Trying to Finish Books

Sometime in January, after having read Jay-Z’d Decoded I decided to start growing my hair and beard. In the book Jay-Z mentions that he lets his hair grow out when he’s making an album, and thus has a visual reminder of how long he has been working on a project. I thought to one-up his method by letting the beard and ‘stache go too. Which was not a very good idea.

By February I was distraught, going through bouts of both manic and depressive states, my beard had become a literal soup catcher,...