Nov 22
I am waiting for my laundry to dry. I am not totally sure what I will do once that happens, but I am fairly certain it is an event worth waiting for. In the meantime I am having a rough go of things. I finished a book this afternoon, and now am questing for a new one. This isn't usually a huge problem for me since at any given moment I could list 3 or 4 books on my books-I-need-to-read list. Funny how I can connect those words with hyphens and nobody will complain. Well, it's not funny so much as interesting that I could take any phrase and manipulate it into an adjective. This is a very string-of-random-words type sentence. Some might say that I am a “Master of Word Grouping”. It is okay though. My wanton disregard for the rules of grammar is counterbalanced by my sporadic use of cool words like 'wanton' and 'sporadic'.
So there I was, looking for a book to read. The trouble is that I won't be satisfied with just any book. Especially coming off of the one I just finished. There is a system to these things. For instance, the poem from my last entry was taken from the book I finished today, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. The book was incredibly good and described the benefits and problems of being too passive in life. The main character is a really smart and observant 15 year old boy who tries his best to be a good person and a good friend and make everyone in his life happy. But he comes to find that by always putting other people first he ends up living his own life on the sidelines, as a wallflower. The book deals with his struggle to be a good person and friend but also participate in life and have the things you want. Without too much more detail, let's just agree that the book is incredibly good.
Coming off of a book that made me both laugh out loud and nearly break out crying, I am in a very impressionable state. It would be a moderate form of treason to replace it with a crappy book. Thus the dillema. I have done some research over the past few hours and am close to making a decision. I have a list of books and now need only to decide among them. Most likely, I can't lose in this situation. All of these books are probably good, and even after making a choice I will have also replenished my books-I-need-to-read list. Here we go, let me know if you have an opinion.
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie – I know the story, obviously, but have never read the original book with all its subtexts.
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee – I have seen two versions of the movie, but never actually read the play. This is cool because it is a play, and also because it shouldn't take more than a day.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley – I am in the middle of 1984 by George Orwell, this book is supposed to be really good too.
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger – a book I feel I should have read but never did. It deals with teenage angst as well, which would make a smooth transition from Wallflower.
Right now I am leaning towards Inherit the Wind, which I should finish in a day or two. Then Peter Pan, because Pan truly is the Man. Then Catcher in the Rye. I am pretty psyched about all this. I wish more people read books. I bet if I asked you would say “yeah I read.” But truthfully you probably don't. At least not books that aren't required for school. I think reading is something that a lot of people lie about. I don't want to accuse you of being shallow, but I bet a lot of people lie because they want to sound smart. I know some people who do anyway. I wonder if they know that I know they are lying. I wonder if you had to read that last sentence twice like I did, just to make sure what I was saying. I wonder if it is fair to think someone shallow because they don't read, or to think them shallow for lying about it. I think the problem with people like you is that you haven't found the right book. That used to be my problem. I hated reading for a long time until someone recommended a book that turned out to be awesome. I also hated reading books for school. Being told to read a book just somehow feels wrong. Reading because you have to just isnt as fun as reading because you want to. Anyway, I hope you make an effort to read more. For my last two years in college I made sure that I read a non-school book for at least an hour every night before i went to sleep. There were times I didnt obviously, but I really tried. I would regularly sacrifice an hour of sleep in order to get my reading in. Maybe it was stupid, but it seemed really important at the time. Important to learn new things beyond the curriculum of my particular classes. I kept a list of all the books I had read during one year and when summer came I was amazed at how long the list was. If I hadn't made the time every night I would probably have finished maybe 3 or 4 books total, instead of the 25-30 that I did. Maybe that was strange of me, maybe a little stupid, but I have never wished I slept more in school and now I get to smile every time I wander through a book store and come across a book that I have read.
My laundry is probably dry now. I wish that I could keep writing in my journal, though. There is so much that I could write on any number of topics. It may be interesting to some of you that my wandering thoughts and running commentaries don't stop just because I am not in front of a keyboard. I am often curious what goes on in other peoples' heads and have been asked about my own on several occasions. The truth of it all is that it is a rare moment when my mind is not vigorously at work spinning over and over some random topic. I space out for periods at a time simply lost in internal debate. The problem is that journal entries of that length would probably be discouraging for the reader. People tend to want the 'I went to dinner last night, I got so drunk this weekend, and then I went to sleep' style of journal entries. At least people tend to write that way. I suppose I try to stay away from that sort of thing. To be brutally honest, I simply don't care what exactly you did yesterday. Unless it involves a funny story, I probably will only browse over it. Rather, I am interested in your opinions and ponderings and questions and curiosities. I wish I wrote more about those things but I feel my entries need plot or they won't be read. At the same time I shouldn't be writing for the sake of your reading, and I know that. But if not for your reading what is the point of my writing. I have proven quite adept at working out my own problems and I do enough pondering for the both of us combined. I only rarely have a need to put it on paper, and those are the times when my thoughts and emotions overwhelm me. The keyboard and journal entry serve as a control, a mechanism for harnessing my raging mind. This isn't one of those times. Hopefully you didn't look at how long this entry is and decide to skip it. Hopefully you like reading enough to have made it this far. Hopefully you will finish this sentence, post a comment so I know you care, and then go read a really terrific book.