Shadows disappear at night. We both know it's a shame if you should lose one.

Is it a crime to put Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Carly Simon songs in a row on a playlist?

Do you miss mixtapes? I do. I was a Mixtape Queen. The only better one, I think, was my old friend Lora K. from Interlochen. She gave me a tape called “The Cat With the Future Feet,” and I still can mostly reconstruct the song list from memory.

I made mix tapes that had themes, and I named them cleverly. Nowadays I make playlists on Amazon Music, but it’s not the same. Still, I try.

I start my day listening to music, staring out the window through my jade plant’s leaves, and taking my morning nutritional supplements with Diet Coke, preferably generic. I text my mom “Good morning” with a sunshine, return my dad’s text from the night before, and listen to music.

For a long while now, I tend to start my day with a playlist I made over a year ago, maybe October of 2022. It was not long before Marilyn died, when I had absolutely no idea that her death was coming. It is called “San Francisco,” and is in some ways a monument to things that I thought were going to happen that didn’t.

I didn’t move to San Francisco.

I never would have thought I’d be writing about cannabis impairment law. Yo, that was a weird chapter, but who am I to talk? Of all the weird stuff that happened last year, that was arguably the least weird. And thanks for the shoes!

I have written before about how many things have happened that I didn’t see coming. I used to be the kind of person who had a plan for everything. I’ve stopped having a plan. Well, that’s not true. I like to plan things months in advance. I am the least spontaneous person you have ever met. I am the last person you would expect to be picked up from Chicago Midway airport on a tandem bike by an anarchist. I was 26, okay?

Turns out that was one of the least dangerous things I’ve done, though I am risk averse in many ways. I prefer transit to driving. I do not ride horses. I refuse to ski. I do not even ride a bike. If it’s like riding a bike, no I do not remember it.

What is it about Davids? If it weren’t for one of them, I might never have become an outspoken activist against antisemitism with plans to visit Israel and have coffee or tea or whatever the Israelis want with every amazing human I’ve met and followed. Arnie Dramain, Gadi Taub, Daniel Gordis, Roy, I AM GOING TO BE THERE! Honestly, it’s probably safer than my own neighborhood.

There is a pattern. I am in despair, something I thought would happen didn’t work out, and I am sad. Then out of nowhere (though nothing is out of nowhere), something I wasn’t expecting at all hits.

It is always invariably (I know that’s redundant and I want to tell grammarly to go to hell!) in the form of something that feels completely the opposite of whatever it was I thought was going to happen but didn’t.

My dear friend Mark Judge, whose book I keep on my desk to remind myself of the importance of freedom, even at the price of security, and the value of telling the truth in spite of pressure, is not what my liberal friends would expect to be someone who ranks in the number of my close friends. The brother and I disagree on many things but he is pro-union, pro-Israel, and pro-beauty, passion and skateboarding. On those days when a girl just needs to talk to a Jesuit-educated Catholic skateboarding journalist, he is there for me.

Didn’t see that coming.

I am a bit suspicious of new people, so I like people who have a public record of actual existence. I have a playlist called “Imaginary” from a period of time when I was close friends with a person I worked with on a totally bizarre job where we used code names instead of our real names. His call sign was, needless to say, David. All I know for sure about him is that he said it was his Hebrew name. But I learned a great deal from David-Not-David, or DND as one of my best friends called him.

Like many things that come out of nowhere, he returned to nowhere after a time, having brightened many of my days and sent me text messages that I began to fear were written by a Republican chat bot. Knowing what I know now about AI, it is entirely possible, but he had a great voice on the phone. I care almost nothing what someone looks like but I love voices. I can nail an accent in a one sentence conversation. Oh, you grew up in Mumbai and went to Oxford? I got ya.

Where is she going with this, you may ask yourself.

Expect the unexpected.

Let go of fear.

I start my day with the first song on the San Francisco playlist, “One Step Closer” by the Doobie Brothers.

Shadows disappear at night, we both know it’s a shame if you should lose one.

That refers to the legend that dead people don’t cast a shadow.

