They were careless people, Tom and Daisy.

“[Gatsby] stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him. But it was all going by too fast...and he knew that he had lost that part of it, the freshest and the best, forever.”
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald


I try to figure out why it is that I am so in love with this novel. I think about Gatsby and the detestable Daisy and I try to figure out why it is that I care about a novel with less than likable main characters. And then I realize that it isn't the love story between Daisy and Gatsby that gets me every time, and it isn't even the beautiful relationship that Nick has with Gatsby. I think the real reason that I love this story so much is because every word is so powerful. Fitzgerald did an amazing thing by creating such a beautiful piece of art about such (mostly) selfish people. It makes me see those people as a little less selfish, it makes me almost give them allowances for being so cruel. And that's kind of scary.

The Only Exception

Forgive the total emo mushy-ness of this. I'm not a huge Paramore fan but the lyrics to this song are dazzling.

So Many Opportunities to Not Be Alone

And, still more salient, why had I jumped into the car in the first place?...There seem to me at least a dozen answers to these questions, and all of them, however dimly, valid enough. I think, though, that I can dispense with them, and just reiterate that the year was 1942, that I was twenty-three, newly drafted, newly advised in the efficacy of keeping close to the herd-and, above all, I felt lonely. One simply jumped into loaded cars, as I see it, and stayed seated in them.
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters
J.D. Salinger




It's interesting that in a city as full as New York that people are in a constant state of loneliness. People are yearning for some type of interaction, any type of interaction. A smile on the train, a wave at the station attendant, a regular trip to a local coffee shop, anything to feel a connection. I usually end up in conversations with those around me. And for those few minutes we share something that no one else will. We complain about the MTA or remark on the weather and it isn't the conversation, but rather knowing that you aren't alone. And even in something as simple as that we find that we've jumped into a loaded car to fight off the loneliness.

And I hope they don't feel so lonely anymore.