What John Green Taught Me

And I don't think it's a good thing. WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE NOT READ LOOKING FOR ALASKA AND ARE PLANNING ON IT. IT ALSO BRINGS UP DEATH A LOT. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED, AND CAN'T GET MAD AT ME.

I'm on the last twenty pages of Looking For Alaska, by John Green. I can't say that the character of Alaska is one of my favorites, or even the most well developed, but she sure as hell leaves a whole in your heart. I think she reminds me of the type of people I generally develop crushes on. They pick up lots of bad habits, exhibit moods of all encompassing joy, earth shattering depression, and there's nothing you can do to help them during the latter.
She drives off one night, and ends up killing herself by crashing into a car. It's the type of event that you see coming, but aren't prepared for even though you should be. After she's gone in the book, I can turn back the pages and look at when she was "alive," and I can try to forget that she had ever been dead.
This isn't the case for people who live outside of bound paper. A senior at my school recently died (last Monday, exactly a week ago), and it makes me think. He was not my friend, in fact, I do not know who he is. It makes me wonder about his friends, and if they ever turn back their pages and forget that his life will be cut short. I know I would.
I've only ever lost grandparents, but I've been with my friends through the deaths of their parents, siblings, and friends. Three of my grandparents died while I was alive, one about eight years before my birth. Nana 'Laine went when I was four, so my memory of her is more than blurry. Papa Latinik left when I was ten, and I have a clear memory of him. His booming bass voice, his house that smelled like stale cigarettes and valve oil, the way he loved each of his thirteen grandchildren more than he loved the New York Giants. Nana Jerry died when I was eleven, but she had severe dementia, really she died when I was eight.
All of these people were over seventy, and what would my reaction be if a close friend of mine suddenly went out in the same way that they did? What would I do?
And some of my friends have died. Not in a literal sense. None of them are buried beneath dry earth and woods. My friends have died in the same ways that ideas die. People change, families move, life goes on. In a way similar to Looking For Alaska, I find myself turning back pages, looking at old conversations and Facebook posts dated 2012. Somehow, I think that this will reverse their metaphorical death, that reading through "Dear Bridget's..." and "I love you's" will turn a clock around and draw them back to build a blanket fort and hold each other together. That somehow, staring at the freckles dotting her nose the summer of 2009 will take us swimming in the rolling waves of Ocean Park, Maine again. In reality, these actions simply make the longing and missing them more intense. My life is not a book, and I can't flip back to page one whenever I miss Olivia*.
Figuring out why they faded away seems to me just as great of a mystery as why Alaska drove away, and why Tom* died. I know that death is essential for life, and life essential to death, and whenever an old friend dies, a new one is born, but the hole of the old friend is never quite filled.
I wish there was something I could have done to stop her from getting into the car and driving away, but there wasn't, isn't, and never will be, leaving me with an open wound, patched by a band-aid friend, which eventually ceases to work.
Life is not a book, and that is what John Green taught me.

*Some names changed, some names completely made up

The Love Club

To me, it seems that everyone has a best friend, a lover, or a sibling that they can't go a day without talking to, who they connect with intimately, and love more than anything on this earth. There are five types of relationships that I see exhibited.

The Melodramatic PDA Relationship: This is the couple on the train in broad daylight practically giving each other lap dances. These are the people who dart out of the school dance to suck face in the locker room, or maybe in the middle of the dance floor. Undoubtedly, they are in some sort of love, or else they probably wouldn't be displaying it for the entire population. The most common phrase just hear in reference to this type of relationship is "get a room!"

The Cute Couple Who Slow Dance And Talk About Bugs: Maybe that isn't exactly how these relationships work, but that how I'd like to imagine it. Two people who both like each other a whole lot, in the "I have a massive dorky crush on you" sort of way. They learn how to ballroom dance after school and laugh about dumb things together, without completely abandoning all other friendships. Almost no one has a problem with these two, especially if they are over 80 years old.

The Best Best Best Friends: These two do everything and anything together, whether it be watching Wes Anderson movies or bawling about boys whole listening to Buddy Holly. They've likely been friends since preschool or earlier, and will probably wind up living next door to each other in time. They make mix CD's for each other's birthdays and write letters from down the street, sending them snail mail style. The "I stepped out of an indie movie" type of people are usually part of these.

The "I'm Going To Kill Everyone On Earth Please Help" Friendship: everyone has this person in their life, whether it's her that's coming to you at three in the morning screaming and crying, or you going to her. I guarantee, you've had this person in your life at some point. The friendship might not have lasted long, but it was there. It is always a separate person from best best best friend, because ceaseless complaining and emotions really does get in the way of those chocolate banana cookies you were going to make.

The Person That Hates You or You Hate Them But You Can't Live Without: You know, when he breathes you want to snap his neck, but three days later you're in his kitchen making nachos and laughing about bad horror movies. But you can't stand each other. He lies too much and you say snide remarks that he hates, but you are inseparable. You spend more time with him than any other person. But you fight constantly. It never lasts. These friendships are sort of a crash course in how to ruin your emotions.

And that, my comrades, is Ayers' Five Types Of Friendships.

Why You Totally Should And Really Shouldn't Watch That Scandinavian Version of Alice in Wonderland

It's pretty well known that I'm not really what one would call a "party animal." At all. For the past six or seven weeks, I've been out on Friday nights. This doesn't necessarily entail raging parties filled with flashing lights and alcohol (I've never been to one of these, nor do I ever want to), but of small local concerts, sleepovers, and movie nights. Two weeks ago I caught a break and decided that this was going to be my night. I made my favorite type of tea, some popcorn, curled up on my couch, and began my great search through Netflix for a great movie to watch. I stumbled upon the title "Alice," and discovered it to be directed by some Nordic lady with a name that has too many j's in her name for any westerner to be able to pronounce without seriously offending anyone. Since the tale of Alice's adventures through her rabbit hole has been long a favorite of mine, I decided that I wanted to broaden my Lewis Carroll horizons. Press play, the movie begins.
The opening is similar to the one all too familiar to me. Disney's version. Alice and her sister rest on a riverbank, Alice becoming antsy. This version suddenly cuts to out to :our protagonists lips telling us that she needs to follow the rabbit.
The rabbit is an actual rabbit. And actual, dead, rabbit, complete with really bad taxidermy and stop animation. I'm still haunted by it.
Alice follows it through a cardboard desert, climbs into a desk drawer, and crawls through a cave of rulers and protractors. I shut the movie off at this point because the rabbit was scaring me too much. I watched Bob's Burgers instead (if you haven't started watching it, I highly recommend it).

Though this adaptation scared me to death, it made me ache for the days where my father would prepare peanut butter and banana sandwiches, situate me on a blanket in front of the t.v., put in a video tape with Tarzan, Alice In Wonderland, and Betty Boop on it, and say that I was having a picnic in our living room.

This is the rabbit from "Alice"

**correction; the version I am referring to is Czech, not Scandinavian. The director is Jan Svankmajer, which has significantly less j's than I originally thought.**