“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jim Steele.”—The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, 1951
YOU’RE ABOUT TO READ THE MOST BRILLIANT ESSAY on The Catcher in the Rye ever written. I wrote it back in 2005. It was my Loxley University Graduate Thesis. It has been considered by many to be the most comprehensive analysis on the themes, symbols, and philosophical implications of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye ever written. This is not a brag. Many have said this. I am merely stating the facts.
trying to convert my friends to Buddhism so they'll give me all their stuff
polar bears in the zoo sometimes grow algae on their fur, turning them green; they say it's because they're stuck in the wrong place.
the best feature of the Nintendo Switch is one that's rarely talked about: it's basically immune to power outages.
there's no such thing as a normal person, only people who try really hard to appear that way; everyone's a fucking freak underneath the facade.
trying to remove the word “just” from my vocabulary, outside of very specific instances. stuff i’m trying to avoid is, “I'm just saying …” or “I was just …” because these come off as very defensive and unconfident, in a way.
“Greetings, novitiate, and know first a reassurance: I was once like you, asleep, unwise, protonymic.”
On December 31st, 2024, I spent exactly $236.74 all to play literally one game; I spent $161.02 on the Xbox 360 Slim in glossy black, and I spent $39.81 on an authentic Microsoft 360 controller, and I spent $35.91 on the actual game itself, and I even considered buying a mint-condition copy of the game’s official strategy guide, but this would have cost me an additional $41.36, and—considering that was more expensive than the game itself—it was all starting to feel a little excessive at that point, so I had to draw the line somewhere.
i have a real nice water tumbler, it’s black, stainless steel or something, my wife got it for me. water tastes good in that tumbler, and the same water tastes different in a different tumbler, so my tumbler has this special quality, in my mind. i’ve notcied that some people aren’t happy with their tumblers; they want all sorts of stuff, like the next best tumbler, or the next best car, or a bigger house, and a pool in the backyard. why does it seem like some people can only enjoy stuff they haven’t got? why can’t people just enjoy the tumblers they have now?
my favorite pokemon is Togepi on account of all the potential—and the nice triangles
It’s almost like, if you love something, you should leave it alone, set it free.
some bloggers literally be like: “computer, write me the most overwrought fucking bullshit you can think of about my dead grandma. thanks.”
“all morons hate it when you call them a moron.” —Holden Caulfield
when I was young, i felt like everyone was looking at me. now, I feel like no one looks at me ever. I don't know which is worse.
every medical drama when something uplifting happens: analytic piano melody
“Sorry! I don’t want any adventures, thank you. Not today.” —Bilbo Baggins, The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien, 1937
I didn't sign up for this. It’s too hard. I’m a hands-on learner. I don't have any experience. I’m too young. College is too expensive. I don’t want to go into debt. Degrees are useless anyway. There’s too many options. I'm dyslexic. I’m not ready. I’ll never get a good job. It’s all nepotism, cronyism, soulless networking. I won’t play the corporate game. I’m better than that. The world isn’t made for people like me. I will not change. I have too many things going on. I’m scared. People are going to laugh at me. There’s not enough time. I’ve got deep childhood trauma. I’m antisocial. I cannot change. I can’t. I just can’t.
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I, Pale Spectre
There I was, a pale spectre, on a bench, on a walkway, on the Atlantic, on a private island, in a gated community to which I belonged but did not belong, waves going up and down like the addys and grass I was coming down on, cool morning breeze blowing right through me, mossy oaks getting sensual, no sleep, teenage brain basically fried, one hand dangling a lit cigarette between two fingers, the other a copy of Breath of Fire III, missing the front-cover insert so the orange disc shone right through, and I could see my reflection there, off the jewel case, through a cloud of smoke: hair wild as the wind, eyes sunken all Night of the Living Dead, expression expressionless.
Want to read this the way it was meant to be read? Download the PDF.
