Erich is here! (And has been, for almost a week!)

Yep! I could hardly believe it myself.

And what with my new haircut, the man barely recognized me at the airport.

On the ferry between Kadikoy and Kabatas in Istanbul.

Safranbolu.

But he's here now, seeing some of what my life has looked like these past few months!

So! You  may not hear much over the next few weeks, but I'm sure he'll come home with stories of tasty food, good long walks, and making friends with blacksmiths in Safranbolu.

You Didn't Peak in College (or High School) Unless You Want for It To Be That Way.

"They were the best four years of my life!"

Somebody told me this about high school, some other body later told me this about college, and even later a bunch of people like these two (or more) tried to impress upon me the difference between places like high school and college and the real world. You're out in the real world now, kid: hold onto your memories of the Glory Days, and watch out for piranhas.

Sure, sometimes I miss the trust I had in the world before I hit twenty-one. But I don't miss having a curfew or getting caught (by my brother!) sneaking out of my parents' house! Those certainly weren't the best four years of my life. Not that they weren't great: some of my best friends come from that time in my life.

And shoot, the metabolism of a fifteen-year-old isn't something to scoff at. But I'm going to be running a half marathon in seven weeks, and at twenty-eight I'll be in the best shape of my life to date.

It's nice not to pay bills, but it's more satisfying when you can be self-sufficient.

Really, what they're saying when they say, "they were the best four years of my life!" is "I'd like to go back to being irresponsible and selfish." Because it's true: at few other times in your life (and here I'm just looking at norms) are you

• un-tethered enough to be totally self-involved (no kids or grandkids, no partner, possibly no full-time job to be on time to, or community to be accountable to)
• yet old enough to realize how luxurious it is to be so self-involved. But we don't live on luxury.

You only peaked in high school or college if you plan to do nothing more satisfying with your life than be self-involved. But I hear that finding work, a community, or a hobby you love; being independent enough to pay bills; or, if you don't want to pay bills or taxes, being a dumpster diver; even having kids to love unconditionally can be satisfying pursuits. Satisfying in ways different from self-involvement.

So, may my Glory Days be those from now until I expire.

Who Doesn't Want To Live By The Ocean?

Do you know anyone who, if ze had the means and choice, wouldn't want to live by the ocean? Or sea?

If your life could remain mostly the same but for geography-- even your job and loved ones would re-locate near to you-- of course you would live near the sea. This isn't a question; it's the great secret of humanity.

We all want to live by the ocean.

We want a view of the ocean every morning and evening.

We want the option of walking to it when there's a little extra time in the day.

We want to stand near it to realize simultaneously that we are small and that we are significant. That our bodies are made up of this stuff and that our souls-- well, of something completely different. We want to be reminded that a steady rhythm lies under the beastly chaos that rushes up to our bodies.

We want to know a horizon.

Mountains are important, and so are deserts, and many other geographical formations-- but I am not willing to accept others' claims of bias here: it's objectively true that we'd all live near the sea.

Ask (or, I'm asking now). Find me someone for whom this is not the case.

Always, Mail Helps!

I am lucky to have such friends and family!

Thank you, loves in Walla Walla, Portland, and Seattle,

for keeping me in your minds and hearts.

You're in mine.

I'm going to get everyone with the finger-trap.

A Letter from the Fourth Grade

Last week, thanks to Connie Fraser, Mom and Dad received a letter I'd written myself when I was ten: "I really don't agree with math."

Reading, Consumption, Nutrition

I'm prefacing this post with a warning:
It's depressing when people you've known your entire life, who know you quite well, call you a snob to your face. I realize that a couple of you back home are going to think this word in your head at me at least once before the end of this post, and I don't know how to defend myself against it. Probably I haven't learned how to present a passionate plea for that which I love without sounding like a snob. The aim here isn't to be mean or to call people or industries stupid: it's to be discriminating, it's to separate nutrition and quality from the superficial and worthless.

