A New Year's Resolution

I'm bad at resolutions. I usually forget them or ignore them. This year I'm trying something slightly different. I'm going to try harder at something I'm already trying to do: this year I want to publish at least three short stories.

I was originally thinking two, which seems like a realistic goal (maybe), but I thought hell, why not push myself a bit. I've spent the break revising many of the short stories I've written over the last year into drafts I'm happy with. I've got four good short stories to send around (I started submitting yesterday), with two more coming up, as soon as I polish up the most recent drafts. That's six stories. By the end of the year, I want half of them to be in print or online journals. Now it's public, so you all get to hold me to this and harass me to submit.

Guilt

It's been two months since I've blogged. Ashley is blogging every day. Josh is blogging again (and helping his wife in labor as I write this! Woo hoo!). I have blogger's guilt. I blame Chelsea for not needling me into doing it. For shame, Chelsea.

Actually, I blame school. School is not exciting to write (or, I'm assuming read) about. I've got student papers, I read short stories, I eke in some writing when I can. I've actually been frustrated with how little writing I'm getting done--students take up a lot of time, and I'm trying to force myself to find a balance between the TAship that's paying for me to be here and the thing I'm actually supposed to be doing while I'm here, but it's hard.

I've been writing recently because I have a story coming due in workshop. I was trying to write this historical piece about an American soldier who goes traveling after World War I and ends up in India and has to shoot a tiger, but I think I may have found my "faking it" limit. I can write a story about hunting. I can write a story set in 1918. I think I can write a story set in India. But I can't do all three at once. Too many levels of abstraction, too much research to do. I wrote like fifteen pages, did a ton of research, read half of Man-eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett (a British colonel who spent thirty years tracking and shooting man-eating tigers and leopards in central India; super-interesting), then I threw it away and started writing something else. The new story is coming very easily.

In other news, I'm going down to Boston for a northwest brew festival on Monday! Boundary Bay! Deschutes! Issaquah and Lompoc! I'm really stoked. I also have my plane tickets home. December 14th, kids. I'll see you then, and I'll try to be a better blogger.

Positive Thinking! Positive Thinking!

I leave for New Hampshire in eighteen days, which is very strange. I feel like I just got here. As many of you know, New Hampshire isn't exactly my favorite place in the world, but I am trying to keep the blog-whining to a minimum. To that end, I've decided to talk a bit about things I'm actually looking forward to (!!) about returning to the Live Free or Die State.

• Living free or dying. I intend to live free.

The other option is dying hard. This kind of shit happens in New Hampshire all the time.

• Teaching. Oh man did I miss teaching this last year. I can't wait to have students, to be in front of a classroom again, even to grade papers--Smarthinking has made me realize how awesome it is to grade and evaluate on your own terms.

• Writing and reading. Sure, I'm writing and reading this summer, but it's going to be fun to have myself exposed to stuff I wouldn't pick up on my own, and to have a dedicated writing schedule. Writing over breaks always feels kind of like a dalliance or a hobby, even when I'm really cranking it out; in school it's basically all there is, so it feels much much more important.

• Shipyard Summer. I know this is weird, since I'm in the land of microbreweries, but I have been totally craving Shipyard Summer Ale. I've been enjoying a lot of Northwest summer ales and IPAs (apparently there's a very distinct "west coast" style of IPA, pioneered by WA and OR microbreweries, that has a lot more kick to it than its east coast cousin, which explains why all the IPA in New England sucks except for Smuttynose) but the Shipyard Summer is kind of like liquid crack-beer. It accompanies hot, muggy weather quite nicely. I promise I'm not cheating on you, delicious Northwest brews! It's just a fling.
  

• Having a car. New Hampshire is going to suck a lot less when I can get around it, or leave any time I want to go Boston or Portland or the mountains. Thanks for the car, Kate and Adam! You have noooooo idea how awesome this is. (Fingers crossed the Civic makes it across the country incident-free.)

