It's kind of a true story

I just finished reading It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini and there was an article, mostly about him, in the Village Voice today. It's amusing to me because as I was reading the book, I noticed the little blurb in the front that mentioned that the author had also spent time in the psych ward (or whatever you call it) at some point. I was thinking that was all, you know, way in the past, but then when I finished the book I noticed the sentences "Ned Vizzini spent five days in adult psychiatric in Methodist Hospital, Park Slope, Brooklyn, 11/29/04-12/3/04. Ned wrote this 12/10/04-1/6/05."

So he really did just get out and write the damn book. Which makes me think a few things:

1-That must have been some very inspiring/healthy/helpful time in the hospital.
2-How meta. The kid in the book finds solace in his artwork and gets the hell out of the hospital, as, apparently, did Ned himself.
3-Interesting how quickly he started and finished the book after getting out - makes me feel like the way the kid feels and behaves in the book must be pretty realistic.
4-That explains why the book felt hurried in places - It's almost like he couldn't wait to get this story out and on paper.
5-Not a lot of non-personal research went on in the writing of this book. So much so that the kid in the book can't be put into teen psych, even though he is only 14, and ends up being put into adult psych, which sure is convenient for the author.

Anyway, it was an enjoyable book. I don't know if I liked it quite as much as King Dork, which, btw, just got bought for a movie by Will Ferrell.

Here are my two favorite moments from It's Kind of a Funny Story:

Tentacles is my term – the Tentacles are the evil tasks that invade my life. Like, for example, my American History class last week, which necessitated me writing a paper on the weapons of the Revolutionary War, which necessitated me getting in the subway, which necessitated me being away from my cell phone and e-mail for 45 minutes, which meant that I didn’t get to respond to a mass mail sent out by my teacher asking who needed extra credit, which meant other kids snapped up the extra credit, which meant other kids snapped up the extra credit, which meant I wasn’t going to get a 98 in the class, which meant I wasn’t anywhere close to a 98.6 average (body temperature, that’s what you needed to get), which meant I wasn’t going to get into a Good College, which meant I wasn’t going to have a Good Job, which meant I wasn’t going to have health insurance, which meant I’d have to pay tremendous amounts of money for the shrinks and drugs my brain needed, which meant I wasn’t going to have enough money to pay for a Good Lifestyle, which meant I’d feel ashamed, which meant I’d get depressed, and that was the big one because I knew what that did to me: it made it so I wouldn’t get out of bed, which led to the ultimate thing – homelessness. If you can’t get out of bed for long enough, people come and take your bed away.

“Forget the midlife crisis,” I say. “It’s all about the sixth-life crisis...Well, first there’s the quarter-life crisis,” I say. “That’s like the characters on Friends – people freaking out that they won’t get married. Twenty year-olds. That’s probably true that people get quarter-life crises; I wouldn’t know. But I know that now things work faster. Before you had to wait until you were twenty to have enough choices of things to do with your life to start getting freaked out. But now there’s so much stuff for you to buy, and so many ways you can spend your time, and so many specialties that you need to get started on very early in life – like ballet, right, Noelle, when did you start ballet?”

“Four.”

“Okay. I started Tae Bo at six. So there are like – so many people angling for success and so many colleges you’re supposed to get into, and so many women you’re supposed to have sex with–...So now,” I continue, “instead of a quarter-life crisis they’ve got a fifth-life crisis – that’s when you’re eighteen – and a sixth-life crisis – that’s when you’re fourteen. I think that’s what a lot of people have…Well, there are a lot of people who make a lot of money off of the fifth- and sixth-life crises. All of a sudden they have a ton of consumers scared out of their minds and willing to buy facial cream, designer jeans, SAT test prep courses, condoms, cars, scooters, self-help books, watches, wallets, stocks, whatever… all the crap that the twenty-somethings used to buy, they now have the ten-somethings buying. They doubled their market! …So pretty soon.” I keep thinking. “There’ll be seventh- and eighth-life crises. Then eventually a baby will born and the doctors will look at it and wonder right away if it’s unequipped to deal with the world; if they decide it doesn’t look happy, they’ll put it on antidepressants, get it started on that particular consumer track.”