Prep Done

I just finished Prep. What a great book - a long, satisfying read, one to put next to The Catcher in the Rye for giving a voice to a disaffected teenage outsider while offering a universal human story for all people, regardless of age or gender. Prep is farther-reaching and more filling, though, covering four years rather than three days. Wow. This is my second book of the week, and hopefully I knock out a third one before I return to school. Three books and ten movies. Not a bad break.

This is my favorite of many favorite passages from Prep: None of which justifies how I acted. I was wrong, I screwed up - how else can I say it? But there was plenty to learn from Dave. Later, after all that happened between Cross Sugarman and me, I even saw Dave as practice for Cross, as preparation. He made me ready, as Conchita had once made me ready for a friendship with Martha; there are people we treat wrong, and later, we're prepared to treat other people right. Perhaps this sounds mercenary, but I feel grateful for these trial relationships, and I would like to think it all evens out - surely, unknowingly, I have served as practice for other people.

I'm not sure why that moved me so much, but it did. Practice relationships. What a concept, one I'm certain I've engaged in but probably not enough. Actually, obviously not enough.