• My new apartment. I can't wait to have my own space and fill it up with books and video games and brand new kitchen stuff and the things I like. Plus, it's in downtown Dover, right next to an awesome used books store and a bunch of nice bars, coffeehouses, and restaurants. Sweet.

My building. I'm in one of the studios on the corner.

• Fall in New England. We haven't had a ton of summer weather in Washington, which I'm just fine with. I'm already done with 85-degree-plus weather, sweating myself to sleep, sitting in front of fans, etc. (And has anybody else noticed how the red lights in Seattle are one or two minutes longer once the temperature gets to about ninety? I swear I'm not making this up.) I know that once I arrive in New Hampshire I'll have even more miserable weather to deal with for awhile, but then fall will be here, and it will be nice and cool and pretty-colored, and I can eat apples and candy corn and wear coats again. Huzzah!

Yeah, it's pretty there.

• Hiking. I hear the hiking in New Hampshire is great, and they do have lots of woods and mountains (sorry, "mountains"). I'm going to buy a best hikes book and use my newfound transportation to travel the state and walk all over it.
  

• Seeing my cat. I miss her.

Clementine circa early 2007.

See, positive thinking! Maybe I could follow this up with a list of things I won't miss about the Pacific Northwest. It might be short, but worth it.

On my Mind

It turns out I really enjoy hiking. I've hiked Tiger Mountain and Mount Si and a good chunk of the trails in Saint Ed's, and I'm wondering why I didn't start doing this sooner. I lived in Bellingham for six years, for god's sake, and I never went hiking once. What was I doing with that time? Why wasn't I climbing Oyster Dome or exploring Chuckanut? Stupid Ian. I'm considering buying a better hiking backpack when I get some money (read: when student loans drop), and I'll definitely pick up a New Hampshire trail guide when I get back for the summer.

***

I'm dreading going back to New Hampshire; I'm going to miss the Northwest a lot. The landscape, my friends, my family, the ethnic food, the mild weather, all the cool little places in Fremont that I've found in the last two months. There are definitely things I'm looking forward to on the east coast--primarily my new apartment, a corner studio in the heart of downtown Dover that overlooks the old textile mill--but I'm enjoying this weird limbo summer away from school and my work.

***

Speaking of my work, I'm writing again. New thesis project is underway. I don't really want to talk about it, so you'll get to read it when it's done. Heh.

***

I just realized that I've been back for two months and still haven't eaten any sushi. This needs to be remedied.

***

Other tidbits: Smarthinking is over and done with and I'll soon spend a weekend wandering around Bellingham, looking at the water, hiking, drinking Boundary Bay, visiting the farmer's market, etc. I can't wait. Everyone should listen to Veckatimest by Grizzly Bear. The Young Ward is close to walking, and she's loving it. When Josh's novel The Story Thief hits the shelves and is a triumphant New York Times' Bestseller, listen to old Ennio Morricone tracks while you read it--they fit together like puzzle pieces, and it's weird. That's all.

A Brief Summary of the Weekend

Friday

I drove up to Sam's cabin near Cle Elum with Jarret for a night of delicious food and Chris's homebrewed beer (which is delicious). I ate salmon and lots of good food, tried to solve a ridiculous puzzle, and sat next to a campfire and talked until very late. It was lovely.

Saturday

Got up early and drove out of the mountains so I could do the Fremont zombie walk. Tore up clothes with Lindsey and Sydney and had a lovely day wandering around Fremont, lunching on lamb burger, and checking out all the costumes. Lindsey, Sydney and I went as corporate zombies (office clothes, a tie for me, coffee cups) and got many compliments on our zombie-gear. We are in approximately 3000 complete strangers' photographs.

The best part about dressing as a zombie is the more dilapidated your clothes become, the better of a job you are doing. As I became progressively more covered in dirt, blood, and sweaty smeary make-up, my costume looked better and better. What an excellent day! Everybody was having a goofy good time, there was a great feeling of goodwill, and we pretty much had great times with random strangers all day. I highly recommend going on a zombie walk. Pictures are on Facebook, but I'm too lazy to upload them here. Sorry.