VI, The Boy With the Thorn in His Side
Down a two-mile stretch, beyond Cloister and Tide, past terracotta mansions, four stories high, walls infused with seashells, elevators inside, there was a small opening in the holly; and there, between the holly, an alley of hedge, shaded by oak and palm, a long grassy pledge; and there at the end, at the very edge, there was a small hill, which opened to a stunning view: a golden dune, with goldenrod and cordgrass and yucca and buttonwood foon; and right there, on that dune, there was a walkway, all made out of wood, a secret beach, where three young men stood.
if you read this heinously long list of errata and come out with only one piece of meaningful insight, make it this: creating always feels better than consuming.
the average person takes about 638 million breaths a lifetime
It's a shame that the movie adaptations of novels are always the top search results when searching for just the name of the novel—another symptom of our society's gradual debasing of the written word; we are reading less and less and writing even less than that.
“The impatience you feel is your first slave to behead.” —Mythic Dawn Commentaries
if for whatever reason you feel discouraged just remember that Liam Gallagher exists and is taken seriously by billions of people; meaning: if he can become an international superstar, then you can do anything you put your mind to, because there's no possible way you're as stupid as Liam Fucking Gallagher.
“I've always felt, since I was small... That I was different from the others. Special, in some way.”
Before cigarettes and alcohol, cars and girls, work and bills, marriage and mortgages; betwixt red maple and palm; back when Grandma Susu woke me every morning with a tall glass of chocolate milk; when I still kinda believed that toys came to life when people left the house; back in that prepubescent fog wherein I still enjoyed Blue’s Clues but had developed just enough self-awareness to be embarrassed about it; when music skipped and movies barfed tape; back when Miles, my best friend, lived right by the fishing pond on the border of my backyard; when trampolines were gravity wells around which all children orbited; back when we thought time could be stopped and things would never change; when I could pick up Between the Lions and Dragon Tales on PBS if I moved the antenna just right; back when the internet was confined to large gray cubes and was mainly used for printing out cheat codes; when clouds only existed in the sky and Final Fantasy VII, not everyone’s pocket; back when Game Boys and asthma inhalers were the only devices kids had; when I would leave the house with nothing but my wits because phones were still tethered to walls with curly cords; back when true freedom was just beyond the picket fences, in the overgrown alleys between houses of red brick and cheap vinyl siding; when we all knew the neighborhood cats by name; back when politics were boring and there was just so much else to talk about; when neighborhoods felt like they were owned by people instead of banks and politicians; back when parents kept their doors unlocked and kids swept through like little tornadoes; when we would spend afternoons ringing doorbells and running away; back when I would fall asleep on the floor enveloped in the soft glow of video game cathode; when sleepovers were the best thing in the whole entire world; back when Miles lent me his friend Lauren’s Game Boy Camera, which I traded for store credit to buy the game with the cool spiky-haired blonde guy on the cover.
“Ha, ha, ha... my sadness? What do I have to be sad about? I am the chosen one.”
It was around this time that I heard some sort of commotion coming from outside the office. Matt’s dad, a goblin of a man, who must have come home early, was shouting at his son. My stomach dropped and I was suddenly aware of the blood inside me, burning, for I was obviously trespassing in Matt’s dad’s office, having been told several times by both Matt and his dad never to go into the office—or the house without the parents present, for that matter. My face was all flushed red, full of hell and hemoglobin, which I tried to gulp down. I had only a few more questions to go, so in one smooth motion, I twirled and rolled the chair to the office door, locked the deadbolt, then twirled and rolled once more back to the computer, where I took the mouse in hand like there was no tomorrow and started just clicking away as fast as I could, answering the remainder of the “Which Final Fantasy VII Character Are You?!?!” quiz questions as if I had cast Haste on myself and then jumped into the body of Sephiroth, like it was no longer me answering the questions but Sephiroth himself, in the flesh, clicking mighty fast clicks.
