Do you remember what it was like to be in high school? Well, Curtis Sittenfeld does ... and her (yes, she's a female) novel Prep is pretty damn good. I'm only 100 or so pages in, but I'm captivated. It isn't that the story is particularly gripping ... but the author's grasp of the high school experience is intoxicating. I came across a passage last night that made me stop ...

But I was living my life sideways. I did not act on what I wanted, I did not say the things I thought, and being so stifled and clamped all the time left me exhausted; no matter what I was doing, I was always imagining something else.

Wow. Simple, brilliant, and really, really telling.
I still feel this way ... and that saddens me a little. Those who know me will probably read this and scoff, thinking "That bitch tells it like it is -- always says what's on his mind." Well, not so much, really. Sure, I comment on everyone else and the choices they make ... but when it comes to my personal life, well ... I'm still guarded. One of the greatest gifts of fiction is its knack for mirroring "real life," and Sittenfeld all but slapped me in the face with this passage. Today has been a day of self-reflection. That's not so bad.