What am I more likely to read? Jane Austen novels, a Russian classic, or a comic book with pretty pictures?
As a writer, it’s sometimes painful to go back and read old stuff that I’ve written. It’s even worse if somebody else reads it. A few days ago somebody found the first post that I wrote for Dysfunctional Literacy and left a comment. It was complimentary (way nicer than the post deserved), but when I went back and reviewed the post (and a few others after that), I was mortified.
The posts were poorly written. I referred to myself as “we” and mentioned the people who read this blog (there weren’t any back then) as “dysfunctional literates.” I’m kind of embarrassed by that now. I’m tempted to go back and edit or delete everything from the first year, but I also think there’s nothing wrong with seeing how this blog has progressed over time.
Even though the quality of writing was poor, some of my early topics were pretty good. The first couple posts I wrote were about the rules I have for reading books. Life is short, and I know I won’t have time to read everything that I want, so I need to some rules to make my reading as efficient and enjoyable as possible. Since I don’t want to just repost poorly written blog material, I’ve rewritten the posts into one, kept a few lame jokes, deleted a bunch of stuff, and added a rule.
So if you want to read like me or are curious about what my rules for reading are, here they are:
Rule #1- There are exceptions for every rule.
Yeah, that’s not as dramatic as Fight Club’s rule, but at least my Rule #2 is not the same as Rule #1.
Now that I think about it, stating that every rule has an exception isn’t really a rule, so I’m no longer going to use that as Rule #1.
New Rule #1- No more than three books per series.
I don’t read any series that goes over three books, or if I begin reading such a series, I stop after three books. Seriously, how many stories truly deserve more than three books? Not many do. If The Lord of the Rings could be told in three books, then so should just about any other story. Even The Bible is only two books, and if God only needs two books, then who do we think we are to write more books in a series than God?
And if I’m going to read a series with more than three books (hey, there can be exceptions, remember?), the series has to be completed before I start reading it. I reluctantly began reading A Game of Thrones a few years ago, despite the series being more than three books. Then I realized that George R. R. R. R. Martin hadn’t finished the whole thing yet. Then I heard that the latest books get sidetracked, and now I’m wondering if Martin wrote himself into a convoluted situation that he can’t get himself out of. I used to read Marvel Comics, so I know all about convoluted storylines, and I don’t need that kind of nonsense in the novels I read.
Rule #2- No books more than 500 pages long.
How many stories are truly worth the effort it takes to read (much less write) 500 pages? A few might be worth it, but not many. Usually a novel longer than 500 pages means that the editors didn’t do their jobs (or in the case of 19th century Russian authors, the translators didn’t do theirs either).
Yeah, The Bible is over 500 pages long, but that’s God for you. If any author is allowed to get longwinded, it’s God. I pretty much allow God to write what He wants without complaining about it. God can make His own rules. I once found a typo in The Bible and got into an argument with my English teacher over it. Who was I supposed to believe about spelling, my English teacher or God?
Rule #3- No more than 3 books per author.
There are a lot of great authors out there, and I’d like to read as many of them as possible. Most authors who write lots of books follow a formula. If you’ve read two or three of their novels, you’ve read them all. When I think like that, I don’t yearn for the latest Stephen King horror/fantasy or the newest James Patterson schlock that somebody else probably wrote.
I don’t have anything against schlock. I love schlock. I write schlock. I just want a variety of schlock in my life.
Rule #4-No books with bad dialogue.
This is probably the only subjective rule of the bunch because reasonable people can disagree about the quality of dialogue. You can’t really disagree about whether or not a book is 500 pages or not or whether or not a series has more than three books in it. I guess you COULD argue about it, but reasonable people would look at you funny.
Even though it’s subjective, dialogue is important to me. If the characters don’t sound authentic, then I can’t put myself in the story. I have a problem reading YA fiction because hardly any of the authors have a feeling for the way kids/teenagers/young adults talk. I’m almost surprised that teens/young adults put up with that, but then again, everything is new to them.
Some of the dialogue in The Bible is kind of corny, but I’d never admit that to God. As far as I’m concerned, God writes great dialogue, but humans mess up the translation.
Rule #5- Sample many, finish few
I’m a big believer in NOT finishing books. I used to complete every novel I started just for the sense of accomplishment, but then I started to accomplish real things in life (I hope that doesn’t sound like an insult to people who finish books no matter what because I mean that as a reflection of me and not other people). Reading shouldn’t be a chore (unless you’re in school), and I’m getting old, and if I don’t want to finish a book (or eat my broccoli), then I don’t have to.
I’m proud of the number of books I haven’t finished. I used to lie to people and say I’d read the books that I had actually stopped reading, but conversations are more interesting if I’m honest and say “I started that book but couldn’t finish it.”
*****
I like my rules for reading, but I also know they wouldn’t work for everybody. Some people have a certain number of books they want to finish within a certain time. Some readers want to consume every book by their favorite authors. Some refuse to read any books written by certain authors. Some readers might not even have any rules at all for reading books.
But enough about me! What rules do you have for reading or NOT reading books?
After more than a week of living in sin with Danielle, I started getting comfortable with the idea of what she called “crazy shit” in her life. Despite her big talk, I had seen little of this alleged “crazy shit.” She had alluded to it, but I hadn’t seen much proof, other than some harmlessly weird behavior. Wearing inappropriate clothes, and over-cursing in front of kids and old ladies, and making weird noises in the library, and getting us kicked out of a football game, all of that was outside my comfort zone, but it wasn’t what I called “crazy.”
