i had a terrible dream this weekend that somebody famous died. awful.

the last time i had a nightmare like this was eleven years ago. i dreamt i watched edward kennedy die. a horrendous accident. i somehow saw it happen, but can’t remember the exact manner of death.

dreams. foggy and muted, yet so real you’re still looking for the marks on your arm from wrestling with the monster.

waking up panicked and unsettled it took me a bit to accept my night’s tribulation was merely that.

i needed to focus instead on my italian midterm i had to take in 6 hours (i’d been cramming two days-no tv/radio).

walk downstairs, turn on the tv, breaking news:

“aircraft carrying john f. kennedy jr, carolyn and lauren bessette is missing”

as i slept, john kennedy jr., carolyn and (her sister) lauren bessette died in a plane crash flying to his cousin’s wedding.

total coincidence i know, but i think of  it often.

i didn’t take the midterm. i felt like a freak, and i thought everyone else would think so too.

i met carolyn bessette once. as a teenager. i was getting my haircut at the red door in new york. this was when everyone was seeing oribe. i, instead, had my first cut layers by the sweetest man named danilo. he had just bought a puppy and had stacks and stacks of pictures he wanted to show me. i was more interested in the models (yasmeen ghauri, tatjana patitz) holding his puppy in pictures than his actual dog.

before my haircut, my mom and i sat in the waiting room deciding what to do with my mass o’hair. this beautiful blond girl jumped into our conversation. she told us she worked for calvin klein. she was adamant that i ask for layers in my thick, half japanese hair. she told me i was pretty (at a time when i couldn’t have hated myself more). she said her name was carolyn. i think she knew i was miserable and sad. she didn’t have to talk to me. she could have read her magazine like i do when i wait for my hair. it’s sometimes the only time i get to be quiet. she reached out and made a difference.

a couple of years later we saw her in the papers. she was so much sweeter in person than what we saw in the press.

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