Somewhere around 1990, my petition for a special major in Creative Writing was turned down.
I already had enough credits to get the degree, and most of them were in English, at the advice of the board who turned me down, I tried to turn a now defunct Creative Writing degree into an English degree. After another year, I had three classes left to finish a degree: one each in English, Art and General Education. But I could not take another year, so I moved on with my life.
My time spent perusing Creative Writing was prolific and a joy (as was work towards my minor in Fine Art Studio Painting). My time working toward an English degree was laborious and stifling. It soiled all love of reading I had. Since then I have tried, fruitlessly, to get into reading. But I never make it past about 20% of the way into a book before I get frustrated and bored. I feel like I know what the writer is doing, it's all too transparent to me, and I want him to spare me the overindulgent prose and just get the point.
Fast forward about 20 years.
As you may know from an
earlier post, I had a minor affinity for a fun little past time know as Call of Duty, an affinity that needed self intervention. I've temporarily quit the game for about three weeks now. The point of which was simply allow time for other interests to have time to re-emerge. In that time, I have got back into coding for
MilkandCookies.com, I picked up the ukulele again and I thought about taking another stab at reading.
I mentioned all of this at a birthday party a couple weeks ago and was told emphatically to read Moby Dick, "There's a reason it's a classic!!". I thought that was a bit intense and would set me up for failure. So someone else, Aaron Wooster, suggested I read from
The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection. So I did. He was right about them being engaging and fun to read, and it worked to a point. I almost read one complete story.
Another week or so goes by and I hear an excerpt
Sarah Silverman reading from her new book
The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee. So I decided to get it.
A while back I looked into Chelsea Handler's book,
Chelsea Bang Bang and it was AWFUL! Unlike that trash — and I love Chelsea Handler so that's saying something — Sarah's book hit me in the right place. For me it's funny, honest, concise, and resonates; often mirroring my own experiences. Maybe you'll hate it, I don't know. But two days after buying it, I am twice as far into it as I have been into any book since college: a whole 41% (according to the Kimble app I am using to read it).
Maybe 20 years was just enough time for the indelible stain a near English degree left on me. If I finish this book and start another one, I will feel better about feeling "cured".
In the meantime, a new milestone is always fun. Huzzah!
A word of advice, which I have both heard and repeated frequently: never get a degree in anything you love, it will surely destroy your love of it.
