Gaby Dunn

That’s one thing I’ve noticed while indulging this melancholy: the best songs for weepy introspection always, always, always reference coffee. Below, the best “sad-coffee” playlist in the world. Put it on, wait for it to drizzle outside, brew a fresh pot and curl up in a window sill. It’s time to stare out into the street, sip some joe and feel super sad.

I stood alone in the back. You weren’t doing material; just riffing and talking to the small crowd. There was a spotlight on you because of the stage lighting, but I would have imagined one anyway.

Benedict Cumberbatch is the star of the BBC show Sherlock and also of this one reoccurring dream I have where we ride unicorns off into the rainbow mist and make out under a shooting star.

My friend Jason suggests that maybe people didn’t react or help because the man in my story was clearly homeless. Maybe they thought he didn’t matter. What if it was my hand — that of a young white woman — that’d gotten caught? Would the conductor have noticed faster? Would people have responded with concern?

Hey Judy-Booty-Bo-Booty-Banana-Fana-Fo-Footy! It’s your agent calling. Lots of “dead girl” and “waitress” roles after ‘Love & Money’ was cancelled, for no reason! I just don’t get it! A TV show about a penthouse-dwelling socialite falling for a blue collar guy? The premise was so fresh!

I even attended Space Camp in Titusville, Florida and Huntsville, Alabama once at the age of ten and again at twelve using money from my bat mitzvah. I knew how intense the training was and the kind of rigorous physical demands it made on one’s body to be able to be an astronaut. I was weak, with tiny spaghetti arms and a peanut-sized frame. Still, I dreamt of going into space.

Covered in impact craters and named for the god of war, Mars has definitely been through some sh-t. If it’s your favorite planet, you’re strong and rugged. If you’re a girl, you identify with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or the chick from Little Giants. If you’re a guy, you wear a camouflage hat even when you’re not hunting.

A sophomore, Jillian was 5 1/2 months pregnant. Recently, she’d failed gym for not participating and the school had wanted to know why. She’d broken down and told them the truth.

“What 17-year-old boy doesn’t want to spend his summer shooting machine guns and rocket launchers?” Private First Class Joe Lazzerini says excitedly. When I laugh he adds, “Hey, I’m gay but I’m still a boy. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, ‘It shouldn’t matter if you’re straight, only if you can shoot straight.'”

Since we’re performing at night, our days are empty. Unless we want to blow stacks of cash and our dignity at Dollywood, there’s not much to do. If we get bored, I think, maybe we could go get pedicures together! It’d be so fun! Every city has at least one salon, and nails are like math — the same in any language. “Would you ever get a pedicure?” I ask him.

I see the small pumpkins at the supermarket and cradle them like pumpkin babies, cooing and pinching their bumps and curves. I see a full-grown one carved to look like the old man from ‘UP!’ and I feel compelled to BBM a million pictures of it to everyone I know with a dippy caption like, “UP-MPKIN! Get it?! So cute, omg.”

The gaming started in my school’s computer class. My private elementary school had a whole room full of thick, gray monitors: the kind that went blue with white robot text when they stopped working. The room was a narrow sliver off to the side of the library and we all sat in tiny chairs back to back, facing our screens.

My best friends have always changed over time. There was Madison in second grade. I helped her plaster her bedroom walls in ‘Teen Beat’ Jonathan Taylor Thomas posters. She and I lost touch when I changed schools. Then, there was Matthew in fourth grade.

Did you know if you put your ATM password in backwards it alerts the police that you’re being robbed? Did you know that sugar causes cancer? Did you know that dialing *677 tells you if the unmarked police car trying to pull you over is actually a rapist?

This week marks another Rosh Hashanah, or Jewish New Year, and lately, I keep thinking about the overtness of that swastika-spray-painting hate crime. Most of the ignorance I’ve faced for being Jewish since then has been driven more by the power of words than by violent or disturbing deeds.

A local as-yet-unrecognized child prodigy, 8, cried herself to death after her parents wouldn’t let her have just one more packet of Gushers before bed. She loved Nancy Drew books, the movie Harriet the Spy, and her unicorn wallpaper.

You’re at your desk, but then suddenly you’re at the vending machine. How did you get there? Did you float? Oh. Is there a tiny unicorn for sale in the vending machine?! It’s waving at you from E7. Its tail is multi-colored streamers. Its hooves are Oreo cookies. No, wait. You’re blinking. Your eyes were closed. How long have your eyes been closed? Where did that unicorn/cookie go?

When I heard there was going to be a Green Day musical a while back, I was ecstatic. My days as a teenage RENT-head had left me hungry for another kick-ass rock opera and at heart, I wanted to believe I was still that eighth-grader writing the lyrics to “Minority” on her trapper-keeper in white-out pen…