Sunday

Seattle weather defeated us! Some friends and I camped out at Gasworks at noon, hoping to have a good spot by the time fireworks started, and for a while it was great--cloudy but warm, good food and hanging out--but then it started raining and we had to retreat to Lindsey's friend's apartment in Fremont to watch movies (This is It, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, and season one of The Guild; excellent lazy holiday watching) and wait for the show. The view from the roof was incredible--Ali's apartment is near the Fremont bridge, so the underside of the bridge is arcing overhead toward Queen Anne, Seattle's skyscrapers are poking out from behind the hill, and Lake Union and Gasworks are right below. The fireworks were lovely. Of course, I forgot my camera.

Monday

Recovery day. I was lazy and sat around, watched more of The Guild, drove over to Woodinville to play Magic with Chris, Chris, and Ballew, ate Thai food with the parents, and generally took it easy after my crazy weekend. Man, I wish all weekends could be like this.

Nothing is happening on the writing front. I am feeling more and more justified in my laziness, as it seems few people from UNH are getting anything done this summer, yet I am still full of jealous rage when others are productive (I'm looking at you, Josh). I am wavering on my dedication to my thesis. The project seems too big, too massive in scope and ambition for an MFA thesis, and frankly, I don't think I've got the chops for it yet. I may try to reconfigure it as a collection of related short stories and novellas, but more likely it's just going to go in a back drawer until I'm ready for it. I've got another project in mind that I'm pretty pumped about and is slightly shorter and more achievable. I'll keep you posted.

Hey look, I'm a guest blogger

I wrote a guest post, ramblings about short story form, for Jory over at Literary Magpie. Check it out here.

Kaylee, Reading, Writing, Bellingham

I've taken to referring to my niece Kaylee, in my own brain at least, as "my young ward." My young ward is very cranky today. Shh! My young ward is sleeping! It's funny how quickly my day has come to revolve around Kaylee--when she sleeps, when she needs to eat, when she can play around in the dining room while I write or check my e-mail--but it feels less like a job and more like I'm just hanging out with my niece. Except for that really bad teething day--THAT felt like work.

***

I'm reading a ton. For the last two weeks I've been keeping a running draft of my comments on books I've read in the month of May (I told you I'd keep doing it). Because I'm on vacation now, and because I've spent most of my free time reading and thinking about what I've read, that blog post is going to be huge. Start getting ready now.

In related news, I failed at my goal to take two weeks off of writing about four days ago. I made it about a week and a half before I revised some short stories (cheers, Josh!) and sent a bunch of material out. Already got a rejection back on my lone sci-fi short story, and I'm looking for more places to send it.

***

I am off to Bellingham this weekend, and lifting my spending freeze long enough to buy some delicious B'ham food. I'm thinking Casa Que Pasa, some Boundary Bay beer, and a cyser at Honeymoon. If I can sneak sushi in there (lunch at the public market?) I will be even happier.

Wrapping Up

I'm just finishing off an awesomely productive day. I wrote the last ten pages of a short story draft, revised a piece for my nonfiction final, read and commented on a story for workshop, read a story from a journal, crossed some random around-the-house crap off my to-do list, went running, and sat in the sun. And now I'm blogging. What a day!

It's the end of the semester, and before today I was kind of freaking out. I have less than a week to wrap up all my classes, revise at least twenty-five pages of nonfiction, and write a story for workshop. Oh, and I have to get my stuff in order, find a self-storage place and move all my crap out of the apartment. So I'm a little busy. Today made me feel like I could take it all on. I'm sure it will be back to panic and chaos tomorrow, but maybe not.
I can't wait to fly back to Seattle (I've using the all-purpose, recognizable "Seattle" in favor of "Bothell," or sometimes even "Bellingham," just because people know where it is). I can't wait to see my friends and enjoy the northwest summer and eat smoked salmon and barbecued hamburgers. I can't wait for good microbrews. I can't wait for time to read some books and time to start working on my thesis again.

