Something unbelievable has happened in the process of writing and rewriting these damned grad school application essays. I was about to hit the sack tonight, and I reconnected with someone I haven't spoken with in years. A very special, amazingly talented musician friend. We were chatting for hours online. Turns out he has come down with a horrible disease. It's called "Silent Reflux" and basically your stomach acid travels north to your throat and destroys it so you can't hardly eat, can't speak, and you are in a lot of pain and have to sleep sitting up. He cannot make music anymore. He is on a shit ton of scary medications and is losing hope... My whole essay has been going off about how I've been drawn to the disenfranchised as a storyteller, "courted the underdog" was my phrase, and telling the stories of silenced people. Well, shit. This is too fucking literal to be true. I told him from the moment we started talking that I will have to make a documentary about him. It only clicked later how he is the most literal example of a "silenced person" that there is. Weird coincidences like this keep happening. God, are you trying to communicate with me?
