I'm a pack rat. I assign sentimental value to things which in no way deserve it. Sometimes, though, this works to my advantage. On my phone I have three text messages saved, which I can't imagine getting rid of in the near future. One is a "happy birthday...negro" from my dad, which he remembered even though he was traveling for most of that day. I keep it because I'm kind of a sap. I will fuck you up if you make fun of me for it. The other two I keep are much more recent. They're from a woman. Each text serves an opposite purpose to the other. One is good for a quick burst of joy. It makes me grin like an idiot, if only for a moment. The other serves to temper me. I've always operated under the idea that each good day is balanced out in your life by at least one bad day. It doesn't do to be happy for any lengthy period of time, because when things balance, as they eventually do, you might as well contain the damage. So when I'm feeling particularly pie in the sky, I take a look at that little message and I'm back to neutral, which is where we should all be anyway. It's healthier.
"A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world."
-On the Road
"A lot of schools were home for vacation already, and there were about a million girls sitting and standing around waiting for their dates to show up. Girls with their legs crossed, girls with their legs not crossed, girls with terrific legs, girls with lousy legs, girls that looked like swell girls, girls that looked like they'd be bitches if you knew them. It was really nice sightseeing, if you know what I mean. In a way, it was sort of depressing, too, because you kept wondering what the hell would happen to all of them. When they got out of school and college, I mean. You figured most of them would probably marry dopey guys. Guys that always talk about how many miles they get to a gallon in their goddam cars. Guys that get sore and childish as hell if you beat them at golf, or even just some stupid game like ping-pong. Guys that are very mean. Guys that never read books. Guys that are very boring."
-The Catcher in the Rye
(Note: People who quote On the Road and The Catcher in the Rye are usually douchebags of the highest order. I am no exception.)
"He had passed visibly through two states and was entering upon a third. After his embarrassment and his unreasoning joy he was consumed with wonder at her presence. He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity. Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an over wound clock."
-The Great Gatsby
(The Great Gatsby is a book I have never read but which I know quite well. I'd even say it's my favorite book that I haven't read. It also has really awesome cover art.)
Self-love seems so often unrequited.
-Anthony Powell
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.
-Joseph Campbell
"Then somehow the country slid into worship of the idiot. Television is filled with stupid people being rewarded and praised for acting as dumb as possible. If you knocked an angry monkey in the head and gave it a job tending bar in South Beach, VH1 would devote hours of programming to watching it shreik and bone skanks. Even nerds aren’t nerds anymore. “Nerds” now are just hipsters that kept their Star Wars action figures."
-Eliza Skinner
"If I have a son, it’s likely I’ll be confronted with a spitting image of myself at the most awkward, miserable time of my life."
-Drew Magary
(If I actually put the Chasing Amy quote I was originally going to put here, I'd have to make the blog private. Instead, this not-at-all deep quote will suffice:)
"Archie is not fucking Mr. Weatherbee!"
-Chasing Amy
"I've got a really great compliment for you, and it's true."
"I'm so afraid you're about to say something awful.
"Don't be pessimistic, it's not your style. Okay, here I go: Clearly, a mistake. I've got this, what - ailment? My doctor, a shrink that I used to go to all the time, he says that in fifty or sixty percent of the cases, a pill really helps. I *hate* pills, very dangerous thing, pills. Hate. I'm using the word "hate" here, about pills. Hate. My compliment is, that night when you came over and told me that you would never... well, you were there, you know what you said. Well, my compliment to you is, the next morning, I started taking the pills. "
"I don't quite get how that's a compliment for me."
"You make me want to be a better man."
"...That's maybe the best compliment of my life."
"Well, maybe I overshot a little, because I was aiming at just enough to keep you from walking out."
-As Good As It Gets
I rode my bicycle out in the snow today for half an hour or so, and it was pretty awesome. I've always been a fan of the cold, and snow so rarely came to anywhere I've lived. I thought it was pretty interesting that all of these college students who live here, most of whom are away from home for the first time, and try so hard to give an impression of worldliness and sophistication, went out and played in the snow like they were 8 years old. I still hate all of them, understand, I just thought it was interesting. I go and exercise in bad weather because of the usual fat-person self-consciousness, but in this case, it was kind of novel to have all the people out there, even if I got a lot of weird looks.
Though, as usual, one thing bothered me. A big eff you to couples frolicking happily in the snow. See, cold is the natural ally of the fat loser. We feel comfortable in it, because nobody else is. Snow, though...it brings out people. We hate people. Especially happy people. And, as the prototypical fat loser with no reasonable romantic prospects, it sticks in my craw that these happy so-called couples have the audacity to display affection in weather which rightfully belongs to the socially awkward and obese.
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