Like most New Yorkers, I spend most of my commute reading. I’m now very good at holding on with one hand and holding a book in the other. I’m still aware of what stop we’re at and who’s around me, but I’m amazed at how I can drift into another world so easily.
I’ve read a ton of books since I’ve lived here. I was asking Bunk the other day if he missed characters in books after he finished them. (He said that he is promiscuous in his reading – loves them and leaves them). Days or even months after I finish a book, I catch myself thinking about certain characters and missing them. Have you read Middlesex? Calliope is an intersexed boy who goes through his teenage years trying to figure out what this life is all about and where his place is. I miss Cali. Bunk reminded me that I also miss tv characters. I think about D’Angelo Barksdale on the Wire and how could I forget – Tara from United State of Tara. Have you seen it?
It’s fascinating that the characters I miss are so diverse. A drug dealer? An intersexed boy? A woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder? I see these characters in the same way that I see my friends. They each match parts of me but not all of me. So often we see ourselves in total. That’s even how I presented the characters (drug dealer, etc.). It’s so important to remember that we can’t be boxed in. We have so many different parts to us that then make up the whole.
