It showed me an adult life that was about parties and friends and sex and sparkling wit and messiness and creativity and longing for something outside of convention. It gave me the insatiable appetite to reach beyond my circumstances. It gave me a vista of what kind of life was possible for a homosexual like me.
Then Junot Diaz asked me a question: "What could you possibly write that would interest people?" This being a reference to my age, and possibly my closed-off suburban background. I know that it was not meant as an insult, but at the same time, how would he know if my writing could interest people just by looking at me?