stay gold, ponyboy
I picked up The Outsider today, which I probably haven't read since I was... oh, 15? When I first opened it, I realised I didn't even remember the plot, which was startling. I remembered there was a protagonist named Ponyboy, some death, and the Robert Frost poem (which, like so many passionate youths, was the very first poem I ever memorised). It came rushing back in little spurts along the way in the same manner that my childhood favorites always do. The fate of Dally, for instance- you remember that something terrible will happen, but it's not until you watch him arrive at the church and buy Pony a Pepsi that BAM- you remember the fire and the children and they're heroes and Johnny and Dally... And you read, and you read, and suddenly it's happening and it hurts just as much as it did that first time when Dally crumples under a streetlight. And some things you don't remember at all, and when the note falls out of Gone with the Wind, it's as much a shock to you as to Ponyboy, but it makes things a little better for both of you.
I was surprised how much the book still affected me. Maybe because I realised that most of the characters were 17- it used to seem so old to me, and now I'm on the way to understanding just how young it really is. I could see the faults of the book this time around, but for a 16 yr old, you have to give S.E. Hinton her due. I'll put it back on my shelf and probably won't come back to it for another five or six years, but when I do, I have a feeling it'll still hit just as hard.
In other news, it's 10:30 and I am not yet fully packed. Erm, whoops? I'm getting up at 5AM, so I'd best hop to- I really need my sleep this time around, as after I reach Philly, I have to get to Haverford so I can drive to D.C. What... joy. My own doing, of course, so there's no one else to blame. Maybe I can sleep on the plane? In any case, when next I appear before your eyes, I shall be in the wondrous capital of our nation- huzzah!