what style of fencing she teaches. I learned from my reading online that there are three kinds of fencing weapons: foil, epee, and saber.

Saber sounds like the most fun to me because it involves both slashing as well as stabbing movements. The various guides I read said it’s traditional to learn foil first before moving on to the others.

Whatever, I just want to have a sword in my hand and learn how to poke people with it, all in the name of sport and fitness, of course.

She explains the tradition of starting with foil, “because it’s the hardest” before moving on to the other styles. I don’t mention that I think saber sounds the coolest. I get the feeling it won’t earn me any points here.

I ask about prices, which are higher than I expected but not outside of my means.

I’m just about to ask if I can come for a trial class to see if I like it when she asks me “how old is your child?”

“Uh,” I say. “My child?”

“Yes,” she says impatiently. “How old is your child? I don’t work with kids under 10. They don’t have enough focus.”

“Oh,” I say, glad this is a phone call so she can’t see my embarrassment even as I’m certain she can hear it in my voice. “No, I’m asking about classes for an adult. For myself.”

“This is an after-school program,” she says.

“So . . . ” I venture, hoping for more information. When none is forthcoming, I take a stab at it. “So not for adults?”

Her silence indicates that I’m either correct or an idiot for asking an obvious question. Perhaps both.

“Do you take adult students?” I ask. “Ever?”

Surely I can’t be the only person who has decided at the doddering old age of twenty-seven to decide, you know, I think I’d like to learn a new sport!

I’m sure adults try this sort of thing all the time. After all, this feels like an adult sport. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that the signature of any adult sport is how much gear you need to buy or rent. You can’t just pick up a ball from the sporting goods store when you’re a grown-up. You need to have gear and that gear is always expensive. I can’t walk out of an REI without dropping a hundred bucks when all I went there for was a dehydrated meal and a map book.

Apparently, I’m wrong about adults and fencing. It seems the fencing instruction train left when I was a wee lad and I didn’t even realize it because I was born to parents who preferred the unrefined barbarism of football rather than the civilized art of poking holes in people with sharp metal bits. They missed their opportunity to raise a world-class fencer, even though at the time, I certainly would have hated it.

“Sometimes we do adult classes in the summer,” she says without conviction. “When the kids are off doing competitions or out of school. Try calling back in May, we might have something for you.”

Translation: We don’t do adult classes ever. The fact that you want to try this is laughable. Go away, old person. Go away and be old somewhere else.

Sigh.

I promise I’ll call back in May to see about starting a class. We hang up. The whole experience was vaguely bewildering. I’m still coming to terms with the fact that I’m now past my prime for wanting to learn something new.

The only things I’m certain of, besides my waning mortality, is that I won’t be calling back in May and that my fencing career is over before it even began.

A Meditation On Blu-ray And DVD: How Game Of Thrones Showed Me That I’m A Second Class Consumer

I own five movies on Blu-ray: Inception, 127 Hours, and the original Star Wars trilogy. I recently purchased Game of Thrones Season 3 on Blu-ray. I do not own a Blu-ray player. I do not own a PS3 or a PS4. I do not, in fact, have any way to play these Blu-ray discs. But I still own them. Why?

I own these Blu-ray discs because I wanted the DVD versions of these movies and that meant my only option was buying the Blu-ray discs that came included with the Blu-rays. As far as I can tell, there is no standalone DVD collection to buy, much as there wasn’t for any of my other purchases. At least the price was right; I picked up the entire season for just under $30 on Amazon. Hilariously, it came with not only the DVD and the Blu-ray versions, but also a code for a digital download of the entire season, because why not. I can put it on my laptop since that machine doesn’t have a disc drive.

I understand why they’re doing it this way. Even though Blu-ray killed off its rival format HD-DVD in the high definition disc format wars of 2008, Blu-ray has failed to displace its true rivals, the humble DVD and the ability to stream video instantly from services like Netflix.

The frustrating part is that eventually, I know this strategy will win out. When I opened my first Blu-ray box to retrieve the DVD I wanted to watch, I smirked. How foolish it would be for me to buy a new Blu-ray player simply because I owned a single Blu-ray disc that I didn’t even want!

But now that I have five movies and a season of my favorite show and it doesn’t seem quite so silly. At this point, why wouldn’t I buy one?

Even though this has been going on for a while, the third season of Game of Thrones is the first product I’ve purchased that indicated to me just how thin distributors’ patience is with my DVD watching shenanigans. It’s pretty clear at this point that my preference for DVD means I’m a second class consumer. They really want me to stop what I’m doing and get a Blu-ray player. Here’s how I know this.