I was starting to wonder if Danielle was exaggerating the “crazy shit.” People did that. Maybe she was a bit dramatic about her personal life, but I wasn’t going to fault her for that. We were living in sin, and I liked her being around. If she wanted to call some of her minor bizarre behavior “crazy shit,” then I’d call it “crazy shit” too, and both of us would be happy.
And then the crazy stuff started to happen.
I was returning home from work on the Monday after the football game incident. My/our apartment complex was spread out all over the block so that I had to park a couple buildings away from where we lived, and as I was walking from my car and turned the corner to my apartment unit, I heard two women yelling “bitch!” at each other. I stopped and listened carefully, dreading the possibility that one of the voices belonged to Danielle. Unfortunately, once I walked closer, my fears were confirmed.
Danielle stood on my/our second floor apartment balcony yelling at another woman who was standing with a muscular guy outside our front door. The other woman was tall, skinny, and wearing tight inappropriate clothes like Danielle. Danielle and this skinny woman kept calling each other “bitch!” really loudly while the muscular guy watched with his arms folded. I was pretty sure all my neighbors were either really concerned or thoroughly entertained by the scene.
I hesitated before walking up to my/our apartment. I thought about turning around, strolling back to my car, and driving off. I could call Danielle from work and tell her I was running late. I really don’t like loud confrontations. They make me uncomfortable. And whatever was going on, Danielle was safe. She could call that skinny woman a bitch to her heart’s content behind the safety of the balcony and could always step into the apartment when her vocal chords got tired. But I knew I had to back up my girlfriend. If she was willing to live in sin with me, I had to be willing to at least see what was going on.
As I got closer, I could see that my initial impressions were right. The skinny woman dressed a lot like Danielle, with a tight t-shirt and shorts that went up too high. Besides that, they didn’t look anything alike. The skinny woman was blonde with an orange salon tan. Plus, the skinny woman wore too much make up. It made her look kind of slutty. I know I probably shouldn’t refer to her as the slutty blonde, but even after all these years I feel the need to back Danielle up in these types of conflicts.
I felt a bit wary of the guy the slutty blonde was with. He was a little shorter than me but muscularly broad with a wife beater shirt and a bunch of cheap tattoos on his arm. His facial hair was patchy, and he had a pissed off narrow-eyed expression as he tried to stare me down. I wasn’t sure what to say to him, so I gave him the nod of acknowledgement. When in doubt, I always go for the nod.
Then I asked Danielle, “What’s going on?”
“She stole my furniture,” the slutty blonde said before Danielle could respond. The guy took a half step toward me, and I instinctively moved back and regretted giving up the space.
“She owes me money,” Danielle yelled back.
“I want my furniture back, bitch!” the slutty blonde screamed.
“I want my money, bitch!” Danielle screamed back.
My mind works slowly sometimes, and it took me a moment to process this while Danielle and the slutty blonde were calling each other “bitch” with a bunch of adjectives thrown in. Danielle was accused of stealing the slutty blonde’s furniture. Danielle did not deny the accusation. Danielle instead said the slutty blonde owed her money. Last week, Danielle had replaced my beat up furniture with much nicer furniture. The furniture had not been brand new. My conclusion?
“Danielle,” I said. “Do you… happen to have… this lady’s… furniture?”
Danielle stared at me, then said with her mouth tight, “Yes, Jimmy. I…happen to have… her… furniture.”
To an onlooker, Danielle probably sounded like she was being rude, but at least I knew that Danielle had understood my question. The slutty blonde’s furniture was in my/our apartment.
“Do you want to… maybe… give… this lady… her furniture back?” I asked.
“Yeah, when… she… gives me… my money.”
“I’m gonna call the police,” the slutty blonde said.
“Call the police, bitch,” Danielle said. “See who goes to jail.”
The tattooed guy turned to me. “What’ you gonna do about this, pussy?”
Then he took a couple steps toward me. There wasn’t much space between us now. I could step back and stumble down the stairs, or I could turn and make a stand against the wood railing behind me. I swiveled and backed up against the wood railing. I took a deep breath, hoping to have a moment to emotionally prepare myself for what was about to happen. I could tell that I wasn’t going to be able to talk this guy down. He had a point to prove to his woman. I kept my eyes on the tattooed guy and caught Danielle from the corner of my eye. She could end this by giving the furniture back. That was all she had to do, but she was still in a bitch-calling contest with the slutty blonde. She either wasn’t aware of what was about to happen to me or she didn’t care. Danielle wasn’t going to back down. This tattooed guy wasn’t going to back down. I either had to flee or fight.
*****
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: Crazy Stuff Part 2 .
The problem with writing a post that nobody has ever read is that nobody can tell you what was wrong with it. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It’s something most writers probably wouldn’t want to admit. I wasn’t going to, and I normally wouldn’t, but there’s a point to be made, I guess. I have a blog post on Dysfunctional Literacy that nobody has ever read. I published it on this blog almost two years ago. It’s still there. It can be found if readers look for it, but nobody ever has. According to my stats, it’s never gotten any hits. When I wrote it, my home page hardly ever got read either, so as far as I can tell, nobody has ever read that post.
It would be embarrassing, but nobody’s ever read it so nobody knows about it. How can something that nobody knows about be embarrassing? In fact, I’m also almost proud of it. I’m tempted to put up a link to it as proof, but then somebody might click on it to read it, and the whole point of this post would be lost. Even worse, somebody might click the “like” button just for the heck of it, and that would really tick me off. If somebody “liked” the post that I claimed nobody read, then I would lose all (or at least some) of my credibility, and I can’t have that.
In this post that nobody has ever read, I compared two books about baseball. It’s not a bad post. It’s probably way too long, but nobody would know it was too long before they started to read it. That meant the topic was bad. Or the title was bad. Or the lack of a picture turned people off. For whatever reason, this post has gotten no hits in two years.
