Sabrina Carpenter wants you to miss her

| And I don't want to be forgotten |

I intended to write an album review of Sabrina Carpenter’s latest, Short n’ Sweet. I really did. Took an Instagram poll asking folks to tell me which album I should review next, listed a few options, even left room for a fill-in-the-blank. All the while knowing what I wanted to do. Are you upset, dear reader? Were you, too, hoping that I’d find something truly special to say about this decade’s next Katy Perry? (Don’t tell Katy Perry I said that, who is still struggling to be this decade’s Katy Perry. Or do tell her. How do you know Katy?)

It’s easy for me to procrastinate. In fact, it’s a passion of mine. I’m not even being facetious. At risk of exposing myself a little more than I’d like to, waiting for myself to arrive is a big part of my “process”. I don’t know if you can call my mode of writing processed in any other way, but in this way, like, definitely. I’ll have an idea or an intention, and I’ll ignore it for a week until it sprouts something else. A tangent, an asterisk, a rebuttal. And then I’ll ignore that, too. I go to work, I watch reality TV, I cook the most rudimentary meals for dinner (sorry to my girlfriend), and I wait. Eventually, I feel like I have something to say. And then naturally, hence the title, I just change my mind. It’s a cycle that ends either in denial and disconnect or if I’m lucky? This right here, me and you. She hides like a child but she’s always… you know?

I wonder what Sabrina’s process is when writing music. In an interview preceding the release of Short n’ Sweet, she told Zane Lowe about spending time in a small French town by herself to work on it. My girlfriend Char likes to run off into the desert to write her screenplays. I remember the big hubbub when Justin Vernon talked about spending weeks alone in a cabin when writing Bon Iver’s debut record, For Emma, Forever Ago, in the woods of Northwestern Wisconsin. Lots of the greats tend to share this desire for solitude. I wonder, am I a Justin/Sabrina/Char? Or am I a Carrie Bradshaw? More inspired by the familiarity of my own bedroom/backyard/kitchen table? Chunks of time with my own thoughts get sandwiched in between walks in my city, chats with my friends, pathetic attempts at “writing” at a “coffee shop” (lackluster sidewalk seating, no outlets, no wifi.)

I also wonder about my favorite music writer, Hanif Abdurraqib. Where does he write? I know it’s somewhere in Columbus, Ohio. The state that, until Hanif, I associated with something next to parasitic. “The worst year of my life,” my mother said of Cleveland, not Columbus. I spent a year being bottle-fed soy formula (not lactose-intolerant, I just have taste), held by my mother while my father did his medical residency in the wintery tundras of the midwest. Tehranis are not meant for that kind of weather. Los Angeles was singing her siren song, really wasting her breath, because it was inevitable they’d leave those middle parts of the country and make it home to her. Either way, it was their first year in the U.S. and my first year on Earth, so respectfully, I think the information is biased. I haven’t turned my back on you yet, Ohio. At least not Columbus.

On Wild Card with Rachel Martin, Hanif describes his relationship to the city such that I cry just thinking about it. In conversation he says, “I don’t know how well I know myself anywhere else and at this point, I don’t wanna find out.” Have I ever loved a place the way he loves his? I know I’ve never known a place the way he & others have. Is it even possible to in Los Angeles? Much like the universe, scientists say LA is ever expanding—the rate is calculated by real estate developers, inflation, and the glowing starlight of hopes & dreams. Rather regrettably, I’ve never stood still anywhere else long enough to find out. I’d like to, some day. Maybe. My ADHD is like a bridge troll with required riddles to understand my mind: Do I like stability & routine, or am I bored out of my fucking mind? Troll says: Answer these riddles three and—oops! Jury’s still out. On “Lie To Girls”, Sabrina says: I’m stupid but I’m clever.

The truth is, not staying in one place too long leaves more room for longing, and missing, and so remembering. Sabrina Carpenter clearly knows this routine well. She does this literally, as a pop star who’s always on tour. She recently opened in blonde solidarity for Taylor Swift, and is currently headlining her very own Short n’ Sweet tour. She’s everywhere & nowhere, dragging what I imagine to be bright pink luggage through the private airport of celebrity life—just in the periphery of normal life, too transient for a library card or dog-sitting. But she also does this sonically, on her sophomore record. From the 80’s disco pop of “Please Please Please” to the Ariana Grande brand of r&b pop on “Good Graces” and “Bed Chem”, and all the way ‘round to the guitar plucking, Dolly Parton style levity of “Slim Pickins” and Tame Impala informed, groovy psych-rock of “Don’t Smile” (an album standout). The only apparent through lines being sex and comedy. (The truth? That’s what you want? Fine. I wish “Juno” was less sex and more sincere. There, I said it.) I could truly go on and on, track by track, but you don’t care and neither do I. It’s pop star shit! She’s throwing spaghetti! We’re picking stands off the wall and eating it up!

I, too, desperately want to be remembered. But I also want peace. I wrestle with this conflict sitting in the shallow water of the inflatable pool my girlfriend convinced us to buy one summer. Across from me sits our friend Julia. She just asked me: if you could be wildly, stressfully famous tomorrow, would you? I’m a little stumped. There are 27 different versions of me in my mind who are screaming, “YES!” And yet there’s one more version in there, quietly shaking her head. I’m trying to ignore her. I take a deep breath and there’s a lump in my throat but I say, “I wouldn’t.” Well, shit. It smells like sunscreen in the good way and I’m being congratulated for my smart decision-making, but my heart sinks. Am I less ambitious than the women who answered yes? If I don’t want fame, does that mean I don’t want success, either? And if I don’t want either of those things, will I be forgotten?

In my first read and favorite kept poem of his, “Carly Rae Jepsen - E•MO•TION”, Hanif promises, “I will love those who no one else thinks to remember.” Maybe this is my religion now. To grant love as immortality where it’s otherwise been shadowed. To be a good neighbor, friend, and comrade. That could be enough for me. I’m halfway daydreaming about life as a lavender farmer as I listen to his Wild Card episode, when Rachel asks, “Are you comfortable with being forgotten?” After the initial shock of the question settles, Hanif says yes. Although he goes on to explain that, if anything, he strives to be remembered for more than his work. I think that’s really beautiful, and valuable. And you know what else I think? Easy for you to say.

“I want you to miss me,” Sabrina admits on “Don’t Smile.” When I listen to this song I think about all the people I’ve lost and all the people I still get to love, and I agree with her. Sabrina is at her best on Short n’ Sweet when she’s being brutally honest like this. Whether it’s her heartbreak veiled in pettiness about being a rest stop relationship on “Taste”, or it’s the helpless knowing that she’s willing to lie to herself and accept less than she deserves on “Lie To Girls”. These are the experiences you can feel in her voice, reminiscent of her debut album, Emails I Can’t Send. I could do with less of the genre hopping and lustless yet overtly horny lyrics (I’m looking at you, “I’m so fucking horny” Juno bridge) on the new record, but I get it. Sabrina’s a salesman doing the big swing pitch of her career: see me, know me, love me, and never, ever, forget me. Fair play, little miss sunshine Hulu ad for the Skyla IUD.

Today, a good acquaintance I haven’t seen in years sent me the link to a baby blue t-shirt and said it immediately reminded them of me. It was pretty innocuous, but I was so touched. I’m still thinking about it now, hours later. Maybe I don’t have that much to worry about.

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