But first I have to scramble through these next two weeks. Don't expect a lot in the way of updates for a while, although we'll see how busy I am at work. I'm looking forward to seeing all of you northwesterners soon!

Recent Happenings

Hey everybody. Just thought I'd give you the rundown, or the lowdown, or the dealyo. Here are some things that happened! Or are happening!

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We went to a hockey game. It was the last hockey game of the regular season, and UNH (#1 in our league) was playing Boston College (#2) for a spot in the quarterfinals. It was a tense game. By the end of the second period we were down three-to-nothing and it was looking hopeless, but we scored three goals (are they called that in hockey?) in the third period to tie it up, and nobody scored in overtime. It was my first hockey game, and very exciting. I think I might actually see if I can go to a few more next year. There were two notable things about this hockey game:

1. They played the Canadian national anthem before the game, even though both teams were American and as far as I could tell, everybody there was from either New Hampshire or Massachusetts. I guess it's a hockey thing.
2. Hockey brings out my most violent impulses. I was surprised at how sedate the crowd was, especially for the first two periods. For two and a half hours I had to stop myself from jumping up and screaming "HIT HIM IN THE FACE WITH YOUR STICK!" while the undergrads and middle-aged alumni behind us commented casually on the plays

So anyway, it was really fun.

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I'm about to watch the Oscars. I'm hoping Hurt Locker beats out Avatar, but I'm being realistic. We're having people over for dinner--Ashley made delicious bread, we're trying to salvage a soup we maybe screwed up, and our friend Nate is bringing up "lobster macaroni and cheese," which sounds scary but I'm betting will be delicious.

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I'm a freaking writing machine. I polished off a short story (promising) and a nonfiction article (we'll see what the class says about it) earlier this week, I finished the second chapter of my novel's messy first draft, started another nonfiction piece and wrote half a short story--and those last three things I did today. I feel like Josh Young or some shit. I also commented on a workshop story, sat in the sun, and finished off Stephen King's On Writing, which I'm reading for my form and technique class and which I'm thoroughly enjoying (I've actually read it twice before, but for a few years).

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That's about all. I'm a little less busy now, so I'll try to update more (Chelsea).

Difficulties

It's difficult to do homework without power. We lost our power Thursday night because of a big nasty storm (one of those wicked nor'easters they're always talking about), and didn't get it back until Saturday night. I spent the weekend at a friend's apartment with a terrible internet connection, which meant I could write, but not research or do my online tutoring job. Before the storm hit I was grossly sick (in fact I'm still not completely recovered). Now Ashley is sick and our apartment continues to be a gross pit of sickness. This semester is conspiring against us--neither of us will ever get on top of the workload.

In other random news, my friend Josh (formerly of WWU, now doing his MFA in Las Cruces, NM) posted an interesting commentary about workshop difficulties on his blog All Headlights and Vapor Trails. You can read the original post here. I want to post the comment I made on my own blog because dammit, I'm in full rant mode and I want to. Basically, Josh's post is about how he's frustrated that fiction workshops overemphasize criticism of a story, making what's not working in a story a more important topic of discussion than what is working. In his teaching and his workshopping, he tries to talk about what isn't working in terms of what is. ("This section would be better if you changed this and this, to make it parallel the scene on page three.") You should read the rest of the post--it's interesting. He also takes his fellow MFAers to task for only reading their colleagues' pieces once before commenting. In my comment I talk about what pisses me off in the workshop:

I'm okay with the balance of support and criticism, as least in my workshop (probably about 25-75). What bugs the hell out of me is the way we fall into phrasing our quibbles. "I like x and y about your story, but I do have some questions..." is such a euphemistic way to segue into talking problems about the story. For me, that kind of language just doesn't help--if something is wrong with my story, I want to fucking know that it's a problem. Telling me you have a question about it doesn't help much, telling me that it sucks does.

