Invaluable

The lovliest thing happened to me this morning.

I should preface this story by saying that between the Labor party doing its best impersonation of a blind man in a maze at night, a friend wrecking my car and being sued, I haven't had a great week. I have, however, been re-reading some JD Salinger stories. I read his stuff regularly and have something of a thing for the Glass family and a genuine crush on Franny although I'm getting too old for her. Strictly speaking, I've probably been too old for her for some time but I have a pretty high tolerance when it comes to that sort of thing. Other than my love for Franny, the reader should probably also know that when reading the Glass stories I inevitable develop, contract really, Buddy's narative voice and a far more sentimental view of things than I otherwise would. I am rather sentimental about things generally but the various Glass stories take me up a notch; RH Blyth says "we are being sentimental when we give to a thing more tenderness than God gives to it" and that's the effect Les, Bessie, Seymour, Buddy, Zooey and Franny have on me. And I have undoubtedly given to the episode described below more tenderness than God has or will. I should also add that I read that definition in a JD Salinger story. I am not that widely read.

At any rate, when I arrived at the bus stop this morning (for booze reasons, I get the bus on Fridays), there was a Chinese kid there reading and listening to music. I paid next to no attention, sat down and opened Seymour; An Introduction. At some point he sat next to me, gestured that he needed to ask me something, took the headphone out of his left ear and pointed to a word in what turned out to be an English-Chinese phrasebook that he was reading. "Valuable" I said. "Val-u-a-ble" he repeated. "Yep" I said and nodded in agreement. He smiled by way of thanks then continued sitting beside me. Had I not been reading a Salinger story at the time I may have thought nothing of it but in the words of Buddy in Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, which I had read just two days previously, "I looked over at the great man and tried to show by my expression that I knew a poem when I saw one."

I honestly haven't stopped smiling since although there may be other reasons for that; it being Friday just one of them.