Sarah Galli

I accidentally introduced Andi and Michael.

I was a public relations intern at Air America Radio the summer of 2005, and had been warned that a Gawker journalist would be attending an event welcoming Jerry Springer to the network, intending to add unwanted snark to the company and cause.

So, when Michael arrived, I immediately fetched Andi, my blonde, sassy, fearless boss to watch him like a hawk.

She was more successful at this than planned. They began dating. They were on their way.

A few years later Andi was killed. And today, so was Michael.

I found out about Andi’s death flipping through a copy of Newsweek – her obit had appeared in respect to Michael’s then-position as the news outlet’s Baghdad correspondent.

I immediately called her closest friend, my other former boss. Shaking, crying, disbelief. Making the trip to Andi’s memorial at Rosa Mexicano, hysterically crying through my embarrassment as I tried to keep some sense of myself together to Michael, amidst a sea of journalists making their respects. Rosa Mexicano, where Andi and Michael had met so fortuitously two years before.

And then today.

The time that washed by after the call. Waiting in the most gruesome way possible for the news to break online. For the real to be.

The last time I spoke to Michael was when he, gracious to me, as he always was, offered some help for a writing piece.

The time before, I’d called him a media whore.

I’d chided him for some writing I’d disagreed with. I knew he’d hated the celebrefication of political figures, so I made him take a picture of me with one at a benefit, forcing him to partake in an effort he so loathed.

Andi once referred to me as the Chandra Levy of Air America. In a moment of total and complete unprofessional conduct, I’d disappeared from the office, exhausted from juggling work, school, and the entirely superficial stresses of adult life that I was not mature enough to handle accordingly. I fucked up. Months after the fact, she chided me for acting in such an unbelievably disrespectful way. She was entirely correct.

The next time I spoke her name, I was dropping a Newsweek into a puddle of choking tears. Calling Air America employees I hadn’t spoken to since my time at the office. Going to her memorial, knowing for the rest of my life she deserved better in a ‘mentee’ than me.

I’ve tried to make it up to her in the years since. Born for Broadway has, and will always be, produced in her memory. (Michael has donated every year.)

I’ve had my own Murphy Brown assistant moments—an array of twenty something production associates behaving as poorly as I once had. I tell them the story of Andi, the regret for how I had behaved so long ago. How our last conversation before she died was about how I needed to be better.  That not everyone gets a second chance to correct such mistakes.

Michael died today. And, while entirely in denial that he is gone, I think about Andi.

She deserved so much more of life than her sudden, incomprehensible death.

And in that, they will always be together.

Lunacy is checking Craigslist Missed Connections and then arguing aloud with posts that are obviously mistaken about what I wore today.

Hey.

We made eye contact and sat across from each other on the R train.

Sorry for not saying anything, was taken back by your cute face.

HEY!! IT’S ME! I’m the girl! It’s finally happening because I really do have a “cute face.” I really think I may.

Now, technically I wasn’t on the R train. But I’m sure I was near the R. Is the R near the 1? I’m on the 1 all the damn time. The spine of the R looks like a 1. Boom. It’s me. On the R/1.

R train. It was totally me. He thought I was CUTE, y’all. We can make this happen.

I have no idea where the R train is.

Don’t give up. This is THE GUY. Romantic comedies tell me this is how it will go down. This is my “bouquet of sharpened pencils” moment. We’re going to reunite on the R, I’ll be in monochromatic Meg Ryan shades of khaki, and we’re going to be terrific. I saw Tom Hanks in a play a few weeks ago. It. Was. A. Sign.

I’ll message back, something adorable, obvsies, and then he’ll respond and we fall madly in love and get married and our wedding favors are old printed Missed Connections, and Craig leads the ceremony, and we definitely don’t get divorced within a year like so many friends I know.

Oh wait. Fuck.

Hope to hear from you with the color of my bookbag. Have a wonderful day

Listen, asshole. You’re standing in the way of our happy ending.

NOT THAT KIND. FUCKER.

Purple?

Is it purple?

Is it a deep eggplant, similar to a potential bridesmaids dress, assuming we get married in Manhattan in mid October on a Friday night like I always imagined? Does JCrew’s bridal collection even sell a deep eggplant?

Is closing the Safari window to check JCrew options considered Missed Connections cheating? Because this is like a secret mistress Google search. And Bookbag, I can’t quit you.

Is it green?

Green like the color of dress I wore this weekend, a beautiful emerald green silk dress that apparently no man in Manhattan with an Internet connection and basic spelling/grammatical skill noticed? Motherfucking green?

Yellow?

Yellow like the color my platinum hair used to be until I decided to undergo a 6-hour hair appointment meant to kickoff a midyear New Year’s resolution for energized sass, emerging a stronger, bolder red headed lady, one apparently no man on this site has spotted?

Why am I spending tonight, in beautiful, glorious, muggy, hot as balls (not yours, Sir) Manhattan staring at a computer screen in the hopes that some stranger with potentially lascivious desires noticed my Gap yoga pants at Starbucks this morning?