I’ve written stuff that I WISH nobody had read. I’ve written a bunch of lame jokes that I probably should delete, but I keep them up to remind myself not to publish every day just for the sake of publishing something every day. I have nothing against writing every day; I think it’s a mistake to publish something every day (unless you’re that good of a writer, and I’m not).
At first, it hurt my feelings that nobody read this post. It was a long post. I spent a lot of time (I don’t know how much) revising and perfecting (in my mind) the word choice. I thought my Brad Pitt introduction was good enough to suck people in (it didn’t work). I spent hours working on it, and then when I finally posted it, nobody read it.
When I checked my stats a few minutes after publishing it (that’s always a mistake), nobody had read it. Nobody? I was a little surprised. 30 minutes later, I checked again. Nobody? 60 minutes later. Nobody? Overnight. Nobody? By then, I figured the post wasn’t going to get many hits, but I didn’t think the post would NEVER get any hits, not even an accidental search engine look.
I could have just left it as a Word document, and it would have saved me some aggravation.
I don’t get frustrated when I write an ebook, and few people buy it. People don’t have time or money to buy ebooks from unknown authors. I occasionally buy ebooks to support bloggers that I like (and some of the books are actually good). But nobody was willing to read this blog post for free. Even my worst selling ebook has sold more copies than this post has hits.
Now that it’s been almost two years, I’m kind of proud that nobody has read that post. Dysfunctional Literacy is doing okay as a blog, way better than it was two years ago. I think I’m improving as a writer, and I’m learning a lot from other writers and their blogs. But when it comes to responses, I have to remember not to expect anything because you never know when you’re going to write something that nobody will ever read.
Am I the only writer this has happened to? Have you ever written something that didn’t get read… at all?
When Danielle had said that she wanted to see a bunch of guys pee into the communal trough in the men’s bathroom, I hadn’t been wild about the idea. It was kind of embarrassing that my girlfriend would say/do something like that in front of my friends at the football game. At the same time, I didn’t want to seem judgmental. After all, Danielle seemed to accept my flaws, so Kirk and I got her disguised and marched her up to the communal. Everything had seemed fine until Danielle screamed.
I was standing a few men down pretending to take care of business when I heard her shriek. It was loud and shrill, and I jumped (it was a good thing I wasn’t actually doing anything because there might have been some misdirection pee, and I could have been punched out).
Danielle had stepped back from the line, brushing her hands against her waist. “Shit!” she cursed. “Shit! Shit!” Danielle cursed a few more times and fled the men’s room, Kirk’s baseball cap flopping to the wet floor. I grabbed it and ran out too. The walkway wasn’t too crowded, so it was easy to follow Danielle as she darted past and dodged other people milling around. I saw her duck and pull her hair back down over her shoulders. She hid behind a column for a moment near a crowded concession area, and when I caught up to her, she was holding my windbreaker below her waist and hopping in place with gritted teeth. She wasn’t wearing my sunglasses anymore either. She looked like a college girl again (even though she wasn’t), but a very upset one.
“You alright?” I asked.
“I got peed on,” she exclaimed, pointing to a few wet spots on her jeans.
“You got pee splashed,” I explained. “Most of that’s probably water.” That was a lie, but maybe it would make her feel better. “It will fade in a minute or two.”
“It’ll still be there!” Danielle stammered. “I have somebody else’s pee on my jeans.”
“So do I, probably,” I said. “It happens to everybody at the communal.”
“You didn’t warn me that could happen!”
“I didn’t think of it.” I was actually disappointed in myself. If I had thought of the probability of pee splash, I could have avoided the whole situation. Nobody likes getting splashed by somebody else’s urine, especially women. I should have thought of that. But I also knew that I wasn’t a quick thinker in high stress situations. “That’s what you get for wanting to watch guys pee.”
Danielle was about ready to curse me out in public (I could see an “f” forming on her lips) when Kirk stepped in.
“You broke character,” Kirk said to Danielle.
“I got peed on!” Danielle said again, pointing at the spots on her jeans. “These jeans are ruined.”
“You’ll be okay,” said Kirk, unimpressed. “You have to have a long wet line or a wet spot larger than a nickel for you to say you got peed on.”
“I didn’t know there was pee criteria,” I said.
“Shit,” Danielle said, looking past us. “Those guys.”
I turned and saw a couple ushers talking to a cop, and they were pointing right at me. They looked serious. If they had heard about a woman screaming in the men’s bathroom, they didn’t seem to think it was funny.
“Let’s go sit down,” Danielle said. “I’ll keep low.”
We ducked behind the column, passed through a concession area, went down an escalator and then doubled back up to our original level back to our seats. Even though none of the sections had been that crowded, we had moved quickly, so we thought there was a good chance we had lost them.
“How was it?” Linda asked as we returned to our seats.
“I got peed on,” Danielle announced loudly enough for several rows to hear.
As I sat down, I glanced back to see the cop and the two ushers moving in our direction and pointing. I nudged Danielle.
“Shit,” Danielle said again. “Shit. Shit.”
“How did they find us?” I was confused. Danielle had switched out of her man disguise so quickly, there was no way anybody in the men’s room would recognize her.
“You followed me out,” Danielle said. “You’re tall. And you grabbed my baseball cap. And you were loud.”
“Nice going, Jimmy,” Kirk said.
I could feel my face turning red. It wasn’t my fault that Danielle had shrieked in the men’s room, but history (which gets recorded by the most vocal) would show that this incident was my fault. I fumed, but I kept quiet.
