I was at the bookstore this weekend browsing through the for sale racks when I came upon a volume of two S.E. Hinton novels, The Oustiders and That Was Then, This Is Now. Any relf-respecting teenager in the early eighties read all of Hinton's novels 10 or 12 times. Well, at least I did. Never mind that the narratives were the viewpoints of 15-year-old boys. I could identify with their angst, those parentless white teens growing up in the heartland before crystal meth, in quite the same way I would identify with Robert Smith's vaguely annoying musical screeds. I think I wanted to date the SE Hinton boys (so long as they really looked like Matt Dillon) and, of course, I secretly wanted to be them, no matter how dead-end their lives would eventually be. Of the four novels, Tex was the strongest and Rumblefish the weakest (what was Coppola thinking when he adapted this so-so novel into an art-house gem?).

Anyway, I did have a point, and it wasn't about SE Hinton. I really wanted to read these books again--sit out by the pool on Sunday morning and whip through them in an hour and a half or whatever--but I couldn't convince myself to cough up eight dollars for the damn book. I'll get it from the library, I told myself, placing it on the list of hundreds of other books I've promised myself that I'd check out of the library and never have. Why am I so cheap? I could make a hundred grand a year and budget like I make twenty. I don't think it's all the result of growing up in a single-parent home, however. For instance, I don't mind dropping money on my family or friends. I just have a hard time spending money on myself. Is it because I'm cheap? I think it's because I hate stuff. I hate clutter. I hate feeling tied down, overwhelmed, bloated with stuff that will keep me trapped.

Hmm, maybe those books on Buddhism are having an effect on me.