On Taste, Part I | by Julie Zhuo | The Year of the Looking Glass | Medium

In the fourth grade, your entire class put on a winter musical spectacular. It was everything your little nine-year-old heart could hope for: Singing! Dancing! Glittery snow and beaming parents! This being an inclusive school event, everyone was to participate in belting out politically-correct Christmas classics like Jingle Bell Rock and I’m Getting Nuttin’ for Christmas. But the biggest, awesomest, wickedest act was the solo. The grand finale. The coup de grace. And yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, it included a CONFETTI SNOWSTORM. Hellz yeah, you were trying out for that solo. Now, recall that you are nine. This was the period of your life in which you fancied yourself an Ariel, whose dazzling voice could produce miracles like transforming fins into legs. Every night in the shower, you belted out Part of Your World like you could never get enough gadgets and gizmos and thingamabobs. (Twenty years later: not true.) There was something magical about the way your notes reverberated all brigh

In the fourth grade, your entire class put on a winter musical spectacular. It was everything your little nine-year-old heart could hope for: Singing! Dancing! Glittery snow and beaming parents! This being an inclusive school event, everyone was to participate in belting out politically-correct Christmas classics like Jingle Bell Rock and I’m Getting Nuttin’ for Christmas. But the biggest, awesomest, wickedest act was the solo. The grand finale. The coup de grace. And yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, it included a CONFETTI SNOWSTORM. Hellz yeah, you were trying out for that solo. Now, recall that yo