Danielle gave Kirk a dirty look as she patted my knee. “He was worried about me. I’ll go talk to them.” She stood up, put her glasses back on, stuck her chest out, and strolled up to the cops.
“Your girlfriend,” Kirk said quietly, leaning toward me. “She’s… something else.”
“Yeah,” I said. I still hadn’t figured out the right words to describe her.
“So…” Kirk hesitated, then asked even more quietly so Linda wouldn’t hear. “You sleeping with her?”
“Yeah,” I said with pride.
“Damn,” Kirk muttered, not because I was getting some, but because he wasn’t, and he’d been dating Linda for a few months already. “How long you been going out?”
“About a week.”
Kirk gave a sideways grimace toward Linda and shook his head.
“We’re living together,” I added. “And she knows about the comic books.”
“I like her,” Kirk said. “But I think she might make your life more interesting than you want it be.”
Both of us watched Danielle as she spoke to the cop and the ushers. Whatever she was saying didn’t seem to be working. The cop kept shaking his head, and the ushers kept checking her out. Finally, Danielle nodded, shrugged, and returned with her head bowed. The cop stood at the end of the row with his arms folded.
“Shit,” she said, with a cheese eating grin. “I got kicked out.”
“They take their gender separation seriously here,” I said.
“They thought you were chasing me,” she said.
“Then why are you getting kicked out?” I asked.
“I told them why I went to the men’s room,” she said. Then she giggled. “I could have pressed charges against you. But I don’t like it when my boyfriends go to jail.”
“That’s… happened before?” I asked.
“Prison,” she said.
“And…?”
Again, both Linda and Kirk stared at Danielle.
“I don’t think he’ll get out for a while.”
“Ex-boyfriend, right?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Interesting…” Kirk mumbled.
“I gotta go,” Danielle said, nodding to the cop. “I can wait outside if you want to watch the game.”
“Somebody’s got to keep you out of trouble,” I said, standing up.
Danielle was quiet as we exited the stadium, the cop lurking a few yards behind us until we got to the parking lot. She held my hand and made sure we brushed sides a few times. Despite being kicked out, despite kind of being embarrassed by the scene, I felt comfortable. Walking hand in hand with Danielle felt natural, like we were meant to be together, which seemed strange, me being this comfortable with a woman like Danielle.
“You mad?” she asked.
I hesitated before answering. “I’m actually enjoying the moment,” I said. “I’ve never left a football stadium not knowing what the score was.”
“Losing 13-3,” she said, then she stopped. “Shit! I left your Sense and Sensibility with Linda.”
“I guess you’ll have to pretend to read another book,” I said. “Pride and Prejudice is supposed to be better, anyway.”
“Pride and Prejudice is better than Sense and Sensibility?” she said. “I’ll remember that.”
Kirk was right. My life had become more interesting since I had met Danielle. And despite my paranoia, most of the interesting parts had been pretty good. The negative parts of “interesting,” like getting kicked out of a football game, didn’t seem like a big deal anymore. Maybe I was getting over the idea of being embarrassed by Danielle’s behavior. Maybe her “interesting” behavior wasn’t that bad after all. If getting kicked out of a football game was as “interesting” as it got, maybe we could be okay.
Unfortunately, I was about to find out how “interesting” Danielle could really get.
*****
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: Crazy Stuff.
And to read “The Literary Girlfriend” from the beginning, start here.
Fans of Agatha Christie swear she’s turning in her grave right now. I hope that’s not true because turning in a grave is probably tough and really uncomfortable. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I almost feel sorry for Sophie Hannah. Now that Agatha Christie’s estate has given its approval for her to write a brand new Hercule Poirot novel, she may become one of the most vilified authors since James Frey. To Agatha Christie fans, anybody other than Agatha Christie writing a Hercule Poirot novel is worse than (or almost as bad as) Ben Affleck playing Batman. I guess we’ll have to see the finished products before we decide which was worse (or better).
I don’t quite feel sorry for her though. Sophie Hannah will get paid (probably really well) for writing a Hercule Poirot novel, which is more than a lot of authors can say. At least she has a book deal. I can’t feel sorry for her for that. But I hope she has a thick skin because she’s going to need it.
I’ve never heard of Sophie Hannah (author novels like The Carrier, Kind of Cruel, two books that I’ve never heard of). From what I’ve read about her (not much), she has a decent reputation as an author. Writing a Hercule Poirot novel is probably a good gig, as long as you know ahead of time some readers/critics are going to hate you no matter what. She could write an outstanding whodunnit, the best in decades, and it still wouldn’t matter to Agatha Christie fans. Since it’s not Agatha Christie, it will automatically suck. If it’s any consolation, at least Ben Affleck probably won’t portray Hercule Poirot.
I’m not going to buy the non-Agatha Christie Agatha Christie novel. But I don’t blame Agatha Christie’s estate for letting another author to write a Hercule Poirot book. From their point of view, this is an opportunity to increase book sales and make lots of money. Even if the new Hercule Poirot book isn’t very good, it will probably sell a few copies and maybe even lead to more sales of old books that Agatha Christie actually wrote.
This isn’t the only time that a beloved character has been written by somebody other than the original author, but it doesn’t always work. A James Bond novel written by somebody other than Ian Fleming is just a book about a spy who happens to be named James Bond. A Godfather book written by anybody other than Mario Puzo is just a book about a bunch of gangsters who happen to have the last name Corleone. And a Hercule Poirot mystery written by anybody other than Agatha Christie is just a book about a detective who happens to be named Poirot.