I often wound up treating student papers quite differently because they don't have the (typically) thick skin creative writers develop in the workshop, and to much overt criticism can shut them down entirely. Euphemistic workshop language seems appropriate for college freshmen--they need the cushion--it doesn't seem appropriate for writers in their mid-twenties or later who have been doing this for years.

As for reading, I usually give it a quick "enjoyment" reading (also to get the threads of the story in place in my head before I start getting critical with it), then get into the nitty-gritty on my second reading. I usually only have time to give the really flawed or challenging drafts a third reading, unfortunately.

It is weird how people write because something is due, and it does seem counter-intuitive. I wonder how often it's a problem with time to write. Now that my semester is in full swing, I'm finding myself stupid busy--working 30 hours at two jobs and reading other students' work, mostly--and I'm ashamed to say I am in the process of writing a phoning-it-in short story. I haven't had time to do better, and that sucks. Hopefully something interesting comes out of it, but right now... ugh.

But I thought my images were subtle with a deep ring of metaphor! WAH!

Josh is *hopefully* coming to AWP and crashing with Kenny, Chas, and I. He's a stud, his comments at WWU were always hard-nosed and useful, and he mentions me all the time on his blog. Nice.

If Scorsese can do it, why can't I?

Last night Ashley and I went to see the new Martin Scorsese movie Shutter Island. It was pretty good, but not great—wait for it to hit the cheap theaters, or maybe DVD if you've got a nice big TV. I found that the last third of the movie dragged pretty badly, and MAN did I see that twist ending coming from a looooooooong way off. Still, the first parts of the movie were quite unsettling—both Ashley and I had really messed up dreams.

Anyway, it got me thinking about genre. Scorsese is clearly playing a lot with genre, mixing 40s and 50s hardboiled noir-style narratives, camera angles, and performances with surreal and psychological horror. Leonardo DiCaprio's and Mark Ruffalo's dialogue from early on in the film sounds like something straight out of a fifties detective movies (plus a few F-bombs). I think a lot of the audience was a bit put off by the genre anachronisms early on in the movie. The acting style took a little while to get used to and the (intentionally, I think) overdramatic score drew giggles from the undergrads next to me, but I had a great time, especially as the straightforward detective narrative descended into weirder, hallucinatory spaces.

Whenever I see genre done right, in writing, film, or TV, I always miss Western. New Hampshire's MFA program coasts by on this “Yeah, genre writing is cool, we can talk about genre,” attitude, but when it actually comes up in conversation, none of the students or professors actually have the vocabulary to talk about it. WWU made sure its students could talk about genre fiction, in its popular and experimental forms. Matt, a friend and fiction classmate—and a sci fi nerd who takes his work to some pretty damn experimental places—gave me Dan Simmons's Hyperion for my birthday. “Wow,” I thought. “I knew Matt was a nerd, but this is some hard-core sci-fi nerdery.” I was surprised, but I shouldn't have been. Deep genre stuff, and our predilection for it, never comes up in class.

In a little over a month I'll be at the AWP conference in Denver. Michael Chabon, a supporter of ghettoized genres in all mediums, is the keynote speaker, and I'm curious to see if he'll bring up sci-fi or comic books in his speech to the—very academy-centric—AWP crowd. Chabon is interesting because he manages to be a best-selling author who genre-hops—Kavalier and Clay was a period piece, his next novel was sci-fi, and he's jumped through children's fantasy, serialized mystery novellas, and steampunk short stories since then—but also maintains pretty good cred with academic creative writers (he went to Iowa for his MFA and teaches in Berkeley, I think). I hope he takes stodgy academic writers to task—short stories and novels don't have to be boring. It's possible to have both nuanced characters and aliens, lyrical prose and exploding helicopters. I'll keep you posted on what Chabon says. I'm going to go write a story where something interesting happens.

