Upon watching a Milli Vanilli video

Let us discuss, without judgment toward Kendra's Youtubery, the following features in the Milli Vanilli video for "Girl You Know It's True," copyright 1988: 1. The suspiciously spandexy short pants worn, in contrast to the broad-shoulder-padded blazers. 2. How one member of Milli Vanilli is decidedly better at lip-syncing than the other. 3. That beret though! 4. The irrelevance of forgetting anyone's number anymore because cellphones. 5. Will we ever, ever know if Eddie is ok, despite the fact that he did the best for him?

*** This post is dedicated to my sister from another mister, Brandy, fellow girlchild of the 80s, who celebrates her birthday today.

4 pairs of Converse high-tops

We bought four pairs. You came into the world with four pairs of Converse hightop shoes. Daddy bought unisex colors: two sets of aqua (unisex? debatable) and two sets of black, because we didn't know if you were a boy or girl. But we were prepared with hightops, sizes 3, 5, 7, 9.

We didn't know how this would work, you joining us, no other family member for 1000 miles, Mama in grad school, Daddy working 3 jobs. When the nurses handed you to me, I couldn't tell if it was just the anesthesia making me shiver or if the great and profound weight of this new life in my care was making me quake. I was holding 8 lb. 1 oz. of beautiful you but the pull of gravity at that moment was much greater. Like a Mac truck had backed into my hospital bed and dropped a heap-ton of work and sleeplessness into my lap. Somehow--and I can't explain it because I think you have to experience it firsthand--a feeling washed over me that you were the only one thing in my life that I couldn't get out of, and yet we were going to be ok, you and I and Daddy, and that we were going to be so, so happy together.

I mean, for starters, at least we had shoes.

The first time I saw your Daddy walking up the hill of Schultz lawn, he was wearing Converse. They were red Chucks, the only appropriate choice for the man who captured my young heart.

Whenever we would go to visit your grandparents in Ann Arbor, we would visit Sam's to buy ourselves a new pair of Cons.

***

It's terribly naive to think that we should make this bulk investment in Converse for a girl who would not walk for another 13 months, but I suppose the shoes symbolize our naivete and our induction of you into our Converse club.

***

You put the last pair on today, the bookends on this shoe collection, and you complained that they were pinching your toes. It felt unfair, that you had outgrown these shoes that had once seemed so impossibly big without our even noticing it.

This, too, is a symbol of the invisible ache that your own growth causes the people who love you most in this world, and also of the wonderful shoes you have yet to fill that you do not yet own, in sizes we cannot yet fathom.

Review: #TFIOS the Movie (no spoilers)

My unsolicited thoughts on "The Fault in Our Stars" the movie (sans spoilers, of course):

The Book v. The Movie, Thoughts: - The book was better, obviously, but the dialogue in the movie more believable.

Performances: - Debatable whether actor who played Augustus Waters was old enough to shave. - Directors made his part much more human versus the sort of incredibly positive man-boy of the book. - Shailene Woodley gave the performance of a lifetime as she immortalized role of Hazel; the breathy voice delivery was perfect; all emotional cues seemed perfectly organic.

The sex scene: - Going to defer to Annie F. Downs on this matter here because she speaks to The Issues of it better than I. - However, taking morality off the table, aesthetically the scene is beautiful; these kids and their swoony bedroom eyes though! - I also wonder whether the directors took into consideration that both of these kids would have been experienced in getting naked in front of strangers, given their medical histories, when they scripted them to be so comfortable in front of each other.

Hamartia: - Hazel pronounces this incorrectly. I felt wronged! But maybe it was a directorial decision for a kid who was mainly homeschooled (?)

The Ugly Cry: - I did get teary at the end but not overly so. It didn't feel contrived but the whole ending was handled really nicely. And by nicely I mean, as nicely as you can handle the meat-mallet cruelty of the end. - It was almost comical how much audible wailing was happening in our theater.

Recommendations: - Definitely go at a high-teenage-audience-member-per-capita hour. Like not the late late show. It really adds to the atmosphere to have teenagers filing up and down the aisles and walking in packs of 12 and asking each other to trade seats so they can sit next to each other. - If you are really opposed to this whole movie/book concept and want to criticize my brand of Christianity for supporting it with my cash moneys, I would recommend you engage someone else. I teach millennials and within the framework of pop culture, this book/movie fosters some great opportunities for dialogue.