When I was a teenager, I read most of Ian Fleming’s James Bond books. I remember some as being great (From Russia with Love and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), and I remember a couple as boring (Diamonds Are Forever and Moonraker). Since I read these books more than three decades ago, my opinion of them doesn’t mean much, but I’d guess that Agatha Christie wrote her own share of mediocre books. Authors like Agatha Christie (and maybe even Ian Fleming) are judged by the quality of their finest novels, not by their most mediocre.
A book written by Sophie Hannah isn’t going to be automatically worse than a novel written by Agatha Christie, but her book will probably be compared to Murder on the Orient Express or Death on the Nile. Her book probably won’t be compared to Agatha Christie’s worst book, (whatever it is); it will be compared to her best, and some people will hate Sophie Hannah’s version, no matter what.
I don’t have a problem with this “hate it before I read it” attitude. I’m not one of those people who think everybody should be open to everything. When it comes to literature, readers should be closed minded at times. There are too many books out there to keep up with, and being closed minded brings an order to a chaotic publishing industry.
I’m not going to read a Hercule Poirot novel that’s not written by Agatha Christie, but I don’t have a problem with it. I’ve read James Bond books not written by Ian Fleming. I’ve Conan books not written by Robert E. Howard. How about you? Would you read a book about your favorite character if it wasn’t written by the original author?
Cheerleaders might be a great reason to watch football, but they don’t make the top six list! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The same thing happens every autumn. Football season begins, and my intellectual friends wonder why I spend so much time watching it instead of reading books and writing schlock. I don’t wear face paint or get into drunken brawls, but I’ll flip channels and go split-screen to watch several games at once, and I’ll yell and curse even though I’m usually a quiet guy. This puzzles my intellectual friends. I’m supposed to be a smart guy (I think I still have most of them fooled), yet during football season, I don’t always show it.
So every fall, instead of hiding my love for football, I defend it by trying to explain what makes (American) football so awesome. At first, it was difficult to explain. I couldn’t find the words except for “It’s… uh… I … err… must watch!” But over time, my vocabulary and sentence structure have improved, and I have thought out the six reasons that make football the best sport ever!
1. Most football games are played on the weekend.
A lot of sporting events are played on week nights, and that can be tough on potential viewers/spectators. Most football games are played on Saturdays (college) or Sundays (NFL), making it very easy for most potential viewers/spectators. Fans can get sloppy drunk on a Saturday night (or Sunday afternoon) and still be fine on Monday morning (or Monday afternoon).
That’s very thoughtful of football.
2. Almost every game is meaningful.
This explains why football fans get really obsessed. Teams only play one game a week for a few months out of the entire year. College football teams play a 12 game season. NFL teams play a 16 game season (only eight home games). That means each game is important, and each game can be turned into a major event. For football fans, every weekend from September to February is a holiday weekend.
Unfortunately for football fans, some actual holidays don’t feel like holidays because there isn’t a football game on.
3. The football isn’t round.
Most sports require a round ball, but the football has a weird shape. This might not seem important, but it makes football unpredictable in ways that other sports aren’t. The football can be thrown with a beautiful spiral that can be accurate even in a fierce wind. The football, however, bounces or rolls in an ugly unpredictable way when it’s dropped or fumbled.
I love watching Tom Brady (or Aaron Rodgers or any other quarterback) throw a 50 yard touchdown pass. I also love watching Tom Brady (or any other quarterback) chase a fumbled football that keeps bouncing in different directions. Everybody looks funny while chasing a rolling bouncing football, even Tom Brady.
4. Football requires more sets of skills than any other sport.
A successful football team needs a bunch of big lugs on the (offensive and defensive) line, some strong fast athletes at the skill positions, and then a couple really smart guys (hopefully the coaches and quarterbacks) to run everything. This means that there is an element of the game to appeal to every kind of sports fan.
* If you like violence, then you can watch the skill position guys get tackled or the linemen pound each other.
* If you like speed, you can watch the receivers getting open or the running backs flying through the holes in the line.
* If you like strategy, you can analyze the play calling.
No other sport requires so many different skill sets, and all must work together for a football team to be successful.
Football is like the United States. In order for the United States to function and prosper, people of all religions, races, genders (and any other demographic groups that I can’t think of off hand) must share a common set of values (I’m not getting into what those values are or should be). For a football team to succeed, athletes of various talents, sizes, and strengths must work together in a way that no other team sport requires. Football is a unique sport for a unique country.
USA! USA! USA!
5. Football has the best music!
Football music is rousing and can motivate me to do anything (except exercise). If I’m having a rough morning, I can turn on NFL Network before I leave home, hear a few notes of football music that get stuck in my head, and I can walk into work in slow motion with my chin held high. Nobody messes with a guy who walks into work in slow motion (though some people will call the cops).
6. I can read during a football game.
This reason doesn’t appeal to many football fans, and I’ll never admit this outside of Dysfunctional Literacy. Football is the one major sport where I can read a book and still keep up with the game. If I try to read during any other sporting event, I’ll stop paying attention to the game (which isn’t necessarily bad).
There’s about a 20-30 second time period between each play during a football game, and that’s enough time for me to read a little bit and then glance back up in time to catch the next play. If the book is really good, I may miss a few plays, but I can always rewind. If the game is really good, I may get stuck on the same page for a couple hours, but that’s okay too.
Reading a book is best done at home. As socially awkward as I may be, I have never taken a book to a football game. Even I know that is a bad idea. However, with today’s technology, I can read a book on my phone (or other device) and everybody around me assumes I’m either checking scores or watching porn, and everybody at the game is fine with that.
*****
Now that football season has begun, all is good with the world (not really, but it feels that way). No matter how busy my work week gets, or how many family situations I have to deal with, no matter how frustrating my writing gets, I know that on the weekends, I can turn to football. Thank you, football, for being the best sport ever!
