Hot Fuzz (directed by Edgar Wright, 2007) is a favorite of mine. I teach it in school as an atypical expression of the dystopian mode. Post-2016, the desire to "make Sanford great again" has taken on added weight. The film makes explicit the overlap between buddy comedies and romances. The intertextualities are fun. The execution of the practical effects violence is exceptional.

We just watched it together over the span of a couple of evenings.

When you saw the scene where, drunk, Angel and Danny marathon Point Break and Bad Boys II, and you saw Keanu fire his gun into the air because he couldn't shoot Patrick Swayze, you understood that Danny would likely do the same—probably because he couldn't bring himself to shoot his own father.

You were ten.

That was cool.

After dropping your mom off at work, I still have ten more miles before reaching the school where I teach. I usually tune in to Mix 94.5. As I near the high school, the morning trivia question airs.

A couple of years ago, we’d be heading south on Kenwood, about to turn onto William to drop you off at school.

I think of you and I think of then every time.