Literature Is Not Dead

Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. I think to the same extent the unexamined book is not worth reading. I’ve been bamboozled (happily) into a book club, and it’s a nice experience to discuss a book that I’ve read. One of the greatest joys of reading for me has always been sharing. It’s particularly fun to find someone who loves an obscure book as much as you do.

This is distinctly different from criticism, though. I don’t think determining whether a book is bad or good makes much sense, except when a book is really bad. Studying a book for the thoughts it forces us to think, however, is really the whole point. There’s plenty of books on my shelf I never stopped to think about once I finished them, and as I look at them now I sadly cannot recall a thing about them.

Right now I’m examining Eaters of the Dead, which is a rare reread for me. In this case I’m studying a modern narrative approach to medieval storytelling, since that will be my mission in an upcoming project. Speaking of which, if anyone reading this knows a lot about graphic novels, particularly the business side of them, do please let me know.

Writing 1

Friday night, largest outdoor arts festival in the United States in town, what am I doing? Yeah. Notice the prosecco and two cans of Miller Lite, the two bottles of hot sauce (that’s how good my cooking is) and the abundant paperwork. I didn’t even get much done. Pretty soon it looked like this:

Last night I went to have a few drinks with the book club, which had mutated into a Clothing Warehouse hangout. Whatever. It was all girls and myself. The girls decamped pretty early and I went home, which is when the best thing ever happened and my boy Robert, somewhat drunk, gave me a call.

I love that kid. He had just asked out his second girl that week, even though he’s leaving Montana in less than a week and the second girl knew about the first girl. But she still said yes. “She’s the hottest girl I’ve ever asked out. She’s objectively hot.” Robert than proceeded to clarify his rating scale, which involved cute, hot, and objectively hot. We all have things that turn us on individually, but an objectively hot girl is one that would be universally considered attractive. I think it’s a good distinction.

Robert asked how my time with the girls went and I said “Eh, I guess its cool and all, being surrounded by a bunch of good looking girls, but about halfway through I kinda wished I was hanging out with a couple guys watching the All Star Game.”

Robert laughed at me and said that explained why I had picked up so quickly earlier when he called. (He’d wanted to justify to someone his choice to spend his last days in Montana going on a date rather than seeing Glacier National Park. I told him the mountains aren’t going anywhere.)

So then I said, “Yeah, hanging out with a bunch of girls sounds cool, but it’s not like you can stare at them-”

“Yeah, girls usually notice that.”

“-and that’s the best part. ”

“Ha!” Robert laughed, “That’s the kind of thing you’re going to write in one of your stories and I’m going to laugh because I know you don’t really think that way, but girls will think you’re a jerk.”

Oh well, at least I got to talk to my boy last night.

Girl with very short hair, obviously flirting with my brother - “I don’t know if I could date anyone whose hair is longer than mine.”

Me, completely deadpan - “Then maybe you should grow your hair out.”

Me, again - “Where’s my margarita?”

Brother - “She spilled it.”

Girl, writing her number in my notebook - “Are you going to call me?”

Me - “Why?”

Fixed the form to join my mailing list so it actually works. Glad I tested that earlier. If you tried to join the list and couldn’t successfully do so, I have nobody to blame but myself. You can try again now or just tell me what a screw-up I am and I’ll do it for you.

In writing news, things have been going well. I’ve received two rejection letters recently and by later today will have the stories submitted to two more places. I’ve got two big projects for Metromix coming up, Brass should finally be publishing something I wrote, and Wingman is going well. My top-secret graphic novel project also progresses nicely.

In non-writing life I’ve just found out that one of my roommates will be leaving at the end of August. This means I need another roommate or I need lots of money so I can put in bamboo flooring while I am sans roommates. Still trying to figure out what I’m going to do about work. It’s hard to decide with the carrot of Metropolitan’s return hanging in front of me. I’d hate to get a mediocre job when my great one could be coming back within two months. Then again, you hate to hang on when two months will turn into four. If anyone wants to buy a rough draft of a novel about a punk rock band, a novella about a split-personality super-hero, or a serial about a post-apocalyptic ninja floating down the Mississippi, let me know.

Due to a fire last night at the Metropolitan Wine Bar/Coffeehouse, I am currently out of a job. This is hopefully not a permanent situation, but I wanted to notify anyone who A) has extra money lying around and wants to give it to me and my fellow unemployed coworkers and B) Anyone with whom I have complex/expensive plans for the rest of the year, because my ability to pay for them has just changed drastically.

And that’s all I got for you right now. I do have a good story about being mistaken for a celebrity at the bar last night, but I’ll wait till my friend sends me the pics to talk about that.

I really am reading all the books shown in the right column of this webpage. That’s what happens when I go to a bookstore and am forced to wait for the cash register person to fix something. I didn’t even bother adding the two reference books on medieval Europe I’m perusing or the first section of Edmund Spencer’s The Fairie Queen, which I’ve also begun reading.

I think I need counseling.

The new Wingman is up, which brings me to an oft talked about topic: the portrayal of women in my stories.

There’s a good amount of misogyny in these stories, and guess what? I know. I didn’t put it there because I agree with it, kids, it’s there because that’s what I see. “Heartless bitches” is a term my one friend actually uses. Of course, this guy’s current girl is going into lockup and has caused him two broken fingers. Somehow I don’t think it’s the girl’s fault.

By the way, the typo challenge is still in effect for this current Wingman, though I’ve disqualified the winner from last time. Sorry Angie, you’ll have to think of some other way to get me to buy you beer.

Among the many joys of home ownership are having to spend two days dealing with a broken washing machine, and, of course, paying for its repair. I’ve finally tallied up more or less every cent I’ve spent on my house since I moved in in November of ‘06, and the total is: $31,223.49. Yikes! Over $12,000.00 in receipts from Home Depot and Lowes went into that total. Don’t talk to me about helping the economy.

In other news, Glitterati Lindsay’s trivia had its inaugural night at Metropolitan last night. It rocked. A very nice blend of questions, I thought, and that unbiased opinion shouldn’t at all be tainted by the fact that my team won. We were in fourth place till the final round, when we wagered it all and answered the question: What kind of mythological creature was Medusa?

If you missed trivia, come by Metropolitan this Friday, since my teammate is also a bartender there. We plan on spending the $20 gift certificate we won by buying drinks for everyone while we work (ourselves included). Be there early; $20 isn’t going to last long. The answer, by the way, is a Gorgon.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how my interior life causes a lot of the feelings which I once thought were inflicted on me. (Holy crap, what a dull lead-in!) How I feel is often more a factor of conclusions I draw, rather than things done to me.

In Exempla (that’s what I imagine i.e. means): I have certain friends I greatly prefer in certain situations, and who I dislike in other situations. I think we all do. We have friends we’d never introduce to our grandparents, and other friends who would be intolerable on roadtrips, and still others who, while great to share a beer with, can’t be trusted to listen very well at all. This is mostly due to people just being different.

But it’s also partially due (at least in my case) to the expectations I have of people. Those who I most value for their ability to listen seem boring in mixed company, while there are some I value for their outgoing nature and yet annoy me when life forces us into a room alone together. In many cases I’ve come to reflect that that listening friend isn’t boring at all in mixed company. My expectations of what these friends are good for (or best at, to put it more civilly) create my emotional response. I’m bored with them because they’re not listening to me.

I know. I’m a jerk. No argument.

So that’s what I’ve been thinking about lately. Have updated the books I’m reading (thanks for Lone Surfer, Meliss, it’s great.) and have finally added two blogs to my blogroll that should have been there awhile ago.