That reminder that it can be different, that you need not go through your life unknown but that you probably still will - that is the part that's almost unbearable.

I have always found those times when another person recognizes you to be strangely sad I suspect the pathos of these moments is their rareness, the way they contrast with most daily encounters.

And maybe we wouldn't even say good-bye, now that he was with his friends again maybe I was just supposed to know. Then it was over and the lights came on… Maybe this was the place Cross and I would part ways, I thought. I did not get a grasp on the movie's plot, or the names of any of the characters.

For the whole movie, I had that sense of heightened awareness that is like discomfort but is not discomfort exactly - a tiring, enjoyable vigilance.

I think, looking back, that this was the single best thing about Ault, the sense of possibility… In my whole life, Ault was the place with the greatest density of people to fall in love with. This phenomenon - being gripped by an overwhelming wave of feeling that was clearly not the feeling of the people around me - had also happened at a pep rally: It made me uncomfortable, because I didn't want anyone to notice that I wasn't jumping up and down or cheering, and it also thrilled me, because it made the world seem full of possibilities that could make my heart pound.

Not because I was sad but because I was not happy, and yet, like my classmates, I'd experienced an emotional surge, I too felt the need for expression. But not a draining of tension - my body was still stiff and alert, and the impulse I had, strangely, was to weep. In fact, as the noise gained momentum, I felt its opposite, a draining of excitement. I always worried someone would notice me, and then when no one did, I felt lonely.It was unseemly, lacking subtlety, revealing a wish for things you did not already have. At Ault, it wasn't just that we weren't supposed to be bad or unethical we weren't even supposed to be ordinary, and stealing was worse than ordinary.

As for the politics here, what can you do? There’s a lot of posturing, but it’s all kind of meaningless.

Prep sittenfeld