I am a Bad Blogger

It would be nice to start this post with something like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe it's been two and a half months since I've blogged!" But of course, I'm well aware that it has been a very, very long time since I've clicked on "New Post," and every time I see a new post pop up on gauchedroitegauche (daily! Daily!) I feel a tug of guilt.

So I'm going to try to be a better blogger. The problem is, that's not as easy as it sounds. I have reasons for never posting on this damn thing. Here are some of them.

1. Nothing to write about. If I blogged daily, every entry would consist of "I woke up and went to work and school. Then I wrote." Grad school is a grind, and after six weeks of glorious vacation in the Pacific Northwest, I am right back in it.
2. Other outlets. I am writing a novel for my thesis. I'm about sixty-five pages in. I'm also writing a bunch of nonfiction for my nonfiction class. I don't need to write any more, and if I have an idea I really want to explore and write about, I'm going to do it in an essay or a piece of fiction, probably not in a blog post.
3. I will shortly be in possession of Beatles Rock Band. Yes, yes, I know that this doesn't excuse the last two and a half months of bad blogging, it's just a warning that this is probably going to continue, because soon this game will suck up all my free time. Oh, also in the box o' stuff with Beatles Rock Band is Contra, A Boy and his Blob, Vice: Project Doom, and a bunch of PS2 games, including the first two Katamari titles. I'm going to be doing some gaming.
4. Laziness. Meh.

So there you have it. Apologies, apologies. I will try harder, I promise. I think the quantity of my blog posts might be a direct corollary to how much downtime I have at work (I am blogging from a lull in excitement at the Office of Conduct and Mediation). I'll definitely keep you posted if anything exciting happens.

Oh! This is old news, but something kind of exciting happened. I got my copy of 5x5, the litzine that published my short piece "Ten Inch Guns." Here is their website. You should totally buy a copy of the winter 2009 issue, which has my story in it. Also some sweet poems and a really weird/creepy/awesome comic-drawing thingy. Check it out. I'll be in touch.

Another Quick Update

• On Saturday night, Ashley and I went to the beginning of the year MFA program party. Lots of cool people here, but Ashley was the only person there from the MA. Matt and Patrick, who hosted the party in their tiny second-story apartment, were gracious hosts and quite entertaining. Matt is from Seattle and he, Ash and I commiserated about the sorry state of mountains and coffee in this state. As much as I love Ashley, it's been just her and me for more than a month--it's nice to talk to new people.

• Ever since I got accepted here I've had that kind of stereotypical MFA thought in my head. "Everybody else is going to be working on a novel. I've got to start one, got to get one going." After an aborted attempt this summer, I stumbled on a story to tell completely by accident on the second day of classes. It could lead nowhere, or it could be my thesis. Right now I'm having fun planning out parts of it in my head.

• I got a job! I'm working at the Office of Conduct and Mediation, keeping my fingers crossed that the raise they hinted at in the interviews will happen sooner rather than later, and that I can pull in some more hours than what I've started with. I start tomorrow. Basically I'm the principal's office: I keep track of academic sanctions, make sure people who got busted for drinking on-campus end up in the drug and alcohol awareness classes, possibly mediate low-level student disputes, that kind of thing.

• It's easy to lose an hour or two to Legend of Zelda. I've forgotten what an addictive little game it is. It's so good I'm thinking of playing through the SNES sequel next, although I should really be writing instead of gaming. And yes, Holtmeier, that's how I roll.

Gold cartridge, yo.

Ian's Long Lost Rant

Lost spoilers ahead.

I recently read an interview with Patton Oswalt where he said, “Television is the way Hollywood was in the late ’60s and early ’70s. The dream era I would have loved to have been part of in Hollywood then is happening right now, but it’s happening on television, with these big complicated story arcs and real character-driven shows and sheer ambiguity left and right.” Shows like The Wire and Battlestar Galactica are pushing their respective genres into new, artistic territory, 30 Rock is doing a weird meta-take on television comedy, and Mad Men is bringing an obsessive eye for detail and craftsmanship to TV. All of these shows are wonderfully written, I might add.

