homework, Sodapop Curtis, and scabby knees

i'm reading The Outsiders for the umpteenth time. this is what happens when comparative lit professors allow their students to choose their own paper topics, the only parameters being that it must in some way involve crime in literature. i always forget how much i love this book, which is surprising since i have a constant reminder tattooed to my hip. apparently i don't look down enough. which also explains why i trip so often.

"You read a lot, don't you, Ponyboy?" Cherry asked.
I was startled. "Yeah. Why?"
She kind of shrugged. "I could just tell. I'll bet you watch sunsets, too." She was quiet for a minute after I nodded. "I used to watch them, too, before I got so busy..."

More than Johnny's "Stay gold Ponyboy" line. More than the recitation of the actual poem. That's the line in the book that gets the idea, it's not about becoming anything. it's about staying something. I don't take it all to mean that it's possible. Ponyboy might stay gold, but Peter Pan could fly and yet I know to keep my feet on the ground. I think what i get out of The Outsiders is less the belief I can fly and more a renewed commitment to happy thoughts. I don't think I'll be the exception, that the rest of the world is filled with hardened adults who operate on a system of routine. I accept that one day I'll have a routine of my own. I just hope that once in a while I can look up from whatever steps it is I'm re-tracing to watch the sun set. Even if it means tripping now and then.

theoretical questions, independent variables and zombies

"what is the worst thing anyone could ever say to you? and what is the best thing you could ever hear?" i read that in a book i finally got around to thanks to emma's recommendation. and i couldn't think of an answer for either. there are a lot of things that would be hard to hear, a lot of them i've already heard. but there has to be something that someone could say that would just stop me cold. something beyond tears and time and angry replies. something even i wouldn't have a comeback for. knowing the potential creativity of my pessimistic what-ifs i'm sure i could come up with something... but do i really want to?

and when it comes down to it isn't it all circumstantial. who says it. when they say it. how much they mean it. and maybe most importantly, how much they mean to me. i mean given if i heard that zombies were taking over the world it wouldn't matter who or where or when i heard it, but in every realistic scenario, those variables are the deciding factors in the relative goodness or badness.

it's ahrd to believe that anything someone could say could bring me down that much, but you have to have an answer to the first question in order to have one for the second. it all comes down to that first and last variable.

i think when it comes down to it my answers are pretty simple.
you never made a difference.
you matter more than you'll ever know.

anything involving zombies could potentially fall into either category.