More than a little disconcerting this morning to see Adrienne Shelly's face splashed across the front page of every NYC tabloid now that her case has been deemed a murder. I mean, prior to this she was known by, what, maybe 5% of the population? But when a pretty, strawberry blonde actress gets killed, it's a paper-seller. Yechh. I guess, when forced to choose, a senseless, stupid murder is preferable to an unfathomable suicide, especially for the family who might otherwise have been wracking their brains for years, wondering why. Still, so sad...
I'm a little behind on this blog and these posts, which I appreciate. I don't begrudge anyone their grab at consolation but I can take no comfort from the revelation that Adrienne's supposed suicide was in fact a murder. We're such closure junkies in this culture and popular TV shows like MEDIUM and THE GHOST WHISPERER have us believing that learning the truth of what happened is tantamount to healing. It ain't so, at least not for me. My reactions over the past week have been characteristically understated, but I find myself even more distracted than usual and I can't seem to keep a coffee cup full while I swing in and out of feelings of despair that weigh on me as if someone were standing behind me pressing down on my shoulders with both hands. It's weird... even with all the blogging I've been doing about Adrienne's death, when I sent an e-mail today of condolence to her former boyfriend (by whom I met Adrienne in 1996), I had a moment of panic afterwards that maybe I just imagined she'd died and now I would going to cause this guy undue alarm. But then he wrote back and I'm confronted with the truth yet again, that she's gone.
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