*****
I talk to myself when I write and then put the videos on YouTube.
But according to YouTube, I’m doing almost everything wrong.
These two books below have almost nothing to do with football, except I think I wrote both of them during different football seasons.
Now only 99 cents each on the Amazon Kindle!
“I’ve never seen a guy pee before,” Danielle stated profoundly in front of my friends.
This was the moment I had been dreading. Despite Danielle’s recent good behavior in public, I had been nervous the entire day that she might do something inappropriate while we were at the football game with Kirk and Linda. Danielle hadn’t worn suggestive clothes, and she hadn’t over-cursed in front of kids, so she had been doing pretty well so far. But then she announced that she wanted to watch a bunch of guys urinate into the men’s bathroom trough. She was serious. She was going to do it. And it could be potentially embarrassing.
Luckily, nobody sitting around us in our section seemed to be listening. The other team was backed up on their own end zone, and the defense had almost scored a safety, so everybody around us was cheering and stomping their feet and yelling so that the quarterback couldn’t call an audible. This made it tough for us to talk, but nobody could eavesdrop. I really didn’t want anybody to eavesdrop.
Danielle then turned to me. “Have you ever seen a woman pee?”
I rubbed my palm against my forehead. “I’ve heard you a couple times,” I said. “I wasn’t trying to, I promise.”
Danielle placed her hand on my knee. “I know I can’t watch you pee because you get stage fright,” she said. “But I really want to see ten guys pee into a tub. And we’ve already paid for our tickets.”
“Admission to a football game does not guarantee women entry into the men’s room,” I said. “Especially you.”
“I can look like a guy,” Danielle said.
Kirk (still sitting to my right) stared, open mouthed. “I don’t think so.”
Danielle began tying her hair up. “Give me your cap,” she said to Kirk.
Kirk handed it over, looking to Linda for permission, but Linda was staring at Danielle too. Danielle then replaced her thick glasses with my dark sunglasses, and put my windbreaker over her college jacket to give her a bulkier, less feminine look.
I glanced at Danielle’s jaw line and neck; both definitely belonged to a hot chick.
“Look down and hunch your shoulders,” I told her. That was her only hope. She put her hands into my jacket’s pockets, raised her shoulders, and put her head down. If nobody paid attention, maybe nobody would notice she wasn’t a man. But she’d probably need more help.
Linda tapped her finger on her armrest. “Danielle, if you were in a laundromat, and you had just washed all your clothes, and you realized that there was only one dryer, and it was being used by a strange guy you didn’t know… would you ask the strange guy to share the dryer with you?”
“No,” Danielle said, with a tone of disgust. “I’d wait until the guy was done.” Then she turned to me and announced in a loud fake deep voice:
“I need to take a leak.”
I really didn’t want to go through with this, but now Danielle had committed. Maybe she was (unintentionally) embarrassing me in public, but I had known when we started living in sin that this could happen. When you start living in sin with a hot chick (simply because she’s hot and willing to live in sin with you), you have to accept most of your partner-in-sin’s faults. If Danielle wanted to go see a bunch of men urinate into a communal, then I had to back her play. It was my responsibility as a boyfriend.
“I do too,” I said, even though I got stage fright at communals.
“So do I,” Kirk said. I didn’t know if he was supporting me as a friend or if he just wanted to see what was about to happen.
“I’ve never seen three men go to the bathroom together,” Linda said. “What are you going to talk about in there?”
Before we moved, I spotted one other problem. “Dan!” I shouted, even though I didn’t need to.
Danielle paused.
“You gonna read that in the men’s room?” I asked, pointing to my copy of Sense and Sensibility which she had instinctively grabbed.
Danielle cleared her throat and continued with her fake voice, “This piece of shit?” Then she gave the book to Linda.
“Men are allowed to read Jane Austen books,” Linda said.
“Not when I’m taking a leak!”
“You probably shouldn’t call any Jane Austen book a piece of shit,” I muttered to Danielle as we got up.
“I took drama in high school,” Danielle said. She attempted a male strut past me in our row. “I’m staying in character.”
As she squeezed past Kirk (despite Danielle being a man now, Kirk still let her out of our row first), he checked out her tight jeans. “If that’s a guy, I’m turning…”
“I’ll walk close behind her,” I said. “You go in front.” Once Kirk was in place, it was like a Danielle sandwich, but not in a vulgar way. And that’s how we walked to the men’s room, Kirk in front, Danielle close behind and looking down, and me in the rear (again, not in a vulgar way).
As we entered the bathroom and got in line for the community urinal, there was an intense fecal smell, but Danielle didn’t say anything. Somebody was working through intestinal issues in one of the toilets, and it offended at least two senses. All we could see were the backs of a line of guys hunching with their hands in front of them. Men in front of us filled in the gaps as they finished relieving themselves. Kirk whistled as he strolled to a gap but stopped when he got a couple dirty looks from other guys. That was a good play on Kirk’s part, distracting other men who might notice Danielle.
A few seconds later, another hole in the line opened up, and Danielle took her place, two spaces from the left end of the trough line. She hunched her shoulders and pretended to play with her zipper. I really hoped she didn’t stay there long. I really hoped she would take a quick peek, glance both directions, get the visual she wanted (whatever it was), and leave before anybody noticed. Most guys are aware of the presence of others urinating around them, but they don’t want to make eye contact or look like they’re trying to make eye contact.
Danielle was lingering. A hole opened up a couple spaces to her right. I hesitated. A guy behind me cleared his throat. I knew I wasn’t going to do anything functional right then, but I had to go through the motions, so I took the spot. I thought about fake sneezing and leaving the line to wash my hands. But I didn’t have to.
