Dear Costan Rican reading list,

For those that are wondering, I'm headed to Costa Rica tomorrow.  We're going on our last real family vacation before I go off and join the world as an adult. 

Here's what I'm bringing to read:
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
Class by Cecily Von Ziegesar
The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore
Packing for Mars by Mary Roach

Two fiction, two nonfiction, looking to trade with my fam once we get there.

Oh, and there's a volcano and rainforest to explore as well. 

AND SLOTHS.  So excited for the sloths.  Get pumped world, me and sloths, comin' at cha. 

See you again, post-sloth, pre-2012.


love,
hannah

Dear Gone in the Morning,

I am hooked on this song right now.  It came on shuffle yesterday evening and I have been listening to it non-stop ever since.  Once I started listening, I've been needing to dance.  It feels like my whole body is itching.  I even remembered this one move from African dance over the summer and sat through a play last night just wanting to dance. 

Even now, in public I just want to sing this song out loud and dance down the street. 

I am in a serious countdown mode.  In less than a week I will be home preparing to head to Costa Rica.  But, this year the countdown feels less happy.  I'm weirdly happy, and strangely disconnected from the stress that's setting in right now. 

I'll just keep listening to this song. 


love,
hannah

Dear Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci,

Can we be best friends? Or at least, can I go to dinner with you guys? You seem awesome, and a lot of fun.  We can talk about working class history, Mean Girls and arts education.  You guys would care about my finals and have brilliant things to say.  Or, we could share some pizza, or a martini.

Your pick.  Come to Minnesota?


love,
hannah

Dear final madness,

I'm splitting my blogging time these days.  Check out this joint endeavor with Caitlyn.  It makes decidedly less sense, but it's probably more fun.

love,
hannah

Dear Jellyfish,

A friend who has come to visit the Twin Cities periodically throughout the fall always asks me two questions when we see each other: Are you happy? Do you feel loved? (The first time she asked this question she asked "Do you feel like the world is cradling your heart in between its palms?" I wasn't sure if that was true, but I did feel loved.) These are two simple but sometimes difficult questions to answer and the answers aren't always what you expect.  Well, my answer to one of them has not changed.  I have felt loved this entire season and school year.

Last night I felt loved.  After months of writing and thinking and brainstorming and walking around the space and rehearsing we finally premiered the Jellyfish Project.  The show is about stereotypes of women that appear in film and trying to find some reality in them, a morsel of truth.  In so many ways the Jellyfish Project is an extension of my work in Feminisms in Progress, but very different.  I was so pleased with what we had come up with and as we got closer to show time I became nervous that what I thought was beautiful and insightful would appear confusing and garbled to those watching.  (Don't worry, that wasn't the case.)  The show went off without a hitch and from what I heard from friends every nuance and every little idea we had tried to pack into the show was understood in some way or another.  I have so much love for the women I worked with to create this show and who jumped into this project trusting that I would lead them even when I had no plan at all. 

Even more than my ensemble, I felt so much love for my posse.  Those who love and care about me were there, right up front (I picked out the best seats for them, of course).  In the end I was left with such a feeling of joy because these people were there to support me, no matter what I was working on they would have been there.  My posse was there to support me in my work out of love, and they were just so happy to do it.  My heart was cradled in between their palms. 

What an incredible posse I have, what an incredible group of people I have to guide me and support me and share our lives.  And, always with a strange understanding that this posse will dissolve, it wasn't meant to last and before long we will scatter across the globe and rely only on Facebook.  I suppose that's a grim way of looking at it, but... but it feels strangely true. 

This is just to say that my heart is cradled in between their palms.


love,
hannah

Dear Brigid,

I know why you didn't come to class.  I know that you had to go and finish the stair lab, but dear god, this class is killing me.  We're in the Disney unit of this class, which I was so so excited for.  However, one of the most quintessential articles, "Working at the Rat" was assigned for today, except that the professor has already told us most of the interesting elements of the article.  I cannot stand this class.  It is a waste of my time.  And you aren't here to keep me company. 

I just spoke in class.  There we go, I came up with an interesting idea. 

How can we be both critics and fans? A question for the ages.


love,
hannah

Dear ampitheater,

I took a lunch break today.  I can't remember the last time I really took a lunch break.  I just sat outside and marveled at the trees, their structure revealed now that the leaves are gone.  I just listened to The Moth and watched people walk across campus.  I tried to name people but I am not as good at that as I once was.  I felt some nostalgia already coming on. 

Senior year makes one a spontaneously weepy person. 

Let's just get through the academic part of my day, it is infinitely less interesting than my lunch break.

love,
hannah