Chapter 2

Everyone I know is doing summer reading. By everyone, I mean one person. Sort of. I have this competitive nature, I think, and as a result, I decided to start reading books too. That and I was bored. So very, very bored. The only problem with my doing summer reading is I used to read a lot. Like --- a whole lot. I used to carry around four or five books at a time in school. This being the case, I've manage to read most of the books I've ever wanted to read, and I'm a pretty lazy guy, so I don't really look for new books. I tend to rely on the phenomenon of recommendations, but those seem to come few and far between these days. Also, I'm pretty poor, and the only book I want (The Mad Ones) just came out, and hardback is upwards of 30 dollars.

So, I found my old books, and started reading one. I picked the one I had read the fewest amount of times (twice --- three times now). It was Lolita, by V-dog Nobakizzy, or Vladamir Nobokov, for those of you who can't understand my steezy translations. The story is probably the most honest depiction of a love story I have ever read, which (to some people) is troubling, because the narrative is pretty much entirely about the main character (Humbert Humbert) and his reluctant and remorsful lust for a young girl (the "Lolita", if you will... the book does, so why shouldn't you?) and her eventual manipulation of him as a weak individual.

The whole point of this is, Humbert is absolutely in love with this girl who is twenty years his junior, and makes it very apparant throughout, and I absolutely love the story. Mostly because it was the exact opposite of everything I had ever seen before that.

When I was a kid, my parents didn't have a lot of time to raise me, so they let Walt Disney do it. I could work a VCR before I could get myself food, and I spent days on end watching, rewinding, and, in some cases, memorizing Disney movies. Alladdin, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, and others like them because my model for what adulthood would be, and ultimately what love would look like. So, I'm kind of curious what sort of effect that had on me. I tried, obviously, to treat my first relationship like those movies. I emulated behavior, adopted policies, and went about things in a similar fashion as all the characters in every movie I had ever seen.

Needless to say, that relationship failed miserably.

In retrospect, I wonder if my glossed up image of what life could be like is the result that I often find myself searching for dysfunction in the things around me. Growing up, I was subjected to Disney depictions of romance and love, characitures of family life (like Full House, and Family Matters), and images of over-sexed teens, pretending they had completely pure intentions (Yes, I listened to boy bands, and girl pop singers.). Don't get me wrong.

I'm not saying life is a mud puddle, and God is dead, and the Machine is trying to eat me, and the Man is keeping me down, and all that good stuff. I am saying that the life I'm living now (albeit pretty satisfying as of late --- good food, good friends, good health) is pretty lackluster compared to what the propaganda machine that was the '90's had me set up for.

But maybe I'm just angsty because I realized that I will not, in fact, be 18 forever. I won't always be young and in love. I AM, apparently, a touch over-rated. I DO feel left out even though I'm NOT in the middle.

And maybe I'm pissed because I can't work the modifier "faux" into conversation more often.