Danielle did the unexpected. She screamed. It was quick. It was shrill and high-pitched. And even worse, it obviously came from a woman. Every guy in the men’s room knew there was a woman in the pee line at the trough.
*****
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: Interesting.
To read “The Literary Girlfriend” from the beginning, start here.
Now that she’s had a baby, will Kim Kardashian write a book about child rearing? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As I get older, I’ve noticed that I spend more time reading about books than actually reading books. I enjoy reading book reviews on blogs and book sites. I check out the news about upcoming books, knowing that I’ll never read most of them. And I enjoy seeing all the writers I’ve never heard of getting book deals. Unfortunately, a lot of these new authors getting book deals are celebrities.
I’m sure this is nothing new. Celebrities have always written about themselves (or had a ghost writer do it for them). But now I’m seeing celebrities branch out into new (that I’ve noticed) directions. Just today (I wrote this over a week ago and published it today, so “today” isn’t really today), a celebrity announced plans to publish a heart-shaped book about photography. Another celebrity (a comedian on a sit-com that I occasionally watch) is writing a humorous (we’ll see about that) book about relationships. Yet another celebrity is writing a children’s book. That’s not news; there’s always a celebrity writing a children’s book.
Whenever I read book news, maybe half of the publicized book deals seem to be celebrities. That doesn’t mean half of the books being published are written by celebrities; I think the books that are making news are written by celebrities. Since the public already knows their names, it’s very easy to publicize their books.
In one way, it’s strange that celebrities would want to write books. Writing ability is not usually what makes a celebrity a celebrity. Some celebrities read lines (written by writers who are not celebrities) very well. Others sing lyrics (written by writers who are not celebrities) really well. Others make sex tapes (but these probably weren’t written by writers who are not celebrities).
I don’t blame celebrities for signing book deals. If I were a celebrity (and I’m not), and a book publisher offered me a deal (which they probably won’t), I’d sign it. I’d be obligated to sign. Part of being a celebrity is being famous, and fame can fade quickly. A celebrity is obligated to milk every possible amount of income out of fame because fame can disappear so quickly.
Even though celebrities get book deals because of name recognition, I don’t want to mention the celebrities with book deals by name. The celebrity book deals are happening so quickly that by the time you read this, the deals I’ve mentioned will be old news, and there’ll already be new celebrity book deals. And when you’re talking about celebrities, the worst thing you can do is talk about old news (and I wrote this last week, so I’m playing with fire here).
There are a couple celebrities whom I admire, but I wouldn’t necessarily read any books they wrote (they probably don’t read mine, so we’re even). I read Tina Fey’s Bossypants because she is a writer and I was curious about what her book would be like. A bunch of comedians whom I enjoy have written books, but I haven’t read any of them.
When it comes to celebrities, I think I’ve watched more sex tapes than read books (except for Tina Fey, whose book I’ve read, but I haven’t seen a sex tape).
I feel sorry for the celebrity without a book deal. What does it say about a celebrity when he/she can’t get a book deal? If a celebrity can’t get a book deal, maybe that means the celebrity needs to find another calling. But I hope those celebrities who can’t get book deals don’t become authors. There are already enough of those.
If your favorite celebrity wrote a book, would you buy it? Or are there any celebrities whose books you would absolutely refuse to buy?
Is it possible that this book (and its series) could be #7 on an All Time Best Novels list?
A few months ago, I vowed that I wouldn’t read a 10 All Time Greatest Novels list that came out on a popular weekly entertainment site. I was pretty sure I’d disagree with the list, and I was also certain that the experts who had compiled the list hadn’t read every book ever published and therefore weren’t qualified to determine what the ten best books of all time were.
Then a couple weeks ago a British publication/site devised its own Top 100 Novels list. Curiosity overcame my integrity, and I decided to go ahead and read the lists. After all, I wanted to know how similar (or different) two competing lists of book rankings could be. Both lists went up to 100, but in the interest of keeping this post short, I’ve cut the lists to their top ten. Maybe, just maybe, the two lists would have the exact same books. If two “best ever books” lists had the exact same books, then maybe those books were truly the best of all time. If a few, or a couple, or even just one book, could make both lists, that one book could be considered the best of all time.
But unfortunately, no single book made both top ten lists.
Author Jane Austen made both lists but with different books. Even Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy couldn’t make both top ten lists with different books. I thought both of them could make both lists with the same books, but I guess not.
One list had a few books that were kind of recent. I have nothing against recent books, but it’s tough to judge them as best ever because we don’t know what people will think of recently published books 50 years from now. If these recently published books are forgotten after 50 years, we can’t go back and pretend that the offending top ten list was never created. If a book published over 50 years ago is still being read, it will probably continue to be read in another 50 years. I’m not saying no recently published book should be included in a “best books ever” list, but maybe the contributors to the list should have been more selective.
I’ve read the exact number of books (five) from each list, so I can’t use that as part of the criteria, either for or against the lists. I think more highly of the books I haven’t read than the ones I have. I think if you take five books from each list, it would be pretty strong, depending on which five books you choose.
So, which list is better? Now you can be the judge.
*****
10 Greatest Novels of All Time from one website
1. Don Quixote Miguel De Cervantes
2. Pilgrim’s Progress John Bunyan
3. Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
4. Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift
5. Tom Jones Henry Fielding
6. Clarissa Samuel Richardson
7. Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne
8. Dangerous Liaisons Pierre Choderlos De Laclos
9. Emma Jane Austen
10. Frankenstein Mary Shelley
*****
10 All Time Greatest Novels list from another website
1. Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
2. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
4. Great Expectations Charles Dickens
5. One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
6. My Antonia Willa Cather
7. Harry Potter (series) J.K. Rowling
8. The Rabbit Quartet (series) John Updike
9. Beloved Toni Morrison
10. Charlotte’s Web E.B.White
To me, it’s not even close. But which top ten list do you think is better? And what criteria did you use?