When you open the Game of Thrones box set, you immediately notice the absolutely gorgeous case design. The plastic sleeve creates the shadow of the dragon on the cover and it looks amazing. When you open the box, you’re treated to the detailed portraits of the main characters. This is a detail that’s been included in each DVD set thus far, but it’s still cool to see the development reflected in the characters’ faces. Jaime isn’t looking too good these days.

As you unfold the box set, the long row of gleaming discs spreads out before you, each one new and shiny. These are the Blu-ray discs and they look and feel absolutely lovely. But where are the DVDs?

For a moment, there is panic! Maybe you only thought you were ordering a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack from Amazon. Maybe you didn’t pay close enough attention . . .

Oh, wait. What’s that tucked underneath the box of gleaming discs with its handsome portraits?

A tiny little sleeve about the thickness of an envelop with two discs stuffed inside. Two discs? How can Game of Thrones fit on two discs? Oh. These are two double-sided discs. It’s all crammed in there. Well, at least you have all the episodes to watch, even if the double-sided means you’re forever going to be putting the disc in on the wrong side relative to the episode you want to watch.

When you put them side-by-side, the disparity is obvious. The Blu-ray consumer has a handsome case with its shadow-dragon sheath, its portraits, and its girth; nearly an inch thick when folded up.

The DVD consumer has a thin cardboard envelop.

I’ll still watch and enjoy my DVDs. But every time I open the case to retrieve them, I’ll notice my Blu-ray discs sitting untouched in their gleaming beauty, all the while whispering silently: Watch us instead. Buy a Blu-ray player. Give in to our marketing strategy . . .

Arizona SB 1062 Postmortem: President Obama’s Silence

Political bloggers and pundits have been talking for a few days about the fact that President Obama hasn’t publicly spoken out against Arizona SB 1062, even as others on the national political did. Both Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake spoke against the bill. Even Mitt Romney is on the record calling for a veto. But not Obama.

If you’ll allow me to be cynical for a while (and you really should, because it’s part of the title of this blog), I think this is reflective of an understanding of the heat Obama’s presence brings to any particular issue. Republicans might be fragmented and on the verge of splitting into two (or even three!) different parties, they might be realizing that hardline religious conservatism is a bad marriage for fiscal conservatism, but damn it, if there’s one thing that can bring those crazy kids back together, it’s how much they hate Obama and his progressive-fascist-socialist-liberal-anarchist-whatever-ist agenda.

If Obama made a comment on this issue, I think it’s a safe bet that Republicans would bunker down together and tell Washington “stay the eff out of our business” and promptly pass the bill into law. Would Jan Brewer, who was the last line of defense against this bill and is pretty famous for not really getting along with the President, have bunkered down with the rest of her party if the President had tried to tell her what to do?

Considering how the current Republican strategy is exactly that (do the opposite of everything the President wants to do), I think it’s likely.

It’s not like Obama needed to weigh in on SB 1062. His base isn’t going to start wondering, hey, does the President dislike gays? We know he’s our guy on this.

I think Democrats have realized the aggro effect Obama has on Republicans and hopefully this silence on 1062 indicates that they’ve realized how to weaponize it. Silence from the President denied the Republican party its one source of glue which allowed the fractures to widen; fractures which allowed Brewer to veto the bill without expending too much political capital within her own base.

Those fractures are turning into a canyon (Arizona metaphor alert!) and Brewer has one foot on either side on that canyon. Pretty soon she’ll need to jump to one side or the other, but that’s an issue for another day. Right now, what matters is that the President didn’t say anything and that kept the Republicans from building a bridge over their own chasm.

It’s fairly shrewd of Obama’s administration if that’s what they’re doing, even if it’s also depressing to consider how much it illustrates the level of dysfunction that’s going on if it’s better that the President didn’t get involved in this issue. Ah well. The bill is dead and that’s what matters.

Arizona SB 1062 Is Dead But Arizona HB 2379 Is Very Much Alive

Arizona SB 1062 is dead and that is a very, very good thing for everyone, both in Arizona and the other states in the Union who were considering their own versions of this bill. It’s even good for the people who were supporting the bill, although they’ll never admit it.

But although the “Gays Stay Away” bill is dead on arrival, the other piece of legislation that has my ire raised is still very much alive. Despite reports to the contrary, Arizona HB 2379 is still very much alive.

The Arizona Daily Star reported that:

A major change to House Bill 2379, written by Rep. Justin Olson, removes language limiting how much the secondary property taxes levied by county free library, county jail and public-health-service districts can be increased.

