PSA: If you do not like Ernest Hemingway, I suggest you go find another post to read. This will be a post mostly on my somewhat frightening obsession with said writer.

Okay, so in high school, we read one of two novels by Hemingway. One was The Old Man and the Sea and the other, Farewell To Arms. It all depended on what teacher you had in what grade. I missed Old Man in Junior year, and was eternally thankful. I hadn’t ever read Hemingway but immediately disliked the impressions of my classmates, who LOATHED the book and vowed never to read Hemingway again. I then read Farewell To Arms in my senior year, and I now ADORE Hemingway.

Now, I realize that some of you might say,”Okay that’s great and all, but he was a drunken, sexist, homophobic, racist, snobbish, abusive pig.” And you would be right. Hemingway drank constantly, hence his famous quip, “Write drunk, edit sober.” However, while he was all these things and more, the man could write. There is a line towards the middle of A Moveable Feast that is utterly brilliant; “They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always seemed to me that in those who make jokes in life the seeds are covered in soil and a higher grade of manure.”

Hemingway suffered from the family curse of depression, which is somewhat obvious in Feast, but he was still a young man then. Instead, he seems introverted and harsh, but very much in love with life. He works hard in cafés, and he writes of an encounter in which a friend dared interrupt his work, literally opening the conversation with “You rotten son of a bitch what are you doing in here off your filthy beast?” His friend is obviously used to it, and essentially tells him not to be such a diva (or a D.Va, as it were). But how many times has someone bothered you while you’re working and you would really like to give them what for? Hemingway would rather have drinks or lunch with his wife or a friend, as opposed to a large group, and he seemed happiest when heading back to the comfort of his home. As a fellow introvert, I can understand his reluctance to be out and about.

He writes feverishly, and despite the unhappy ending of their marriage, loves his wife Hadley very much. His descriptions of being in love are some of my favorites, because they aren’t fussy and they don’t bother with details like punctuation or end stops. I think Hemingway saw love as something that doesn’t have an end-stop, that simply continues regardless of who it touches, and that it can be cruel and beautiful that way.

Anyhoo, I didn’t really have anything to post about in my life. My best friend put up a new video. Overwatch this time. He mains Mercy, and this is a whole video of Mercy plays (it’s not quite a frag but it’s also not his regular thing). I did not bring my desktop home, so no gaming for this nerd. I do want to git gud enough to play Pharah though, cause Pharah and Mercy are one of the best combos a team can have. Anyway, check out his video here, and please subscribe to his channel (Link over on Byline)! He’s trying to hit 100 subs by the channel’s birthday in June, and believe me when I tell you, this kid deserves 100 subs. Check him out 🙂

I am also going to start posting my favorites every week (books, music, food, places to visit, lines of poetry, etc), so I’ll start that maybe tonight. We’ll see how it goes!

UPDATE: I forgot, my cat jumped up on the table and knocked a heavy vase over. The vase was full of water and my dad was full of frustration. The cat does not seem to care.