Madi > Recent Status Updates

There is this quality, in things, of the right way seeming wrong at first. To test our faith.

All we could do was wait.
Time passes so slowly when you don't exactly know what you're waiting for.
Three days. Three nights. Surviving somehow, because we were still a family there, all six of us still together.

What deceived me was my own happiness; for peace is indivisible, and the surrounding world confusion found no reflection inside me. So I ceased to have any real sense of it.

This was my first but not my last lapse into Finny's vision of peace. For hours, and sometimes for days, I fell without realizing it into the private explanation of the world. Not that I ever believed that the whole production of World War Il was a trick of the eye manipulated by a bunch of calculating fat old men, appealing though this idea was.

Returning, with interest, his gaping shock, "You? Talk too much? How can you accuse me of accusing you of
that!" As I said, this was my sarcastic summer. It was only long after that I recognized sarcasm as the protest of people who are weak.

Indeed, even now in later life, though I have been as happy and at peace [...] as any man may hope to be, and even though I thank God every night that it is all over, [...] I do not believe I have ever again slept so well as I did that night in the inn at Crythin Gifford. For I see that then I was still all in a state of innocence, but that innocence, once lost, is lost forever.

I'm alive inside. A bird is my heart. Mama and Daddy is not win. I'm winning. I'm drinking hot chocolate in the Village wif girls--all kind who love me. How that is so I don't know. How Mama and Daddy know me sixteen years and hate me, how a stranger meet me and love me. Must be what they already had in they pocket.

Listen baby, Muver love you. Muver not dumb.
Listen baby: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVW
XYZ.
Thas the alphabet. Twenty-six letters in all. Them
letters make up words. Them words everything.

Indian summer, Mr Wicher say. I don't know why
he call it that. What he mean is, it's hot, 90 degrees, like summer days. And there is no, none, I mean none, air conditioning in this mutherfucking building.

[…]
"Your tests...you have to study for your finals.”
"Books are a uniquely portable magic. I read that somewhere. I'll bring em. See you there."

“ Belief is a high hurdle to get over and I think it's even higher for smart people. Smart people know a lot, and maybe that makes them think they know everything. “

[…] I just put my head on her shoulder as I had when I was small and thought my hand-turkey was the greatest work of art since the Mona Lisa. Tell you what, the worst part of growing up is how it shuts you up.

Then Obama says, […] When you bring 'em home, the poo doesn't smell. […]
The moment he says "poo," I think, This is the greatest day of my life. I could die right now and I'd be fine with it. Like, if I make a false move and the secret service accidentally shoots me in the head, in those final moments before my body hits the floor, I would shout, "'The president said poo"! Were allll... justttt... peeeeople!!"

It's clear to Nonc that she's about to give a speech, like the one she gave a couple weeks ago about child development. The truth is that he's discovered, at the age of twenty-six, he loves being lectured. Never before has someone spoken to him, at length, with the sole purpose of making him better.

“BATTLES

Been biting my tongue till it bleeds
cry over things I don’t need.
My mother told me
pick your battles wisely
but you made me angry
at the world
so I chose them all.”

I didn't know I was happy, she [Aliena] thought. I had no idea how fortunate I was to have nothing to be afraid of.

Here’s a secret about life, which I’ll tell you for free:
We’re all being devoured by bugs.
Slowly but surely, our little internal insects - boredom, loneliness, regret, etcetera - are eating us whole, nibbling away from the inside out.
The process only lasts for as long as you’re alive.

Although he’s a monk, I think Phillip is my favourite character so far. He keeps a cool head and knows when to keep his mouth shut. I hope nothing bad happens to him!

DNF

Finally starting this trilogy after about 5 years of having it on my list. I was recommended this by a prof in college, we had very different personality types, so I assume that's why I didn't put too much thought to the rec. Upon starting though, I wish I had gotten to this book sooner. Going to spend all day on this one for sure.

Punk rock became my professor in a school with no rules, only teaching the lesson that you need no lessons and that every person has a voice to be heard, no matter the sound.

It’s hard to put into words the belief that I have in music. To me, it is god. A divine mystery in whose power I will forever hold an unconditional trust. And it is moments like these that cement my faith.
So, when you hear that parade coming down the street, spreading joy and love with every note, don't just listen; join in the march.
You never know where it may lead you.

But it's when I sit down at a drum set that I feel Kurt the most. It's not often […] , but when I sit on that stool, I can still picture him in front of me, wrestling with his guitar as he screamed his lungs raw into the microphone. Just like staring at the sun will burn a spot into your retinas, his image will forever be burned in mine when I look past my drums to the audience before me. He will always be there.

In a short break […] , I grabbed another stick with lightning speed and finished off the song, surging with enough adrenaline to kill a horse, but with enough pride to last a lifetime, imagining that maybe our performance was a rallying cry to a whole new generation of kids suffocating in conventionality, afraid to let their freak flag fly, finally liberated to celebrate the beautiful eccentricities of life.

[after breaking his leg and returning to the stage]

By the time we hit the final notes of "Best of You," I knew that we had just experienced a defining moment in our career. This band, born from the heartbreak and tragedy of our broken past, was a celebration of love, and life, and the dedication to finding happiness in every next day. And now, more than ever, it represented healing and survival.

And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.

Time for a re-read. I bought an extra copy of this that has a 20-year anniversary new letter from Charlie at the end. Excited to read :)

Jeff formed Squeeze and gave himself a stage name: Niki Syxx.

I loved that name right away - even though it was missing that sweet extra k. Then and there, I decided to steal it.

[...]

"Okay," I told Angie, "I'm just going to be Nikki Sixx."

"Frank!" she said. "You can't just be Nikki Sixx! That's Jeff's stage name."

"Whatever," I said. "He's never going to make it."

A few months after that, I was doing something in my room and Nona called out to me, "Hey, Frankie, that guy you like, Peter Cooper. He's on TV."

I knew what she meant. […] We had a little TV on one of the small TV stands you can roll across the room and there, on The Merv Griffin Show, I got my first glimpse of Gene Simmons from Kiss. Not Alice Cooper.
—————

This part made me laugh

[…] I knew Jerome was small. It was idyllic. But something about it rubbed me the wrong way.
I wouldn't have been able to articulate it at the time-[…]-but I knew I had to get out.
A big part of that had to do with Uncle Don and with the records he'd started to send me. But some of it has to do with the fact that I'm an artist--and an artist is a little like somebody born with no skin. You feel everything.