A strike everything amendment, passed by the House Ways and Means Committee, replaces the original text with new language requiring the taxing entity to annually disclose tax-rate information.

County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said the bill has essentially been neutralized and the county does not oppose the current version of the bill.

On the one hand, hooray for us, we get to keep our libraries, the state government doesn’t get to arbitrarily tell us what to do with our communities and I get to keep my job for at least another year. But to celebrate in the streets à la the protesters of SB 1062? Not so fast.

This is where an understanding of language in politics comes in handy. Politicians choose words very carefully and words don’t always mean the same thing in a political context as they do in others. Sure, “neutralized” might mean “killed” in a military context, but in a political one, it means exactly what it says; the bill is neutral now. It’s not moving forward . . . but it’s also not dead. It’s “gutted” . . . but a gutted beast can recover. It can still inflict harm.

Neutralized is a good thing, but it’s not a great thing for fans of public libraries in Arizona.

Maya Castillo, president of SEIU Arizona had this to say about the neutralization in a Facebook post:

HB 2379, despite Joe’s [Arizona Daily Star] article, is not dead. The striker does gut it to an extent. But I hate this striker too! Why? First, there shouldn’t be any additional restrictions on how library increases happen. It’s our money and any additional requirements are designed to hinder increases– we shouldn’t be hindered, especially when it comes to our library.

Second, it’s a legislative trap. So here’s what happens: we choose through our elected to raise the rate 3%, have public hearings, etc. The next year we do the same but say 4%. Year three, the state leg[sic] comes back and says “See! We told you they needed more oversight! 7% in two years?!” And then we’re back where we started!

Consider the fact that Justin Olson, the sponsor of this bill, has been trying to pass a version of this legislation since 2009. Consider that it seems like Republicans were trying to fast track this bill before anyone could raise an outcry. With that in mind, I don’t think that anything short of a resounding defeat in the state House or state Senate or a veto from the Governor will fully kill this odious bit of legislation.

There’s some lobbying muscle behind this bill and I doubt we’ve seen the last of it. I’d rather not have to worry about half the libraries in Pima County suddenly vanishing every single year and I don’t think members of the public (who have been overwhelmingly supportive of us) want that, either.

I hope the momentum keeps up against this bill. We saw the power of political pressure against SB 1062. Hopefully that power will kill HB 2379. If not, the library’s collective neck will certainly come up on the chopping block again, perhaps even from the next version of the same bill.

HB 2379 isn’t dead. Until it is, it’s too early to let our guard down.

Should Rowling Stop Writing? Spoiler: NO

A writer named Lynn Sheperd has committed the cardinal sin of speaking out against one of the gods of writing: J. K. Rowling. Even more shocking, Shepherd did it in public, where other people could hear (or read) her!

Audible gasp!

The rules of talking about the gods of writing have always been thus; if you’re a writer, you CAN criticize the gods of writing, but only if you are also a god of writing. Thus, Stephen King can talk trash about Rowling (although he’s on the record as generally loving her). James Patterson can talk trash about Stephen King (although actually it’s the other way around).

Here’s Shepherd’s reasoning for why Rowling needs to stop after unleashing the Casual Vacancy and the Cuckoo’s Calling on the publishing world:

It wasn’t just that the hype was drearily excessive, or that (by all accounts) the novel was no masterpiece and yet sold by the hundredweight, it was the way it crowded out everything else, however good, however worthwhile. That book sucked the oxygen from the entire publishing and reading atmosphere. And I chose that analogy quite deliberately, because I think that sort of monopoly can make it next to impossible for anything else to survive, let alone thrive. Publishing a book is hard enough at the best of times, especially in an industry already far too fixated with Big Names and Sure Things, but what can an ordinary author do, up against such a Golgomath.

I believe that I understand what Shepherd is talking about, if only because I remember the seething jealousy I used to feel when I was getting into writing myself.

It wasn’t just about comparing myself to every other person I met who told me “I’m a writer” or “I’m working on a novel” or whatever; comparison was part of it, the worry that their writing was better than mine. It was a competitive sort of hate, a feeling that every time one of my fellow neophytes managed to score a publishing deal, they weren’t just succeeding on their own merits. No, my seething jealousy was due to the fact that I believed they were sucking up publishing contracts that were rightfully mine.

Never mind the fact that I wasn’t submitting my work to the same market or the same agent or the same publisher. In my logic (and I use that word loosely), there were a finite number of book publishing deals in the world and every time someone else succeeded, it made my own chances go down. Even though it’s technically true that there are only a finite number of publishing deals in the world, my reasoning is still flawed and I was silly to have believed such a thing.