I was so happy when I put that song on the list, anticipating a future that absolutely did not happen. I was so sad after Marilyn died. I’ll never forget her, but I try to keep the happiness of the song. Listen to it, it’s a cheerful song.

Next on the playlist comes “Electricity” by Joni Mitchell. There was a reason that even my best friends have forgotten.

Then comes James Taylor’s “Going Round One More Time.” That is one for the ages.

All on my own, it wasn’t that bad, I was getting by as I could get

I stopped into a drugstore for one pack of cigarettes

She didn’t have a quarter, had to call her cousin Kate and could I lend her maybe one thin time?

Now I’m going round, going round, one more time…

The next song is Carly Simon’s “Don’t Wrap It Up.”

Do you know that James Taylor dumped Joni Mitchell for Carly Simon? It was A BIG DEAL. Layla material. I love gossip from seventies musicians. I read all the biographies.

I used to dream that someday I would meet a man who could converse entirely in Carly Simon lyrics, and I did! I will conceal his identity until the day I die, and beyond, but he is one of the last people you would suspect of quoting Carly.

He turns up in my life every few years like a proverbial bad penny. About that time… wonder what that odd brother is up to? No good, I do hope.

I have been so sad for so long. It’s nice to be happy sometimes. For those of us who have almost died, for those of us who have lost people to horrible tragedy, it is important to remember that life is worth living.

I sometimes feel like Marilyn is smiling at me from heaven. My portrait of Daenerys and her dragons looks so much like Marilyn. She stares at me all day as I work.

One of my favorite songs that cheers me up when I’m sad is “Uptown Girl.” If you don’t know that’s by Billy Joel, I can’t help you.

I have always identified with Billy Joel’s character in that song. I have an upperclass education and can hang out upperclass with the most upper of them, and I do love a man in a suit (can we bring those back? Hats too, while we’re going retro), I never seem to get over the barrier that I feel between me and people who have never been poor. I prefer not being poor, it is no fun, but the experience gives one a different existential reality. You never forget.

I was only homeless for a week, and not in terrible shape materially thanks to my amazing parents, but I’ll never lose the terror. I’ll never lose the understanding that we are all just one bad day away from losing everything material.

So how to live? Fear? Grasping at false security?

Or being open to possibility?

I’ve given choice A a lot of chances. I’m tired of it. I choose to be excited about the future. I choose to be grateful for the surprises. I choose to be open to new life, kittens (not for adopting - Lovieflufy would literally eat them), and new adventures.

I would like to see more cacti. Large cacti in the wild. I have a friend who is on a trip to the Southwest to see said plants. I have only seen them in captivity.

I love gardens, flowers, cats, and intellectual conversation with passionate bordering on crazy people. If no one has ever called someone some version of crazy at some point, there is a good chance that person will quickly bore me. I am happy doing things that most consider boring if I’m doing them with interesting people. Sometimes I think to myself, “It would be fun to stand in line at the DMV with you.”

I’m working on a piece about the horrible question, “What do you do for fun?” May the Gods and Goddesses of all religions save us from online dating. I tried it twice. Met some good friends, but what hell. Do some people actually enjoy it?

I don’t consider the things that a lot of people call “fun” fun. I hate comedy clubs. I do not attend sporting events. I greatly thank my dear friend Paul for rescuing me from a panic attack during the Yale Harvard game. I swear, me, Paul and one of our other Elis for Rachael activists were the only sober people at that event. I want Paul near me anytime I have a panic attack. I should limit my panic attacks as Paul lives several states away.

I have been known to do things that seemed wild and crazy, that could have been dangerous, that did not involve extreme sports. It’s been way too long since I had fun. I don’t need danger anymore - in fact I actively avoid it - but I need smart people to play with. I also need my friend Miriam’s cousin Mel’s chicken soup recipe, but that’s beside the point.

I am up for new adventure.

But please don’t pick me up from the airport on a tandem bike. That really was scary. How I managed to fake being cool still astounds me.

Maybe I will be picked up from an airport on a camel. Now that, my loves, would be a story worth telling.

Let life be vibrant, whatever that means to you.