At what point in the progression of dating has a simple “hello” been overtaken by a delayed greeting from behind a screen, a shot in the dark more preferable to a live, living notice of intent?

When living in the moment evolves into imagining a future Internet personal ad introduction – when that is somehow more romantic than the moment of intent itself – that’s when I know to shut the computer and turn on my life.

Blue?

Jezebel reported a heartwarming story this week: a man singlehandedly revived an unconscious neighbor to life utilizing only the power of goodwill.

Also, penis.

Rodger William Kelly told Utah police he was trying to “warm” his lifeless neighbor by “hugging” her. With his erect penis.

Let’s take a moment.

A 50-year-old man finds his 20something neighbor, unconscious. So he rapes her back to life.

Lifeguards across the nation are packing a condom inside their first aid kit.

Dive right in, guys.

For some strange reason, Kelly was not awarded a key to the town and gift basket of assorted vaginai for his heroic deed.

He has instead been charged with first-degree felony rape.

http://jezebel.com/man-rapes-unconscious-woman-to-save-her-life-like-th-512644704

She made me a sundae with strawberries.

I call her, quietly weeping in an Urban Outfitters dressing room, polyester mini dresses doing nothing to clothe the despair caused by yet another quasi-relationship biting the dust. She tells me to come back to my apartment, and makes me a strawberry sundae, the most delicious and dear of carbohydrate comforts. And she says it will be okay.

She answers calls made from/about the spectacular failure of a job a few years ago – concern and support and a very sweet “Sarah?” I stand on the corner of 2^nd Avenue and Midtown hell, and pour out what soul remains. And she says it will be okay.

She goes to every charity event I’ve produced since we met. She sells tickets by the group. She is the best agent and manager I will ever have, and never pay.

She tells me I’m too good for the last 3 or so guys I’ve dated (#4, I don’t remember your name, so you’ve escaped this round. Congrats.). She does this to all her girlfriends.

She has a cat. This is unconscionable.

She’s asked me at least 6 times in the past hour if I’ve written today. She pushes me to write. About something. Anything. To put words to paper, to push through any self inflicted block. To write to write to write. Thoughts, to life, to type, to live, to write.

So I’m writing. I’m writing because she knows me better than I know myself.

And because she made me a sundae with strawberries.

The best part of Jerry Maguire was not the completion, the quan, the legitimately adorable Lipnicki. The best part of the movie was Jerry’s realization that his goal to success had to be about more than his own selfish desires.

I have never felt that my place in the world was greater than anyone else’s. But I absolutely feel that I have a responsibility to protect and grow the community in which I live.

My brother is a quadriplegic. It sucks. It really fucking sucks. The reality is worse than anything Hollywood could bring to the screen (with great, fleeting acclaim followed by a shadowy Netflix Instant grave). The diving bell and the butterfly of that kind of life is not one that has yet lived in cinema. But it is a life worth living, and one rarely seen in media today.

I watch my brother keep going with a bravery I do not have equipped in my own chromosomal structure. Courage skipped a kid, and Jeff’s last 15 years following a traumatic diving accident has made that clear.

His accident forced us to combat our own mortality as teens with energy that had previously been focused on typical hormonal episodes. Each day became loaded not just with the heaviness that paralysis brings, but also with the sense that time for action is fleeting. Nothing can be taken for granted, not if a previously minimal act like breathing was now only possible with medical intervention.

I spoke at an alumni event a few months ago for entrepreneurs at my alma mater; I was invited because of an organization I created, Born for Broadway. The forum moderator asked what my advice would be to students attending the event, kids hoping for a pearl to parlay into future employment.

I told them not to be bad.

It’s that simple. Don’t be bad. Don’t be lazy, don’t be inconsiderate, don’t be unaccountable for your actions. Do your very best every day. Remember to listen. Don’t be an asshole. Ideas are great, but action is so much better. If you don’t feel you have a position in your community, create one; be a part of positive, productive change. Be better than your absolute best. The goal should always be just out of reach.

With Born for Broadway, I’ve been told no at every turn. I’ve been told never even more.

Find another route in. Don’t stop. Just do it.

I have a voice. It is my responsibility to use it.

I’ve written about my family’s journey with paralysis. I’ve written about the shameful actions the New York State legislature, led by Gov. Cuomo, tried to gain in order to cut future paralysis funding in my state.

It was a story that needed to be told, so I told it.

And there is so much more to say. I feel it is my job to create a way to bring words and language to create lasting change.

I studied musical theatre performance in college, while interning at a progressive radio network. There is an inherent performance in media. The spotlight can burn, but it can also shine light and attention on the struggles of families like my own.

If I have a mission statement like Jerry, it is in helping shape and focus what we are collectively doing to propel forward.

I hope that my voice can help bring attention to one often enveloped in noise.

That is my quan.