With all this great TV out there, I cannot explain the popularity of Lost. Yes, it's got a deep and enigmatic mythology, and it often borrows its narrative structure from old adventure serials (plus flashbacks), but on a fictional level, it commits a cardinal sin. Everything in Lost, down to the musical score, is in service to either the plot or the structure. The first season establishes a pattern that follows through most of the series. Something is happening on the island, and it typically focuses around one or two characters. The island scenes are intercut with flashbacks that illuminate that episode's lead character's motives and history, or serve as an (often heavy-handed) metaphor for what's happening in the present, back on the island. In the first season, this worked pretty well; Lost sets itself up as a character driven mystery show. Subsequent seasons, however, keep the flashback structure around after it's already accomplished what it needs to do, which leads to endlessly complicating back stories, motives that seem contradictory, and a general watering down of the characters.

The cast of Lost, scowling.

For example, at the end of the first season, I found Sun and Jin to be the most interesting characters—their uneasy marriage was fascinating, and having the others on the island not understand their language and the dynamics of their relationship was a great decision on the writers' parts. She lives in fear of her shady, controlling husband. He feels bound by duty and family to provide for his wife, and he probably holds this against her. I may be a nerd, but Jin's apology for his behavior in the season finale was heart-wrenching. Over the next two or three seasons we get more Jin and Sun flashbacks, and that interesting character dynamic dissolves into melodrama. She can't get pregnant! But the doctor lied, it's Jin who's infertile! She had an affair and Jin was sent to kill the guy, but he let him go! Sun sold Jin into working for her father to pay Jin's mother, who was blackmailing them! Okay Lost, I don't give a shit anymore. Halfway through season two, I just stopped caring about all the characters. There were a few exceptions, episodes or arcs where plot and character somehow magically aligned and produced something great, but I'll talk about those in a bit.

Perhaps the most infuriating thing about Lost was its reliance on what Roger Ebert calls “The Idiot Plot.” The idiot plot is “A plot that requires all the characters to be idiots. If they weren't, they'd immediately figure out everything and the movie [or television show] would be over.” Specifically, I'm referring to the inability of Lost's characters to communicate in any logical or realistic way. When a character has an important piece of information or knows something that can help or harm the group, instead of telling somebody they either a) keep it to themselves, or b) march off into the jungle (sometimes with a few other characters who have no idea what they've actually been recruited to do) to “solve” the problem. Why do they do this? Why don't they sit down and talk it out? In season one, why doesn't Locke tell anybody about the mysterious hatch that may lead to their rescue?

Because the plot demands it.

Because if the characters did act in a logical or realistic way, there would be no show, there would be no drama, and there would be a hell of a lot fewer unanswered questions. In seasons three and four, many characters repeatedly ask Ben and Juliet about the Others—who are they, why are they treating their captives like animals, why did they kidnap children? They invariably respond either “We're the good guys” (usually followed by a dramatic music cue) or “You wouldn't understand even if I did explain it to you.” Amazingly, even when the power dynamic shifts, the survivors don't press for details. Juliet's defection from the Others would seem like a great time to sit her down and finally get some answers out of her. Why don't they? Because the plot demands it. The writers have decided that the answer to that mystery needs to be withheld, and they''ll suspend logic to do it.

And this is neither here nor there, but the Sawyer-Jack-Kate (and later Juliet) love traingle is grating. Just grating. Shoot me in the face.

The cast of Battlestar Galactica, also sitting/standing dramatically, although not scowling.

