. . . You'll only start missing them.

Obviously, I don't subscribe to that sentiment, since I tell you people everything.

It's my favorite ending line ever, though, even if it's actually two lines, and not just because it's the sweetest, most heart-breaking story I've ever read. I still can't decide whether Conclusive Evidence is the better book, but Catcher in the Rye will always be the one I'm in love with.

Before I ever figured out how to fall in love with a human being, I fell in love with that story. That was the day I found out I wasn't alone. I'll never be alone, because so many people felt their heart torn open by Holden Caulfield--only somebody growing up feeling that way could have been so affected.

Oh, there I go again. I'm not allowed to write about Holden usually, cause I just get soppy and messy and say the same damn things every time. Did I ever mention that he's one of only two literary characters ever I think of as an actual person. Think I'll ever write anyone that vivid some day? That moving?

I love that closing, though, because he obviously doesn't mean not to do it--he just told us everything--but he does mean he misses everybody, and that's the first time he can come so close to admitting it. And at the start of his rant two hundred pages before, he would have believed the opposite: he wouldn't tell anyone anything and he wouldn't miss them a bit if he did. That little boy breaks my heart every time I think of him.

I'm feeling kind of wistful this morning, because I forgot to sleep last night, and because I met this remarkable guy who reminded me unintentionally that I keep forgetting to read. Read enough. Look how deliquent I've been on posting your Nabokovs for the week. I rushed home to get my fix of Nabokov, but I'm staying with my sister, and she carries none in the house.

I'm jonesing. I want a hit of Denis Johnson, actually, but I'm having to live off fumes. My heart moans every time I hear that last line, because he doesn't believe it, obviously, since he just told us everything, but it almost killed him to do it, but he only found solace once he did.

I wonder how Conclusive Evidence ends. I did name this site after it, but I still haven't managed to finish it. I'm terrified of it all being gone. I have six more pages to go on In Cold Blood, too. Just can't bring myself to drink the last drop. I don't do this consciously of course, I just noticing myself doing it and I don't have the heart to take it from me.

I want to write something. Something good. It's been too long, I'm getting restless.

I'm starting to like this healthcare consulting again, it's getting much better, but it's keeping me from my true love. Maybe in a few weeks I can start carving out a little time to write again. I'll try to make it something worthy.