The Perks of Being 30

I took myself to the movies to see The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It was a great movie.  I fully intend to read the book.  Normally I prefer to read the book before seeing the movie, but there is the rare occasion where I love the movie so much, I won’t touch the book (see: ShopGirl, In Her Shoes).  But I will give this book a go because the author wrote and directed the movie. Win.  It was like a perfect mix of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and It’s Kind of a Funny Story.  Which were also books. HA!

The Sunday noon screening is an empty screening.  Reserved for older women and men who don’t like football, so I had primo seating.  The River Oaks theater is super old so there’s that old school graduated seating, not the big ass stadium seats.  I love it.

And then two teenagers and a mom sat behind me.  I didn’t even have to turn around to recognize these kids.  Theater nerds.  AP students.  A dash of hipster qualities.  They gabbed it up the entire set of trailers.  That’s fine.

The lights go dark.  The movie starts.  They’re excited.  So excited.  It was clear they had read this books several times.  To the point they could quote it and were so happy the writer left key points in.  And they talked about how the main character Charlie (Logan Lerman, that kid who played Percy Jackson) was so cute and they so wish he went to their school and they would even date the gay guy cause everyone in the movie was so perfectly odd.

I got it.  I did.  I just didn’t want to hear it.

After the movie, the mom was near the restrooms with me and apologized profusely for her teen and the best friend.  I told her I full understood.  I was a teen before.  I wasn’t too bothered.  She was still embarrassed.

But since my birthday is a day away, people have been telling me to “enjoy the last few days of my 20’s”. I’ve been hearing that since last year when I turned 29.  Enjoy the last year of my 20’s.  Well duh.  What else would I do?  Sulk about still living? Be sad about the fact that things are increasingly awesome?

Incorrect.  I’m glad to be 30.  I couldn’t imagine being 14 again and thinking that this movie was the greatest thing I had ever read.  I wanted to introduce those girls to the awesomness of Chuck Palahunik.  Fight Club is something to be excited about. I saw that in high school.  Like a thousand times.  But they’ll be 30 one day and some nerds will sit behind them at the movies and then they’ll get it.