Friday Friday Friday.

I still haven't started reading real books again (I blame insomnia, panic, and a mild addiction to It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia). I have, however, dusted off my Calvin and Hobbes collections, and if you are having any kind of dilemma I urge you to do the same. Those comics are like a warm philosophical hug. They remind me of so many points in my life, of the uncertainty and existential mayhem and quasi-intellectualism that have pretty well been the hallmarks of every major change I've ever gone through, and I love that. I read a lot of comics and graphic writing now, and Calvin and Hobbes, along with Peanuts, were totally the first strips that made me realize there was more to this genre than kids' stuff. Both comics have such a beat on the melancholy, solitary aspects of childhood, and I always identified with loner types like Charlie Brown and Calvin. In spite of being in no way outdoorsy as a kid, I would get such a pang of envy whenever Calvin and Hobbes trundled around the woods in their wagon, totally alone with their thoughts. (Also, I essentially WAS some mix of Susie Derkins and Lucy Van Pelt as a kid, but that's another story for another post.)

In other childhood non-sequitur news, Lizzie Skurnick is reviewing one of my very very favourite books today, Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade. She's so right when she talks about the discomfort in the book, the raw way the characters' actions are judged by the other kids around them to an alarming degree. I remember getting kind of freaked out by this book as a kid, reading about just how mean these girls could be to each other in spite of being each other's friends. I was always a big fan of books about social exclusion, from the traditional bullying of Blubber to the strange coven of two in Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth. At the best of times, I felt like I teetered on the edge of obscurity, and I think I liked to freak myself out at the prospect of becoming a complete reject.

And on that happy note, let's all have ourselves a relatively chaos-free weekend. Let's take a page from the book of America's greatest songwriter, and learn to fly. Or at the very least, learn to pack up one's apartment.