2003-03-05 2:39 p.m.
To be continued when not so tired and inarticulate

I just finished 'The Perks of Being A Wallflower' for the second time. I bought it Saturday, finished it the first time very, very early Sunday morning (leaving myself only an hour to sleep before getting up for work, but it was totally worth it), and immediately began reading it again. I began the ninth grade the year after Charlie did. I read a lot of the books he read around the same time. And listened to a lot of the same music. And had a lot of the worst things in my life happen to me then, like he did. And, like I know that he did, turned out to be OK. It is so difficult to explain how this book has affected me; all I can say is that it affected me almost more than any other book ever has. I loved his story. I think that when we love someone's story, it is because we draw so many parallels between their story and our own. Their story takes us on the perfect emotional ride, one fraught with pain, and discovery, and understanding/misunderstanding, acceptance, all the things that, of course, everyone has felt at one time or another. The circumstances may change, the places we live change, the family changes, the music changes, but these things are always the same.

*For anyone who might be wondering, I began a new word/writing excercise recently. It is to write without using the most obvious word for what I am trying to say, and instead expand upon the meaning of said word. Isn't there a game just like this?

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