The Beauty of Different

I just received my amazon order yesterday and started to peruse my purchase, Karen Walrond's picture/essay book, The Beauty of Different.  It is a collection of photos - mostly close-in portraiture - and stories of people's lives, particularly with respect to how they felt "different" from their peers but eventually came to love their different-ness and see it as an asset.  It is really a wonderful and engrossing book.  I'd intended to just glance at it and get back to work, but then I looked up at the clock and an hour had passed... I guiltily looked back down to finish the page, and looked back up another half hour later!  There are so many cool and happy people out in the world, and it's just nice to connect (in a detached sort of way, if that isn't too paradoxical) to some of them and know that things aren't as bad as I sometimes think they are.