If you’re a literary pretender, you run the risk of getting caught, and that can be humiliating. It had happened to me a couple times, but now Danielle was carrying around Sense and Sensibility and had brought it with her to the football game. Unfortunately, Kirk’s girlfriend Linda had read Sense and Sensibility and started asking Danielle questions. It had happened so quickly that I couldn’t intervene or think of a distraction without being obvious.
Danielle took a quick breath. “I don’t talk about books until I’m finished reading them,” she said, glancing quickly at me.
“How far have you read?” Linda asked.
“Not enough. I don’t think it sucks, but I haven’t read enough to talk about it.”
“Maybe when you’re done…” and Linda’s voice trailed off. “What books have you finished?”
Danielle thought about it. “Animal Farm,” she said.
“What did you think of that?” Linda asked.
I gulped. Danielle had quizzed me about Animal Farm the first night we were together, but I didn’t remember what I had told her. I didn’t even know if what I had told her was accurate. The conditions of our literature discussion that night hadn’t been ideal. My mind had been on something else.
“It was… political,” Danielle said. Then she smiled widely and asked, “Have you read Atlas Shrugged?”
Linda rolled her eyes.
“I finished it last week,” Danielle said.
“You’ve read Atlas Shrugged,” Linda said.
“I know who John Galt is,” Danielle announced. “But right now, I really want to read a trashy romance.”
Danielle rested her hand on my leg while Linda talked about a few books that Danielle might like to read, but I hadn’t heard of any of them. Danielle (who probably knew less than I did about any book) asked a couple questions and pretended to be interested. Then she steered the conversation away from books to nails and manicures and the best places to get them and the best gyms to work out in and the best place to get a sports car repaired where the mechanics wouldn’t rip you off. Even Kirk listened to that part of their conversation.
I was surprised at how Danielle and Linda were getting along. Linda had barely talked to me during previous outings with Kirk. I wasn’t sure if she had been intentionally rude in the past, but there had definitely been a distance. Danielle had gotten her out of that shell almost instantly. I knew that was part of her job (the job that she didn’t want to tell my friends about), pretending to be interested in people she wasn’t interested in. Then I wondered, I was pretty sure Danielle liked me, I really hoped that she liked me, but if Danielle was good at making people she wasn’t interested in think that she was interested in them, and if she was that good at pretending…
“You suck!” Kirk yelled next to my ear.
Our home team’s quarterback had just fumbled the ball after a big hit. Luckily, an offensive lineman recovered it, so he’d get another chance.
“That was loud,” Danielle whispered to me.
“Kirk takes his football seriously.”
We talked and watched football for a while, and then I went to get hot dogs and drinks. Danielle said she didn’t want any food, but I bought two hot dogs just in case, and she ate one. The home team was losing, and Kirk kept getting mad, which was funny because he really didn’t care. He just got mad when athletes made stupid mistakes. The quarterback kept getting hit, and he kept missing his throws. After a really bad throw on 3rd and long almost got intercepted, Kirk yelled out again, “You suck!”
“Would you please shut up,” Danielle said, half-serious. “It’s not his fault.”
“He missed an easy throw!” Kirk said.
“He’s getting his ass kicked,” Danielle said. “His line sucks.”
“He missed an easy throw!”
“You ever get your ass kicked?” Danielle said. It almost sounded like a threat.
Kirk just stared at her.
“Try throwing a football when you’re getting your ass kicked,” Danielle said. “See if you can do it.”
“But he…that throw…”
I kept myself from grinning because Kirk rarely got flustered. I just drank my soda and enjoyed the moment.
Danielle said, “If that line starts protecting him and he still can’t throw, then he sucks.”
“Don’t argue with her about what sucks and what doesn’t,” I said. “I had to learn the hard way.” I took another drink.
Kirk leaned back and whistled. I think he knew he had just been verbally beaten down. Then he stared at me like he was about to point out a zit on my face.
“Go easy on that,” Kirk said, nodding toward my soda. “Remember, the communals.”
Ugh, I had forgotten about the communals in the men’s bathrooms. I could feel my lips tighten as I put my drink down.
“What’s a communal?” Danielle asked.
Kirk pointed at me to explain.
“It’s a long tub that a bunch of guys urinate into at the same time. I hate them.”
Danielle laughed. “You have to pee in front of other people?”
“A bunch of other people,” I said.
Kirk said, “He gets stage fright.”
“Shut up,” I said, a hint of desperation in my voice. He was right, I didn’t like doing that in front of other people, but I didn’t want it mentioned in front of my girlfriend.
“How many guys line up to pee in this tub?” Danielle asked, not picking up on the stage fright thing.
“I don’t know. Ten?”
“Bullshit,” Danielle said. “You’re making that up.”
“I wish I was,” I said.
“Ten guys peeing in a tub,” Danielle said. Her eyes widened and her smile broadened. “This, I’ve gotta see.”
When Danielle said that she had to see the communal, I knew she was speaking literally. She didn’t want to hear it described anymore. She didn’t want to just picture it in her brain, ten guys peeing in a row. Right then, I knew Danielle was going to go into the men’s bathroom and look at the communal. She didn’t have to say she was going to do it. She didn’t have to announce it. I just knew she was going to do it. And she was going to do this in front of my friends.
*****
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: Embarrassing Public Behavior.
And to read “The Literary Girlfriend” from the beginning, start here.