So the characters make no sense, the plot walks over anything in its path, including logic (and sometimes itself—plot holes!), and usually watching the show feels like an exercise in frustration. Why is it so successful? Why did I put myself through all five seasons of it? I have a few ideas. The mythology is interesting, and even when I no longer cared about the characters, I still wanted to know what the deal was with the smoke monster, and why there was a giant, four-toed statue foot on an abandoned shore of the island. The cliffhangers are often absurd, but they work—we all want to know what happens next—and I think the forced ambiguity brings a lot of people back. I haven't delved much into Lost fandom, but I know a little bit about all the forums, blogs, theories, etc. on the internet. And of course, people love finding all the little cultural and philosophical references (“Sawyer was reading Watership Down! What does it mean!?”)

Who gives a shit?

And then there are those brief moments of genius, where everything comes together. Locke's crisis of faith and its resolution as the hatch disintegrated around him in season two was awesome, as was switching the flashbacks to flashforwards at the end of season three. My favorite moment in Lost was “The Constant,” where Desmond is unstuck in time. Sure, it's half borrowed from Slaughterhouse-Five (which the show nods to in a reference a few episodes later), but it was also genius, and an interesting variation on its flashback/flashforward structure. But do these flashes of genius really make it worth slogging through hours and hours of bad dialogue and ridiculous plots? Not for me.

Yes, if I could go back in time I would tell myself not to bother with Lost (although now it's too late for me, and I'll watch the sixth and final season as it airs). For a good example of what Lost could have been like, I recommend the first season of Heroes—a show that draws many comparisons to Lost, and in later seasons descended into even more ridiculous plot excess and character nonsense. If you've seen Lost but not Battlestar Galactica, watch it now. Like Lost, sometimes the writers get confused and need to retcon something or hastily bung up a plothole, and the second half of the last season was a disappointment, but this is how good sci-fi television should be. Also, watch The Wire. Everybody needs to watch The Wire. End rant, soon I'll get back to things you may actually care about, I promise.

The only TV show I'll ever need.

Settling

Man, it's amazing what putting some furniture and posters up can do to a place. This is starting to feel less like an apartment where I sleep, eat, use the internet, and watch Lost, and more like a home.

The office, coming together.

Let me tell you the story of this desk. I contacted "Gabriel" on craigslist, who told us to come by and pick up the desk at 8:30. We arrived to find not Gabriel, but his two very confused (most probably stoned) roommates. They lived in a crappy, mostly empty college house that reminded me quite a bit of the one on Ellis Street. Their living room contained one falling-apart couch, a giant HDTV on a wooden stand, an XBox, and literally nothing else. The stoned roommates showed us into the basement, where Gabriel had disassembled and stored the desk, along with fifty or so years of cobwebs, mold, and mildew. We left our number on a sticky note, drove home, got a call from Gabriel, and drove back twenty minutes later to pick up the desk. Stupidly, we paid $45 for this. The picture probably makes it look better than it is. We had to wash the mold and mildew and crap off each piece before we assembled it (using only the pictures from craigslist and Gabriel's sometimes cryptic labels as a guide). The boards were slightly warped, the cabinet shakes, it's missing some screws, it reeks of basement, there's a rather large piece we couldn't find a place for and thus left out... it's a POS. But it's our desk, and I, if not Ashley, love it anyway.

I'm getting back into the writing mode. Unpacking all of my books and putting them up on shelves has something to do with it, I think. It's amazing how two months of summer can leave you so dumb and out of practice. I'm reading Creating the Story: Guides for Writers by Rebecca Rule and Susan Wheeler, who used to (and may still, I'm not sure) teach fiction at UNH. Donna gave me the book as a graduation present, and her name is on the inside cover. I'm also supplementing it with some old Borges short stories I haven't read since freshman year of college and the odd story from a Crab Creek Review or a MAR--unpacking everything I realized I've accumulated quite the library of old literary magazines.

Other than that, not much is happening. Still looking for a job, although it looks like I've got my work study taken care of--I'll be working in the HR department at UNH, doing office assistant stuff. Ashley's comp camp starts on Monday, and hopefully financial aid will drop soon, so I can pay off my credit cards, make a budget, and maybe even buy some more furniture (I'm pretty worried about money). I'll keep y'all posted.