I (25M) am recently married to my wonderful husband (??M). I'm a Presbyterian from New England and he's a cannibalistic savage from the Pacific, so we've run into some cultural clashes ever since we met a few days ago, but we’ve quickly gotten past them because we love each other so much. However, yesterday we got into a disagreement that has me seriously worried.

We were staying at an inn in Nantucket, and while we’ve never spent a moment apart in our entire relationship, he requested a day to himself to perform his Ramadan(?) and I needed to find us a job, so I agreed to leave the inn for the day. When I came back for supper later, I expected he'd be done. Instead, our room was locked, and there was no answer to my knocks or calls to him. I got really scared and busted the door down, thinking he had maybe had a stroke or heart attack or something. But no, he was completely "fine," meditating in silence and utterly ignoring my existence. It wasn’t until the next morning that he finally got up and acknowledged me while acting like nothing had happened, and he can’t understand why I’m annoyed.

To be clear, I don’t have a problem with other people practicing different religions (even if I think it’s dumb), but this specific ritual of his is simply taking it too far. He’s really just hurting himself for no logical reason, and while I think everybody should have the right to do what they want to themselves, that's only so long as they don't negatively affect other people. But this incident sure affected me negatively. I was so scared for him and I could barely sleep all last night out of worry because he could have literally died of indigestion!

Because I know the importance of communication, I tried to explain this all to him, but he still doesn’t seem to understand, either because he doesn’t speak English very well or he's just refusing to take my point of view into consideration because he acted very condescendingly towards me as if I were the insane one here. He even had the nerve to bring up how he used to eat people (I also have no problem with his lifestyle choices before we met, but he KNOWS the topic of cannibalism makes me uncomfortable, so I can't understand why he'd bring it up now when I'm already so distressed). The landlady also thinks I’m crazy and is mad at me for breaking her door (even though, as I mentioned, there was a potential emergency). Not gonna lie, I kind of feel like I’m being gaslit here.

I still really like him and am committed to our relationship, but this incident worries me because we’re signed up to go on a 3-year whaling voyage soon, and I don’t want this kind of thing to become a regular occurrence. AITA?

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Last January, I fulfilled a life long dream to attend the marathon reading in New Bedford. The group might recall I created a scarf to wear at the event.  Well...I went "Ahab" on it - in true obsession style, the project took a cool turn and I had a local Carmel artist create the attached sketch to tell the story we all love.  I'll be transforming this into a wearable art scarf and give an update when it's ready. 

Would love any feedback from this wonderful group. 

The structure and my ideas below

🧭 The Outer Frieze (The Corners & Margins)

• Ch. 1: Loomings (Bottom Left): "Call Me Ishmael" — The lens through which we see the world.
• Ch. 3 & 4: The Spouter-Inn: Meeting Queequeg (Bottom Center) and the iconic counterpane/quilt pattern that links all of humanity together.
• Ch. 9: The Sermon: Father Mapple’s pulpit, grounding the spiritual weight of the voyage.
• Ch. 36: The Quarter-Deck: The Gold Doubloon, where every crew member projects their own unique meaning onto a single coin.
• Ch. 32:  Cetology:  Fear of the unknown and human mind trying to make sense of everything
• Ch. 42: The Whiteness of the Whale (Top Right): The terrifying, heartless void of an immense universe.
• Ch. 47: The Mat-Maker: The intersection of Fate (the warp), Free Will (the woof), and Chance (the harpooner's sword).
• Ch. 62: The Dart: The harpoon—where man binds himself inexorably to his target and his doom.
• Ch. 72: The Monkey-Rope: The physical and spiritual ropes that tie us together, just as they linked Ishmael and Queequeg.
• Ch. 89: Fast-Fish/Loose-Fish: The ruthless scramble for the world's untamed resources.
• Ch. 96: The Try-Works: Staring too deeply into the mesmerizing fires of pessimism, risking the soul.
• Ch. 132: The Symphony (Top Left): Ahab’s fleeting moment of profound regret, isolation, and destructive obsession.
• Ch. 135 & Epilogue (Top Center): The sky-hawk caught in the mast as the Pequod sinks, dissolving into a blank, endless ocean.

⛵ The Middle Ships (The Interlocking Encounters)

• Ch. 16: The Ship: The Pequod itself—a micro-cosm of the world and a doomed nation.
• Ch. 91: The Rose Bud: The paradox of valuable treasure hidden within a foul, decaying exterior.
• Ch. 115: The Bachelor: A ship of pure success, music, and joy, untainted by revenge.
• Ch. 128: The Rachel: The desperate search for a lost son; the ship that ultimately salvages humanity.

🗺️ The Inner Map

• Ch. 44: The Chart: Ahab's calculated, obsessive line of travel cutting across the open Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans.

In chapter 8, Ishmael describes a painting hanging in the chapel, depicting a ship in a storm with an angel in the sky. Ishmael wonders what the angel might think, and lets him say: 'beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and bear a hardy helm; for Io! the sun is breaking through; the clouds are rolling off - serenest azure is at hand.' So Io was a greek goddess , the one made into a cow by zeus and then relentlessly pursued by a horsefly sent by hera. I don't quite get what she has to do with that ship?

I just finished this chapter and I had to take a walk. Hell, this book has stopped me cold more times than I can recall with any other book. But this chapter stirred something in me. The scenes are horrific, making Hellraiser seem like child’s play. The whole concept of the druggs, the wounded whale causing an apocalyptic panic in the heard. But, my god, the umbilical cord tangled in the rope! He describes it so matter-of-factly, with no mythical analogies. It was so out of character, I had to re-read it to make sure I understood.

I will list a just few I think about. I liked when Queequeg shaved with his harpoon, the forging of the Cursed Blood Revenge Harpoon by Ahab et al., Fedallah silently following Ahab around the ship near the end, future Ishmael having tattooed whale dimensions onto his arm, Queequeg wordlessly saving Tashtego and also that moron from The Moss.

Etc :)

I'm planning on doing a prose reading of moby dick and am trying to figure out what to read. I have to be withing 7 mins with a 30 second grace. I am leaning towards telling more of the full story (starting at I am Ishmael and ending with Ahab's death and some of the epilogue), rather than focusing mainly on one scene, although I may go the other way. I think I may have to make it very bare-bones, and an looking for some advice on what to focus on.

I feel stupid for asking this one but tbh I'll take the chance.

I haven't really been reading as much, I mean, I've been busy practicing drawing and stuff and writing stuff, so, yeah... But technically I still read, so... I was looking into books I might want for my up-coming birthday and after some thinking, there was really only two books I mostly wanted; The King in Yellow and, of course, Moby Dick. I've heard about the book and stuff and I really knew it as the book about a whale that had a funny last name...

So, I wanted to learn more about the book, including learning random facts about the author himself; Herman. Like, I know the UK version was released in October 18, 1851. USA version was released in November 14th, 1851. Also, I'm pretty sure the book itself was a flop when it first came out, but someone double check my information beccause, afterall, I'm a confident idiot.

Anyway, focusing back on the book⎯ I have a habit of wishing for books that I haven't read yet or even heard of... Most of the time, I ended reading the books and finishing them but the other cases is I've read some before stopping or just never reading them. So, I've decided to read an online version of Moby Dick and I read five chapters before stopping and deciding if I want a physical copy of the thing. I ended up really liking it and now I'm thinking about getting the physical copy, but before I do that- I want to get your guys thoughts on it.

Should I get a physical copy of the book (All chapters btw, I'm not getting a version that doesn't have all the chapters that's stupid) or just continue reading the online one?