Sunny

“Because I’m weird. Which you definitely know. You know I like weird stuff. And everything about milk is weird. Even the word “milk,” which I think probably sounds like what milk sounds like when you guzzle it. Milkmilkmilkmilkmilk. I should start over.”

Sunny often interrupts himself in his diary and his writing goes off on marginally related tangents. This quote also shows how Sunny thinks about sound and the device of onomatopoeia, i.e., words that sonically mimic the things they describe. This will continue to be important to Sunny as he develops his interest in dance and movement and his belief that each movement has an accompanying sound attached to it that brings the sound to life. 

“When I was a little kid and was all yelly-yelly and Darryl wanted me to be more hushy-hushy, he gave me you and told me to put the noise on your pages whenever I felt like I needed to, which was all the time except for when I was running or sleeping.”

Sunny explains the origins of his diary, which also reveals early on the strained relationship with his father, Darryl. This is the first time Sunny mentions Darryl, and it is not clear at first that Darryl is Sunny’s father. Calling him “Darryl” shows the distance between them. Sunny reveals that his father is the one who gave him the diary originally to process his thoughts privately rather than aloud. While Darryl giving Sunny a journal in part shows a sense of care for Sunny’s mental state after his mother’s passing, Sunny internalizes this to mean that Darryl doesn’t want Sunny to bother him and to be more “hushy-hushy.” This solidifies the awkwardness and distance between Sunny and Darryl that they spend the rest of the