Homework for Feb 17th

In the readings for this week, I found that I really enjoyed "Greasy Lake" but, after much thought, I decided my favorite was "Milk". I really enjoyed the relationship he had with his wife, Annie and how they were very honest with each other. I was actually a little confused at what he meant towards the beginning when he said "We had grown up together" in describing their relationship. he did list off a bunch of things they had done together but it wasn't said if he meant that, through those things, they had grown up together or if they had literally grown up throughout childhood together. In my opinion of their relationship it seemed like they had only grown up together through the events they had done together. I only say this because, in my experience, people who grow up close to each other have the most trouble being together romantically and they seemed to be completely understanding to each other. The fact that they understood each other greatly was shown throughout the story like when he grabbed her wrist and dragged her around on a rant and all she had to say about it was "Can I have this back?" in regards to her arm. I know that, while I was reading that particular part, I expected her to flip out and try to get away from him and was surprised when that was her only response. On a side-note, I also wanted to add how I loved the way he described his children, Lee and Bobby. Every time he saw them he always seemed to describe them as Angelic and wonderful no matter what they were doing.

My other favorite aspect of this writing was basically the main point of the story: How the milk cartons with the pictures of missing children had really affected him more than even he understood. It depressed him so much that all those children could be missing and had him hoping desperately that the world wasn't as bad as the Milk carton children made it seem. It even got to the point where he couldn't look at people without imagining what their milk carton would say. On a geeky note, I actually connected a bit with that thought since, after being on facebook for so long, sometimes my thoughts will come to me in third person as if it were my status. Just shows how our minds can get used to something that they automatically follow the pattern. The thing that I found very odd in this story was the reaction his mother and wife had to his reasoning for not wanting his kids' fingerprints taken. He said that the fingerprints were only taken to identify bodies which meant that the only reason to get them was so, if Lee or Bobby were taken and killed, they could be identified. When he said this, I know I felt almost hurt and surprised that that realization had never come to me before but his wife and mom just seemed to shrug it off like nothing. I suppose that maybe they had had the conversation enough that it didn't affect them anymore.