Ok I'm only at the beginning of the reading, but of course I'm at the part where Sal goes to visit Dean and he answers the door naked... all i could think about was our discussion in class about him driving naked in the last part and dan's comment about life fulfillment resting in the hands of that experience. :) just felt the need to demonstrate my thought process while i was reading and share it with the class... but back to reality and discussing the book itself... going back to what ms. siegel said about sadness reappearing in the text, i was thinking about that earlier and had a revelation it seems to me that the characters in this book can never be content, they are constantly searching for something. That notion of being on the road searching, again what jaen said a realllyyyyyy long time ago about seraching for that one person comes into play yet again. Sal is yearning to be a Denver mexican (which i also thought was pretty funny, and wish that i was one too for some odd reason...) but he is not content with just being himself. I think that the words sadness and insecurity are closely knit because technically if youre not content with yourself and who you are than you're not going to be happy with the life that you lead, therefore you will be UNhappy and sad. I think i wrote enough, anyone agree?