SHORT:
I spent 9/11 locked inside the NYU Tisch building where I wrote a play-in-a-day for three 18 year olds. Midway through rehearsals, I realized that they weren’t even alive during 9/11. Life has so many totally tubular ways of making you feel ancient!
In other news, it’s the Met Gala right now, and I am pissed off that nobody showed up shirtless in flip flops like a god damn American. If I was invited, I would’ve arrived sunglasses on, nipples out, ice cream cone in hand (and would’ve taken a loud conference call as I made my way down the carpet).
MEDIUM:
This week I walked in on my girlfriend watching an old video of Harry Styles. She said, out loud, to no one: “This is a good length of hair for him. Any longer and he struggles to manage it.”
Then she said: “God he is so attractive. I miss him”.
She has never met the man.
She did one time meet Niall Horan (just had to google the spelling) and “blacked out”.
When I visited her hometown, one of the first things she took me to see was “the spot on the sidewalk where she met Niall and blacked out”.
We are 25 years old.
(And have crazy sex, I promise!)
(Kidding)
(Am I?)
(Did you read the details above?)
(You decide)
To my 50+ year old readers and relatives. These boys I am talking about are from the band “One Direction” (and have, in fact, iconically and ironically, all gone in very different ones).
Also to my 50+ year old readers, relatives, and mom: sry i talked about sex! Unfortunately it’s a part of life! (and maybe death if you believe in a sexy heaven/hell situation!).
I’m writing this week’s newsletter from the only place in all of NYU Tisch that you’re allowed to sit and eat during COVID (15 mins only). My professor just gave me apple cake at office hours and I had to take the elevator 7 floors down to try a bite of it!
It was good! I am still scared of him! He says he hopes his son grows up to be an extrovert because he is an introvert! I said “I hope so too, I guess!”
This week’s newsletter is the 50th! It’s whatever I feel like!
In two weeks I will hav done a full yr of these!
Feeling nostalgic?
Read the archives!
Woohoo!
Onward!
LONG:
On Rosh Hashanah I took my girlfriend Jess to a gorgeous dinner in the part of Bushwick where you’re constantly like “where are we?”
The food was delicious because we were with Sephardic Jews who know how to make food with actual spice and flavor (no offense to my grandma’s Ashkenazi cooking– shoutout to her “pizzafish”! A very... special… dish she makes).
I should clarify that the people we were with were not just Sephardic Jews, but Israeli MODELS. They spoke Hebrew for most of the night, and I (quickly and badly) translated what I could for Jess.
There was one man there named Bruno who was 60ish and not Jewish or Israeli (I think French?) but seemed to somehow understand all the Hebrew better than I did.
He immediately bonded with everyone there while Jess and I sat in the corner and listened to people talk about how they thought we were siblings.
I told her we should make out so that they know we’re really close siblings.
She said no it is a Jewish High Holiday.
(It’s supposed to be a celebratory 1 tho!)
A man in a white embroidered “Yankees” polo, told us that he just got to NYC and had no white shirts (you’re famously supposed to wear white on Jewish New Year) so he went to the only store that was open and got his amazing white Yankees polo.
Turns out he also attended the same Jewish Day School in LA that my aunt&uncle did (and my grandparents helped start?).
I asked him if he knew my grandmother and if he’s tried her “pizzafish”. He has not.
During dinner, the host accidentally spilled red wine all over me and Jess and the Israeli models in attendance sprung up and quickly took my pants away (hot) and put them in the sink with dish soap to soak (hotter), a “tactic” one of them said they learned in, you guessed it, Morocco.?
I spent the rest of the dinner in oversized black pants from the host’s bedroom.
I left with two soaking wet plastic bags of dish-soapy clothes– and a smile! The night was still very fun!
While Ubering home, Jess and I googled all the models and found them all on Instagram and looked through every single photo of them ever taken in the history of mankind and tried to figure out their entire life stories because we are mentally ill <3
SPEAKING OF ILLNESS
Avid followers/ readers know that I’ve been having this weird thing where every five seconds I throw up and/or pass out basically.
I finally went to the doctor and she said I have something called “labrynthitis”. And to “eat less salt” and it will go away. Seems legit!
She told me that basically labrynthitis is a thing where the “leveler inside me” isn’t working (slay!) She explained that: “With older people, this happens when there’s a tear in the bridge that goes from the labyrinth to the brain, but with young people? It’s usually a sodium issue.”
I was like FROM the labyrinth TO the brain? Honey my brain IS a labyrinth in and of ITSELF!
She didn’t laugh.
The computer fell asleep and she shook the mouse and looked at the big ear photo again.
“It’s all so small”, she whispered.
I leaned forward and was like “what? lady, you are going to have to speak a little louder my ears aren’t the size of the one that’s on ur giant screen rn.”
She looked at me and said, “that thing on the screen, your labyrinth, is actually microscopic. It’s why you can’t build a human body”.
… I wonder if she’s tried.
“It’s why there’s nothing like us.”
… There are plenty of things like us.
“When people complain about being normal, I always remind them that they’re not.
They’re intricate. Complex. An… astonishing entanglement…”
I’m sure people love hearing that.
“They’re not normal,
they’re a wonder.” …..
“YOU are a wonder.”
I smile. I wasn’t ready for ~all this~ at 9am. I left the clinic and went to a cafe and googled the sodium content of matcha.
I don’t feel like a wonder. I feel dizzy!!!
Whine whine whine I know. I need some cheese to go along with it.
But THAT’s the update! I am thankful for my health insurance! And that I’m alive!
I listened to a podcast where Joan Rivers was talking about comedy and then had to shut it off because I got sad that she died.
I always confused her with Jane Fonda.
I just want one day on this earth where I don’t confuse Joan Rivers and Jane Fonda in my head.
A simple want.
Feel like god can grant me that wish.
Anyway, that’s REID #50.
As always, this newsletter feels like Ed Sheeran (continues to work/ get positive feedback despite the fact that I don’t feel great about it).
C u next Tuesday.
If this is your first time reading the newsletter, read the archives. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s not – it’s very much like when people slip on ice.
Sincerely,
Reid
Venmo: @rpope-venmo-26
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