welcome to the world of entertainment.

(For whatever reason, this didn't post when I wrote it. So... The setting that I wrote this in is: Overnight, 3am, GetGo. So... Rarely a good mood place.)

I've started reading "The Perks of Being a Wallflower." It's something I've been avoiding for a while, but a very close friend of mine passed a copy into my hands and well... Why not, right?
Because I'm a jerk. That's why that was a bad choice.
She even knew it while handing it to me, and expressing how much it meant to her. She didn't think I'd be able to identify with the character, and that that was really important to really enjoying it. What I don't think she quite remembers is that growing up, I had just as much in common with the boy as anyone else.
(also, fyi, I'm only about a quarter of the way in, but I think I could probably write the rest in a much less eloquent way than Stephan.)
Most of Highschool, and pretty much
(oh dear god I'm at work and this woman must be the most ridiculously sad excuse for a "thinking" creature there is in the world dear jebus how does someone lack the shame or embarassment to actually ask "how do I swipe this?" When referring to their unemployment card at the atm dear FUCKING GOD THERE ARE TWO FUCKING OPTIONS, FACING ONE WAY OR THE OTHER AND FUCK DON'T PUT IT IN THE RECIEPT SLOT. Please. For all our sakes. Go drink kerosene, lady.)
all the grades before it saw me as just as depressing as this kid. Few friends, low as it gets social standing, desperately awkward. So, I get it.
Really, I do.
But these sorts of books, these sorts of characters only make me think one thing. "Man. This really feels like masturbation for my childhood." Truely, I love you, my friends. I really don't mean to be a jerk about something that so many of the people I care about love, so please don't take this as anything more than me being a grouch.
But masturbation is exactly it. We're stroking the memories of our younger selves, as awkward as that sounds. A hero has been created, and that might be the problem for me. I've never identified with the heros. But look at what we have. He's everything we ever were as the awkward, cast off child at the dance, watching all those prettier, more social and thus cooler kids living it up as we got bothered by bullies. Except, he's better. He's what we'd like to think we were, or wish we'd been. He's so heroically pure, so innocent before all the things that go down in his life. He can fight and beat the bullies but after one skuffle, he's the bigger man, choosing not to hurt him too much, and then never having to fight again. He's a wallflower, but he's noticed and revered for it. He has a penchant for uttering things that are pricelessly poetic. He has a crush, but he's so innocent about it... Beh. It's masterbation. We're simply getting off on the idea of having experienced all that we had, being able to identify with him, that brings us close to having been him.
That makes US the hero.
I'm just not too into that. It feels slightly perverse and sticky to me. We don't have to have been heros, or even be them.
We are who we are. That's not such a bad thing. *
With all that said, it's a half decent read thus far. I may finish it simply because I can't just Stop reading something. Jeez.
Fragile Art.
* unless you're unemployment lady. Then it is a bad thing.

rain.

.It's a beautiful night for rain. It's so perfect, a brilliant book ending, and nature doing her best to cleanse me. I feel just so alive right now.

This book, A Book Thief... It's something. I've dreaded finishing it for close to a year. I've always kept it close, but I knew that it'd be a powerful ending. I just wasn't ready, you know? He kept teasing me with what was to come, letting me know the ending, but not the direct steps to it, and never quite hinting at the powerful words he'd use to describe it all.

I find it hard to put it into words. Out was jotted down with such tenderness, it was heartbreaking. It started so slow, it made me anxious, and then when he finally got to it, to the real ending, I could feel tears welling up. I'm sitting here in a dingy, messy getgo office, listening to mem work right outside the open doorway. As they lay down our new floor, I'm finding myself almost sobbing. He made me care so much for Hans and Rosa, for Rudy. You'd have to be a monster to not care for them as much as I did in the end. There I am, tears just doing what tears do. Fucking hot damn, mister Markus Zusak. Thank you for that.

I needed it. It's been a day, honestly. A good one, a bad one. Visited old stomping grounds, took a small step towards finishing my degree. I stole time with friends, held hands, kissed cheeks, hugged for minutes, drank in of them. This is what life is about. Screw all those fancy ideas of careers, legacies, change and money. Life is friendship. It's sharing moments. It's trading in care and love, the important passions. I prefer to fill my life with those, with a tiny amount of time set aside for lesser things like accruing money and making a name for myself. If it were possible to keep these people all in one place, I don't think I'd even care much to do that. Sadly, they all seem interested in living their own lives and chasing dreams and such.

Whatever.

So, to make continual contact possible, I suppose I should work on this career and money thing. So sad.

One more visit to iup is planned for tomorrow, and filled already with friends. A late lunch with a friendship I am hoping I can rekindle, a day with a friend who needs all the love he can get right now, and a place offered to comfortably sleep and talk.

What a delightful life.

I love how something like a good movie or book enlivens me. The absolute best drug.

Fragile Art