i have a question...

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Best of 2015

MOVIES
Wild
The LEGO Movie
Begin Again
The Theory of Everything
Show 'Em What You're Made Of
Interstellar
Magic Mike XXL
Home
Straight Outta Compton
Sicario
How to Dance in Ohio
The Martian
August: Osage County
The Good Dinosaur
Beginners
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

BOOKS
The Longest Date: Life as a Wife by Cindy Chupack
All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Paper Towns by John Green
The Friend Who Got Away edited by Jenny Offill and Elissa Schappel
Fat Girl Walking by Brittany Gibbons
Sweet and Vicious by Richard Schickler
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
With This Heart by R.S. Grey
Sick in the Head by Judd Apatow
Don't Fail Me Now by Una LaMarche
Sounds Like Me by Sara Bareilles
Dirty by Megan Hart

MUSIC
"Can't Stop Dancing" by Becky G
"Four Five Seconds" by Rihanna
Piece by Piece by Kelly Clarkson
"Shut Up and Dance" by Walk the Moon
"My Silver Lining" by First Aid Kit
In a World Like This by Backstreet Boys
"The Crying Game" by Nicki Minaj ft. Jessie Ware
"Keep on Lying" by Jessie Ware
Never Gone by Backstreet Boys
"What Do You Mean?" by Justin Bieber
"Sorry" by Justin Bieber
"Acapella" by Karmin
Hamilton Original Broadway Cast Recording
"Till It's Gone" by Yelawolf
"Stitches" by Shawn Mendes
"Ex's and Oh's" by Elle King
"Hello" by Adele
What's Inside by Sara Bareilles
"Love Yourself" by Justin Bieber

THEATER
Dying While Black and Brown by Zaccho Dance Theatre
Hamilton on Broadway
Waitress at American Repertory Theater

Here's to a happy and healthy 2016!

Thank you, as always, for reading!

Thursday, December 10, 2015

March 29, 2007: "Consolation"

I ask how you are. Remembering that I loved you once. And maybe will again. (Or perhaps it’s that I still do. I can’t tell.)

You pause because there’s bad news. I’m never speechless, but this silences me. A silence as cold and hard and unexpected as a drop of freezing rain down my back. The one that sneaks past the layers of clothes I wear to protect myself.

I think a heartfelt “I’m so sorry” is appropriate here but it comes out like the empty cliché it is. This is a situation in which “I can’t imagine what you’re going through” feels ridiculous, heavy, useless. I don’t think they make sympathy cards for “there’s been an accident and we don’t know if he’ll live.”

I want to fix it. But we haven’t seen each other in months. And it’s never the same, even though somehow and miraculously it is.

I don’t hear from you for days; it feels like forever. I assume, then, that no news must be bad news. And it is.

It isn’t my loss but, because it is yours, it feels like mine. I can’t breathe when you tell me and I don’t expect that. Then, I don’t know what to do. Who to tell, how to say it. What to say to you. I feel far away and wish I could teleport, which I then remember is the super power you said you wish you had. I wanted Inspector Gadget’s mechanical legs. I guess both powers would allow us to get places faster. Maybe the place would be called closer to each other.

I do actually search for a “sympathy” card. (It’s a good thing they don’t make empathy cards because I don’t actually know what you’re experiencing.) I look for 10 minutes for a card that doesn’t make me think of widows in black polyester dresses, blue hair, and casseroles.

The most appropriate one I find is under the category “Thinking of You” because I am.

But that’s nothing new.