Did You Ever Think Life Was Gonna Be This Way?

Early this week, not long after I wrote a tongue-in-cheek post about how I wasn't going to say things about how you should hold your sweeties tight and tell them you love them, I received word that my college friend, Rachel Perlmeter, had died of a heart attack on Sunday. She was 38 years old. An absolutely brilliant artist and human being. I met her when she was a freshman at Northwestern and I was a sophomore - a place really just chock full of geniuses - and even so, she stood apart. She was kind and brilliant and funny as hell and one of only a handful of people I've ever met my whole life long who loved books even more than I did (do). She went on to have this amazing career full of artistry and beauty, filling the spaces between theater and literature and art with her own special vision, and married a man that she told me she adored. We hadn't talked in a couple of years but she came to mind at unexpected times and places. Her death has really rocked me.  It migh...