2013 - The year I rediscovered writing

2012 was the year I learned to love to read again.  Anyone who knew me before College knows that I was a book enthusiast growing up.  I read pretty much anything I could get my hands on.  Classics.  Contemporary.  The only genre I never really got into was scifi/fantasy.  My parents were not what I would say… encouraging… about this hobby and I was limited to being able to purchase one book a month.  This was beyond frustrating when I’d be able to finish that book in one day, and generally did, so the library became my friend.  In high school, two things drastically changed about my reading habits.  One was AP English that forced me to “mark books” which I think we all hated doing at the time, but is something I still do to this day as I read.  The second was re-discovering The Beatles and that there were literally hundreds of books about them.  Between my friend Kelly and I, we did our best to read through every one of them over the course of about two years.  The lasting effect this had on my read was adding biographies and non-fiction to what I read.  And of course being kick ass at anything Beatles or 60’s related when it comes to trivia – a live skill I do not get to apply nearly often enough.

My other love was always writing.  I remember being 6 or 7, and sitting in the living room of our small house on the new Tandy computer that my parents had purchased, typing out story after story.  This was more encouraged by my parents than reading, however only up to a point since our house was so small that the computer was pretty much sitting in the middle of the room and blocking the view of the TV for everyone else.  As I got older, I was the kid who loved writing assignments, and by the time high school came around and I had the opportunity to WRITE and critique the books I was READING, I was pretty much in heaven.  Hey, I never said I wasn't a literature nerd!

Then I went to college and studied English and History.  I read a lot.  And worked a lot.  And wrote a lot.  And that was about it for three years.  Some of what I read was amazing (Jane Austen, where had you been all my life?).  And some of it was terrible (Tess of the d’Ubervilles, I think you are only required because someone else was subjected to you at some point).  And some was so terrible, I had to read it in both High School and College (The Metamorphosis, does anyone REALLY care if he was actually a dung beetle or was imagining it?).  By the time I was done, I had written and read so much in such a short period of time I wanted nothing to do with either.  And so began my love hate relationship with books that I have had since 2002.

To add to my newly found hatred of the written word, this also happens to be the year I moved in with Kevin.  He also had a passion for books.  And his passion had not been limited to buying just one a month, so he had numerous books.  We also lived in a relatively small apartment, so these books cohabitated with us in what felt like a 3^rd and possibly 4^th roommate kind of way.  These books were also predominately scifi/fantasy, and genre I still did not enjoy reading.  And so my dislike towards books and reading continued to grow.

I was able to learn to love to read again when I received my first Kindle for Christmas 2011.  Digital books!  This is what my life had been missing.  I could buy 10 at a time, and they only took up virtual space and not physical space in the still growing library that is my house.  Best of all, I didn’t actually have to pay anything for many of them because of another revolution in writing and reading – self publishing!  There are also still libraries where a reader can check out eBooks for two or three weeks at a time, and while the selection there is still lacking (much like with traditional libraries), it is at least somewhere I can go to get my book fix with no additional expense. 

Through the free books for Kindle I am beginning to rediscover my love for writing, and so 2013 has become the  year I started my first novel.  I've been wanting to do this since those days I was typing away in my parents living room, writing about mermaids and ponies, and later in high school when I wrote a serial series about the exploits of my group of friends.  I am out of practice, and have written almost no fiction since the age of 13, but I don’t totally suck either.  I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do with the novel when it is completed.  I could self-publish.  I could  just let some close friends and family read it.  I could toss it out completely and try again with what I am sure will be a better second attempt, but I am sticking to it and hopefully I will not forget about my love for reading and writing this time around.

The Great Gatsby

I know that F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is a novel most people think of as a book that people read when they are in school.  I honestly don't remember if my introduction to the book was by being forced upon me in High School, or if I found it on my own, but it has always remained one of my favorite "great novels."

One of the reasons I have always loved this book is the imagery that Fitzgerald is able to show through his words.  This is a talent I'll never have, and usually a trait I dislike in writers (here's looking at you Tolkien and Steinbeck), but Fitzgerald is able to write description that not only shows what is actually there, but also how the character is seeing it.  The description that Nick has of what he sees seems unbelievable and not possible, and I always felt that to some extent it was probably exaggeration, but not in Nick's mind.  He sees the parties and the scenery exactly as it is described.

The movie does a great job of capturing what Nick saw.  Many of the scenes early on in the film make it easy to identify that the film shares a director with Moulin Rouge, however while this could be distracting in other films, it perfectly captures Nick's perception of the events going on around him in a way that would be difficult to do in film.

My one complaint about the film is that it hits the viewer over the head with the idea of hope and disillusionment.  Yes, these are important themes from the book, but the film does an adequate enough job of getting this across without having to constantly verbally remind the audience about it, that it is unnecessary and distracting.  The contrast to the imagery from early in the movie to later in the novel is obvious, and would show the change in attitude and perception of life from Nick's perspective on its own.

I would very much recommend the movie to both groups of people, those who love Fitzgerald's books and those who were forced to read it in school and found it boring.  Leonardo DiCaprio pulls off the character of Gatsby well, and aside from a couple of moments where he was on a boat and I had to laugh at the similarities to his character of Jack from Titanic, he outshines all of the other acting in the movie, with honorable mention to Joel Edgerton as Tom.  If you have already watched Iron Man 3, and you are looking for another movie to go see, this would be a good pick.

Pretending to be a grown-up

I am almost 32, yet I still have to remind myself that I actually am an adult and I’m not just pretending to be one.  This shouldn't be hard for me to grasp.  I've been married for 8 years.  I've owned 4 houses.  I have a pretty successful career, which although doesn't always feel like quite where I think I should be, isn't exactly something a teenager would be qualified to do.  This would imply that I think of myself as an immature kid, which is hardly the case.  I honestly think I’m one of the least fun people I know, and could probably stand to be less serious some of the time. But still I have to remind myself somewhat regularly that I really am an adult.

Today at lunch was one of those times.  It is 55 degrees outside and sunny, so a nearly perfect day for mid-February.  I work in downtown Baltimore on the Inner Harbor.  I've been working here for over 3 months, but it still seems surreal.  So today I walked over to Panera Bread with my iPad, and sat at a table eating my lunch while I checked some email and read.  Just like about 70% of the other grownups in the place.   Still I felt like an impostor of sorts. 

I've mostly decided that I’m never going to really feel like an adult, and I am mostly okay with that.  

2013 - The year I start blogging again.  There are times I have more to say, than is really okay to put on Facebook   I get it, people on Facebook want a short, cute note.  But while I may physically be short and cute, very little of what I have to say is.  Then I start to get nostalgic for the Live Journal days... until I remember all the drama and honestly, who even reads LJ anymore anyway?  So here it is.  My new blog.