Fortunately, I’ve gotten over this particular mental peculiarity as I’ve gotten older.

Shepherd feels that writers like Rowling “suck the oxygen out of the room” via the sheer impact Rowling’s work makes when it arrives on the scene. Any other poor book that’s out there at the same time is capsized by the waves made as Rowling’s gorilla jumps into the pool. And maybe this is true for those books published right around any of the behemoths unleashed by the gods of writing.

On the other hand, do we want to see a publishing world without the gods of writing? Rowling might not be good for those first-time authors trying to get noticed, but she is DAMN good for the health of the publishing industry as a whole. Names that get people to remember why they like books and why they like to buy books are names that get people into the stores or onto Amazon or whatever. Simply put, without Rowling (and those like her), publishing as a whole suffers.

The general public has a notoriously fickle attention span and I don’t think a publishing world filled with nothing but scrappy up-and-comers is going to be enough to remind the consumer why he or she likes to buy books. The best case scenario is when the consumer heads to the bookstore (or the library!) for the new Rowling (or Patterson or King) and picks up the new title by their favorite and also decides, “hey, this other book looks interesting” and adds it to their stack.

I used to do this all the time as a kind when I’d roll into the bookstore with my $50 gift card.

I don’t actually agree with Shepherd that Rowling is bad for new writers. I happen to believe that evolutionary pressure applies to writers and their work, and if you’re writing into a market dominated by gods, that inspires you to dig deep and create the very best book you can manage. But even if Rowling is bad for first-time writers, she’s good for the health of publishing as a whole. I’ll happily deal with a turbulent month of sales (or even a torpedo in my own book deal, whenever that finally happens) if it means one of the gods is out there reminding people while it’s still cool to buy books.

And Now For Some Good News

Nope, nothing good yet on the “politics of Arizona” front. Our state legislature is still bigoted, removed from the actual desires of its constituents, and dominated by fringe elements. But there’s good news on other fronts!

There’s going to be a new FarScape movie! FarScape was one of my favorite shows of all time, so this is very exciting news for me. It’s nice to be able to return to one of my favorite sci-fi universes, especially since a new anything for Firefly seems more and more remote with each passing year. But new FarScape? That’ll soothe my fandom wounds nicely.

For A Moment, I Was Worried

Thank God, you guys. Thank God. For a minute, I was worried that Kansas, of all places, was going to eclipse Arizona in vying for the coveted “most bigoted state in the Union” award. I mean, we’ve got a reputation, you know? We’ve got Sheriff Joe and tent cities and pink underwear. Remember SB 1070? That was us! We can’t let some glorified cornfield best us in trying to single out people that don’t fit a narrow definition of what constitutes a “proper person.”

(Straight and white and preferably male, if you were wondering what defines a “proper person” in these states, but we’re willing to slide on the third one… sometimes. Depends on a lot of mitigating factors.)

Fortunately, our state government is taking steps to make sure that Kansas doesn’t surge ahead in the discriminatory law race. We’ve got our own version of the “refuse service to gays for, like, religion and stuff” law in the works.

Thank God. I mean, can you imagine having to do business with somebody who you disagreed with? What if somebody came into YOUR business and asked you to engage in commerce even though they were clearly living their lives in a way that that was offensive to your sensibilities and maybe even morally bankrupt according to your deeply held beliefs? Can you imagine the horror? It’s unthinkable!

After all, it’s not like customer service is about dealing with people and helping them even when you don’t like them or agree with them on things and even though they bother you a lot and-

Oh wait.

Shit.

Guys. You guys. I forgot something really important. I feel so stupid. It’s this rule I learned somewhere about business and capitalism and how to make money and all that jazz. It’s like, Rule number one of business, or something.

As business owner/service provider/whatever, I want your money and I will do whatever I can to get your money as long as those ways are in accordance with the law because that’s how I stay in business.

Even more astoundingly, it turns out gay money spends just as well as straight money! In fact, interest rates and inflation rates and all the other rates are exactly the same! I HAD NO IDEA. I don’t even think banks or the IRS can tell the difference between gay money and straight money.

I think I might have to rethink my entire position on this issue.

If You’ve Ever Wanted To Feel Like Iron Man

Think about how much stuff Tony Stark needs in order to be Iron Man. He needs to have access to the different suits of armor in different places. He needs all the different pieces and the infrastructure to service those pieces. It takes a lot of work to be Iron Man, far moreso than it does to be Superman or Spider-Man, both of whom just have to worry about someone seeing them while they’re doing the laundry.