I happen to find myself in a really captivating book right now; it's called Cassandra at the Wedding, and it's by Dorothy Baker, who wrote four novels and succumbed to cancer at the age of sixty-one. She writes: "She knew what she wanted, she said, at least she thought she did, and it wasn't anything very hard and specific like giving concerts and having people pay to hear her. It had more to do with belonging to a tradition in music and staying in it and working at it in any capacity you can fit into-- playing what's being written, and what's been written, composing too if you want to and can, but mostly trying to keep it alive and separate the chaff from the grain and keep them separate. Know which is which, and care, and that's a life work" (Baker 12).

Some people are involved in the tradition of writing, of keeping it alive. Some people are killing it.



I read two-in-one [sic?!] really bad books during the holidays with my family. Don't ask me why I did this: unless I've miscounted, I have here forty-three English language books (and one Kindle).

I've probably miscounted. But the point is that I forsook extra clothing in my luggage to avoid such a situation.

These books include my favorite theology books, my favorite philosophy book, several works of fiction I purchased in Antalya that I haven't read yet, and two presents from Andreas and Nina:

• J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy (Reviewed by NY Times's Michiko Kakutani, Rachel Wilson for policymic)
• Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version by Phillip Pullman (Reviewed by The Guardian's Sara Maitland, Maria Tatar for The New Yorker)

The new books are hardbound and thick, and I didn't have the foresight to plug in and charge my Kindle. This might be my greatest regret of the holiday.

So Mom and I tore this paperback (with a bonus book!) in half and swapped when she finished her section. I didn't have it in me to finish reading the one before swapping. I'll say this: I don't generally hate on genres, but I think that Christian Romance is actually too contradictory to work. Romance readers want to enjoy scenes of pre- or extra-marital sex, and Christian authors simply can't get away with writing those-- they can barely get away with intra-marital sex that's not about procreation. I can't name an exception to this rule, and if you'd like to get in a fight with me about this, leave a comment, and I might expand upon my point.

I've got some residual anger about this. Anger and not a little inspiration. One of the authors of this two-in-one is a #1 New York Times Bestselling Author, and the other is a Whitman College alum. I'm disgusted by these authors until Spencer says to me, "write a novel. See if you could make millions."

Here's the deal: someday, I would like to write something that'd be worthwhile for other people to read. It'd also be nice to earn money at it, too. So often the two don't go together. I used to think that people could earn money by working well and hard at their passions, but perhaps the cynical lesson I've learned from this Bestselling Author is that good work doesn't necessarily earn money, and money doesn't necessarily produce good work. You know this, I know this, so why do we keep paying for bad books? Who keeps buying them?

I think I've just realized my late resolution for 2013: I won't buy any books before I read them. I'll check them out from the library, and if they're worth a second read, I'll buy them then.

It's not as though there aren't other, larger problems in the world. It's just that this one is really personal. You could pay me to read and edit all day.

What we take into ourselves-- by eating, drinking, reading, listening, watching, touching-- must sustain us. This isn't a question of should. And companies know it's a bad business model to sell an insubstantial, unsustainable product-- just ask Hostess, and this guy at The New York Times who's saying goodbye to the Twinkie: "[Hostess cake company's] demise has been a long time coming. After all, we're not supposed to eat like this anymore [...] I swear that I have not tasted a Twinkie in years. I would not feed them to my kids."

When did it become acceptable to write and publish bad work? When did it become a worthwhile use of time to read this? I would not feed Christian Romance to my kids: would you?

Not everyone's going to be a Dostoevsky or even a Dorothy Baker. But it's not just about literacy, either. Stephen King, in a 2007 review of J.K. Rowling's magic, points to R.L. Stine (the Goosebumps guy!) as an important predecessor to Rowling-- because he got kids reading! Literacy is one of the most important skills we have today, and entertainment is a key path to enhancing this. It's critical to be entertained by reading-- how else do we hang on? But the writing's got to be good or our literacy serves us no purpose-- we learn nothing, are nourished not at all, by what we read.