Sunday Top Ten: Things That Make Me Cry

My publicist¹ still has my camera, which contains the documentation of my 250th birthday party, which WAS A TIME. So...in lieu of the ladies and the kissin,' I'm gonna talk about crying. I know, this seems like a departure from my general commitment to producing physical sensations abbreviated with some of our favorite acronyms (yes, I'm talking about you, LOL. ew.), but crying, or COL, is also funny.

I'm thinking about crying because, like many of us who are a bit fucked up, I live with the constant suspicion that sooner or later, people will discover that I am Awful and that I am a Bad Person, and so I'm always surprised when a birthday comes around and I receive more love than I suspect I deserve. In fact, IT MAKES ME CRY.

I'm not a big fan of sentiment. In fact, I could consider my life thus far to be one huge crusade against Sentiment, much to the dismay of people who have Tried to Have Emotions In Front of Me (I'm better in print. but out loud--that's a lot to handle). So, although I've successfully trained myself to rein in my tears for Sad or Hurtful events, in the process I've become a bit of a lush about crying over Beauty. And Happiness.

Fuck. I just did it again! I just got all teared up from the last scene in the season finale of "South of Nowhere," which I have seen NO LESS THAN ONE ZILLION TIMES already.


TOP TEN THINGS THAT MAKE ME CRY LIKE MRS. SOAMES²

10. Birthday Cards from Good Friends. They get me every time. In fact, I keep 'em. And then when I clean my room, I read them again and I feel like Stuart Smalley. Gets me kinda misty. Rain-forest-y, even.

9. There's this recording from the season finale of the first American Idol of Kelly Clarkson singing "A Moment Like This" right after she won, and she goes "Some people wait a lifetime for a--" and then her voice totally cracks because she's so overwhelmed with emotion from winning American Idol!! and then I totally cry.

8. Seeing people who I care about do amazing things that show how talented they are makes me cry. On the cruise, they had this cool thing where you could watch the shows on the TV in your room, which is pretty much the laziest thing ever but when I didn't make it into the 7pm showing of "Broadway Belters" (you can already see that I am about to talk about crying, musical theater, and a gay family cruise, so basically if I was a guy talking about this, you could safely assume I would never get laid again) so I saw it on video. And when Haviland, dressed like a wedding cake ornament, started singing 'Defying Gravity,' yup--I started crying! And THEN when I was watching the show live--CRIED AGAIN.

7. OK, this is sort of unrelated to happy-tears, but still it's weird. So I read This Blog by Rachel, who just started her junior year at Interlochen (which is pretty much where I'd like to be pretty much forever), and she linked to an essay by her writing teacher, Kate Angus, about crying in New York City, and it was really good. And also it made me cry.

6. When Pete hugged me and thanked me for helping Krista write her essay to get into Yale, I cried. Yeah, like tears almost fell out of my eyes. Just being happy that someone I love has someone lovely who loves her, and that she got into Yale, and that she actually thinks I had something to do with it, when clearly she was more than qualified to get in, regardless of any hungover essay-doctoring I performed, like, moved me.

5. I cried when I got my passport.

4. I cry (present tense, because I can't say for certain that I won't watch it again. And again.) at the season finale of Sex and the City when Magda tells Miranda "You are good. This is good." I also cried in the season finale of Sex and the City when Big asked the girls if he should go get Carrie. I cried in the season finale of Sex and the City when Samantha told Smith-Jerod she cared about him more than she ever has for any other man in her life. However, I did not cry when Big told Carrie she was "the one."

3. Sometimes Stephen Dunn writes such beautiful poems that it makes me cry just to think about it. Like "The time I thought I was in love, and calmly said so, was not so different from the time I was truly in love, and slept poorly and spoke out loud to the wall." BEAUTIFUL! Hey, wanna know what SD says about crying:

I have had such privilege
and have wept
the admittedly small tears
that issue from it, and for years
have expected some terrible random tax
for being born or staying alive.

2. Sometimes (like yesterday) I'll be happy, and something (like the Indigo Girls' new album, 'Despite Our Differences') will come on my ipod, and I will cry. Because of THE BEAUTY. Of, like, IT ALL.

1. So, to Haviland, Janet, Stephanie, Katy, Nicole and Cameron: Thank you for coming out for my birthday. And to My Mother, My Grandparents, My Brother, Natalie, Ingrid, Krista, Scot, Tara, Lainy, Jenni, Maggie, Jeremiah, Malaina, Stephen, Karen, Sherri, Christina, Lauren, J-Nads and Jordan Catalano, thank you for: 1. remembering it was my birthday, 2. taking it upon yourself to wish me a happy birthday.

YOUR LOVE MAKES ME CRY.

Also I just read this fantastic article in Women's Health about why we cry. And how women cry more than men.

¹Ha! I don't have a publicist. But wouldn't it be cool if I did? Yeah it would. Holla! (cameron has my camera. she's my agent, which is close. to publicist. relatively.)
²Mrs. Soames, in Our Town, says: "Don't know why it is, but I always cry. I just like to see young people happy, don't you? Oh, I think it's lovely."