Started yesterday & finished today - Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo (third reading)

I always forget how much I love this book!! And this time, I could really appreciate how the characters can just ramble and reference and quote and say-out-loud-just-to-say-out-loud and say-random-things and end-profound-things-truthfully-but-anticlimactically(?) and how the characters can see the importance of finding the right word- so much so that they feel the need to say it out loud. I say this because I've always done these things too but I guess I wasn't supposed to do them for as long as I have because now whenever I do it my mom says "why is my daughter so weird" and my dad says "referencing so much - and especially when the material is so esoteric - isn't good for you. It makes you less relatable to other people, which makes it hard for them to interact with you, and then I'll never socialize blah blah blah I'm so tired of hearing this bc argh I know it's true, but what if I don't want to socialize because what's the point if I can't have my references? If these people at the not-so-new-anymore-wow school can't interact with me? I'm much happier on my own, because everyone is their own person, with their own needs to make them happy, and I have all the greatest friends I need already and so in this situation, socializing with these people - at least under your terms of being less myself because myself is hard to socialize with - makes me less happy, not more! I'm actually happier alone!! But ofc my dad doesn't understand that and says that I'm just saying this 'cuz I'm stubborn and don't like change and won't even put any effort into socializing (actually, that's true. I don't want to put effort into socializing his way. I socialize differently, maybe, but that's what comes naturally to me, and that's what "socializing" really is to me. So I am socializing, really. Ofc Ig I can't say that this is the way I want to do it if I've never tried his way too... I mean, I've tried to try his way. It's just so... hard. And less satisfying and real too.) and bc I always need to have a retort for everything and he understands me but can't I try to see it his way too (and ofc the, while (sometimes/mostly/always) true, still dreaded "adults are more experienced and therefore more well-equipped to draw conclusions/make experiences than kids" argument) and oops I turned this into a rant didn't I.

What I meant to say was I really needed Flora and Ulysses right now even though I didn't know it so thank you to Darkvine for asking for book recs and making me remember this amazing gem of a book and I'm so glad I got it out and read it and laughed; and cried when my parents said that I can't spend my whole life in books and who, when I looked up from giggling madly from my book to laugh at something irl, took the chance to say that my book "isn't funnier than the real world!" and when I said that "yes it was" bc Flora and Ulysses especially is hilarious they were like (wait I'm heading into rant territory again but agh I really need to get this out thank you for reading bc I'm trying to stop overapologizing and taking Peri's advice to say "thank you" instead of "sorry" bc that's kind of beautiful advice so thank you @admins for reading this so so much I need this) "NO!" and it felt like they were (ahhh I forgot the word!! Disowning? It-doesn't-matter-ing? Who-cares-ing? It's-just-my-livelihood-ing?) my whole livelihood without like a second thought and when I try to explain this all to them I start crying 'cuz I'm overwhelmed which I hate because then they start pitying me and I hate being pitied bc it's like there's so much to love in life and I love life and ordinarily I even loving crying it's so satisfying and warm and comforting (plus the salt tastes great XD) but the pity all feels like a blanket weighing me down (if I wanted to be extra poetic, I could say a blanket meant to be a comfort but instead is a burden, weighing me down... :D heh, that sounds pretty wise!) and making me feel sad bc if other people are sad because I make them sad and I'm such a poor creature then shouldn't I be a poor creature and what right have I to be happy when I'm obviously such a sad sad creature who shouldn't be as happy as I am so then I start feeling sad and all my happiness fades away and then everyone's sad and what's the point... and it's not like when I am sad I just deflect the sadness into happiness!! I love being sad too! It feels good! I let the sadness in and acknowledge I'm sad, but the thing about my sadness is that the same time as I'm sad, I'm also happy, and ahh. :(

point being, I'm a different creature than a lot of people. A weird creature. A creature of books. A creature who may love books more than the real world (and yes books are the real world though) and what exactly is wrong with that?? Taking away assumptions, taking away your own personal opinions like oh then you can't socialize and that's a sad thing (what if it isn't?) and you'll miss out (what if I don't? What if I'd miss out more if I did socialize instead of reading?) and regret it (what if I'd be too content to regret?) and humans aren't meant to live like this (but what if some can, and some would rather?), taking all that away and just leaving the pure hard truth of the feeling/whatever, what is wrong with that?

I don't even know what I set out to say just that I'm crying now and it's dark and I'm sitting in the middle of my bed staring at a screen but my heart is just so full of love I love you guys I love the world I love books and idk, irdk. <3 :)

sorry. That sounded like nonsensical (but not that word, a different word. It's on the tip of my tongue!) ramblings. Just want to let you all know I'm (I think) actually in a very sensible state right now. 

Which brings me to the point of hOw do adults drive cars safely while Feeling Big Feelings?!??? It astonishes me :0 and when you cry everything blurs and when you're mad everything's moving and you're not thinking rationally...

and how about teenagers?? Wow, feeling really do seem to magnify when you're a teenager (not discounting any other age groups (oh, that's one of the words I was looking for!! Discounting!!)!) 

let's end with some Flora and Ulysses quotes.

"Holy bagumba!" 

"Holy unanticipated occurences!"

"This malfeasance must be stopped."

"Terrible Things Can Happen to You!"

"Rita!" 

"I hate romance novels."

"The universe is constantly expanding"

"Giant donuts"

"I promise to always turn back to you"

...I probably just moved all the comments down like a page. Sor- thank you! :')

P.S. also really appreciated William Spiver more this time around 

Keep forgetting to post this but May 3 started rereading Good As Gold (Whatever After series by Sarah Mlynowski and yes very much a "kid" book but also VERY much enjoyable :) ) and then finished it like 3 days later. The day I finished it, I started Caraval. Finished it today! To summarize:

reread (started&finished) - Good As Gold

started&finished - Caraval

Finished - Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton