we thin gin

pleasantly zoning, mind awander, something mellow, when

the radio speaks up, mid-sentence, "miller, 89, died of congestive heart failure."

i say out loud "oh, man, arthur miller died?"

which is a kick in the pants for me, because reading 'death of a salesman', at 16, was a revelation. i wrote my a.p. english essay on it and received a '5.' (yeah, that's the highest score allowable by law, what of it? i'm a smarty girl) wait, fuck that, i'm not ruminating on all the various and sundry ways miller's work has touched my life.

moving on.

slim wants to know what's so special about this miller guy and what's the deal with 'death of a salesman'?

so i'm telling her the plot and i get to the part about willie's discontent with biff and happy. trying to figure out how to distill it, i say-

"i guess he felt they weren't living a good life."

to which she responds-

"did they smoke tar cigarettes and drink whiskey?"

there, my friends, is a girl with her finger on the pulse of modern day times. i was surprised the next question out of her mouth wasn't "did they listen to jazz and frequent honkey tonks with women of ill repute?"

i stifled a laugh and muttered something about heartache and the loss of the american dream.

but how can anyone alive not love that goddamned kid?