Free Me Being Me Is Exactly as Insane as You Being You by Todd Hasak-Lowy

Nate brought the coffin over to the giant hole they were standing in front of.
    6.  Lying on his back and looking at the stars in this empty field one night at summer camp when he was twelve years old. There was no moon or clouds that night, and his counselor, Lyle, had actually woken up their bunk in the middle of the night and made them all walk in total silence to this field, where he gave them doughnuts, told them to lie on their backs, and then started talking about the stars and how far away they are and the fact that some of them are probably dead by now but that they’re so far away, their light is still reaching Earth.
    This was by far Darren’s favorite experience from camp, which he didn’t like overall, because everyone in his bunk just wanted to play sports all the time, plus the food was heinous, but that night, listening to Lyle’s voice, which was so deep and gravelly Darren thought he could feel it float across his face, Darren somehow found himself glad to know that the universe might be infinitely large, whatever that means.
    7.  Something from when he must have been just three or four, that maybe was actually from a dream, riding in a station wagon, holding an orange ball, and arriving at a park they used to live near, where his mom dropped him off, told him to be a good boy, and hugged or didn’t hug him.

2. FRIDAY, APRIL 25

5 Mothering Strategies Clearly Informing His Mom’s Morning Text Message
    1.  Be enthusiastic and positive, especially when your child is going through a tough time.
    2.  Show your child that you are extremely excited about things he could or should be (but isn’t yet) excited about him- or herself.
    3.  Apologize for not being there when you can’t be there.
    4.  Make it clear that the lines of communication are open, in part to encourage your child to initiate future communication.
    5.  Don’t make your child guess whether or not you love him or her and are thinking a lot about him or her.

4 Terms for Whatever It Is Darren Is Clearly Suffering from Not Ten Minutes After Waking Up
    1.  Anxiety
    2.  Nerves
    3.   Shpilkes
    4.  Weak kidney energy

7 Manifestations of This Anxiety/Nerves/ Shpilkes/ Weak Kidney Energy in Darren’s Typically Uneventful Morning Routine
    1.  Waking up eleven minutes before his alarm was set to go off
    2.  Barely even reading his mom’s brief, predictable text message
    3.  Showering longer than normal (mostly standing motionless under the water)
    4.  Inability to select T-shirt (eventually settles on black “The Who—Maximum R&B” shirt Nate bought him for his fourteenth birthday)
    5.  Difficulty not just paying attention to his dad, but also even pretending he is paying attention to his dad
    6.  Hurried consumption of two bowls of Rice Krispies with vanilla rice milk, with one heaping tablespoon of sugar scattered over each
    7.  Forgetting around three different times what he was looking for when opening a drawer in his room during the final stages of packing for his trip

2 Maggie-centric Fantasies Darren Explores Intently during the Bus Ride to School
    1.  Darren visits Maggie at school next year (unclear exactly where this will be, but Darren bets she’ll be at an urban campus). Maggie, not surprisingly, will be playing in a jazz quintet. She’ll have a gig the Friday night of his visit, and it will be during this gig that Darren will for the first time realize what a truly fantastic musician she is, since, he’ll understand in retrospect, she was being held back by the overall mediocrity of the North High Jazz Ensemble, even if they’re a pretty solid group as far as high school jazz ensembles go. She won’t be the strongest link in this quintet, not at all, but she will be the youngest, and there will be an unmistakable excitement in the quintet and among the audience as well, stemming from everyone’s awareness of