If you’d like to get an idea of the logistics that Tony Stark would have to go through each day (assuming he wasn’t a fictional character, of course), consider riding a motorcycle as your primary means of transportation.

The logistical consideration that goes into this process is rather intricate. I have to plan out which pieces of gear I’m going to need, where I can store it if I don’t need it at that moment, and how I’m going to carry it all. Here’s what a typical day looks like:

  1. Since I started wearing riding boots and armored pants, I need to bring a pair of jeans and comfortable shoes with me to work. Into the backpack they go, with the shoes wrapped in a plastic bag so they don’t get anything else dirty.
  2. I wear a smoke-tinted visor for the morning ride, but it’s still a little too dark by the time I leave in the evening, so I pack the clear visor and swap them out for the ride home.
  3. Since it’s still chilly out in the mornings (that 85+ mph freeway commute doesn’t help), I wear an extra layer over my riding pants. They’re snowboarding pants, which are great for being wind resistance, warm, and waterproof, but they’re bulky as hell and don’t provide any protection so I can’t wear them in lieu of riding pants.
  4. The wind chill also means wearing something under my riding jacket. Since I bought my jacket used and the guy had lost the warm insert lining, this ends up being a hoodie on chilly days (and on really cold days, a snowboarding jacket).
  5. What about gloves? I actually have three different pairs of gloves and can layer them in different ways, depending on the level of windchill. These are actually the least space-consuming part of my gear, since I can shove the unused gloves in my backpack’s external mesh net.
  6. Here’s where things get tricky: this setup works for the morning ride, when it’s about 40 degrees before factoring in windchill. But on the ride home in the evening, it’s too hot to wear the warm layers. So now the hoodie and the warm pants have to get crammed into my backpack along with the shoes, the jeans, the unused visor . . . and, you know, whatever things I might have needed to take to work with me that day, like my laptop or books or whatever.
  7. As a fun aside, I tried wearing the warm layers home once in the afternoon even though it was 80 degrees. I nearly passed out after an extended pause at a long stoplight.

That’s a brief look at how I’m handling the logistical side of clothing now that I’m living life on two wheels 100% of the time. I’m considering buying an extra pair of shoes just to leave at work so I don’t have to haul my sneakers back and forth every day.

One thing that’s nice is that the amount of gear I need to be able to haul in my pack is very temporary. In cold months, I wear my warm layers both to and from work and in the summer, I don’t need the warm layers at all. It’s only this weird time of year when we have chilly mornings and hot afternoons that I have to work around the space considerations. The longer summer days will also remove the need to swap visors, making that one less piece I need to carry.

So, yes, there’s a lot of gear and logistics that go into motorcycle commuting, especially if all the gear, all the time is your MO. I could make things easier on myself by not bothering with so much gear, but then I run the risk of one day knowing exactly what cheese feels like after meeting a cheese grater should I go down without that stuff. So I’ll keep wearing it and just work through the logistics with a smile, because the alternative is cheese graters except on my legs and feet. Yeah, no.

Finishing Books After I’ve Decided I Dislike Them

If you take a look at my Goodreads page, you’ll notice that I’ve had a book on my “currently reading” list that I started in December. It’s not a particularly long book, so it really shouldn’t have taken me this long to finish it. Except that it’s not very good and I’m not really enjoying myself. I’ll save the particular reasons for my review; that’s a thing I’ve started doing since several people informed me that they were actually interested in what I thought about particular books, instead of just the star rating. Imagine that! To be honest, I’m still trying to get used to the idea that people pay attention to the things I do here. I know I’m posting in a public space, but for the most part, I still tend to assume that I’m talking to myself.

Anyway, back to the books.

I try not to abandon a book once I’ve started reading it, even if it’s bad. Of course, I don’t always hold myself to this ideal and there are several books that I’ve abandoned over the years. But they are decidedly in the minority and even if a book isn’t very good or even just overwhelmingly mediocre, once I start, I feel compelled to finish. I’m not sure why this is. Is it due to some sort of feeling of professional responsibility to other authors? “You wrote this thing, so the least I can do is give you the courtesy of reading it all the way through before I render my judgement?”

Maybe it’s just stubbornness? Or some sort of weird OCD compulsion that only manifests in reading tendencies? I’m certainly not OCD in any other aspect of my life. The current state of my apartment can attest to that.

Regardless, I’ve books on my reading stack that I really want to get to, but I feel compelled to finish the ones that I began first. Even if I put them off for several months in the process, it seems. I wonder if anybody else does this?