Here I am telling a true ghost story about my old apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts. That's what I get for moving onto Elm Street! It was a true nightmare, only I was awake because it was too scary to sleep! (Thanks to Mark DiAngelo for the spooky soundtrack!)

In my most recent newsletter I asked what you're up to for Halloween and what your favorite things to do on Halloween are! Let me know in the comments, booty bouncer!

My niece sent me the best thank you note I’ve ever seen and I’ve been musing about Thomas Jeffrey Hanks ever since.

I had a fantasy today about meeting Tom Hanks. What would I do? I usually don’t get too star-struck, though I think for Tam Honks (thank you, Fey-Poehler) I would make an exception.

I’ve loved you since “Bosom Buddies.” I had a Steiff kangaroo I named “Kip” after you in “Bosom Buddies.” I think your character on “Bosom Buddies” is why I have a strange and maybe slightly fetish-y attraction to drag queens.

Too weird.

My husband suggested I just sing the song from “Big”:

Shimmy shimmy cocoa puff, shimmy shimmy rockShimmy shimmy cocoa puff, shimmy shimmy rock
I met a girlfriend — a Triscuit!
She said a Triscuit — a biscuit!
Ice cream soda pop, vanilla on the top
Ooo, Shalita, walkin’ down the street, ten times a week
I meant it, I said it, I stole my mama’s credit
I’m cool, I’m hot, sock me in the stomach three more times

Yeah, that would go over better. I love everything about “Big.” All I wanted was to stand out the top of that limo with you set to Billy Idol’s “Hot in the City” and then jump on the trampoline with you. I also wanted to play chopsticks on the grandest of pianos in FAO Schwartz with you.

How about that moment at the end of “Captain Phillips” when you’re with the medics and you break down because you held it together for so long and to save the lives of your crew and keep a strong face? That was incredible. It made me cry, a lot. It was such a real moment. Thank you.

“Forrest Gump”? Are you fucking kidding me? I think Steve Schuler, who did a lot of work for my parents when I was growing up, said it best: “Forrest Gump has EVERYTHING.”

“Philadelphia,” “The Green Mile,” “Toy Story,” “You’ve Got Mail,” “Splash”?!! Motherfucking “SPLASH”!!! 

“A League of Their Own.” “The Money Pit.” “The Burbs.” WTF.

Dipping his toe in the Cohen brothers water with “The Ladykillers.” “Sleepless in [GDMF] Seattle.” And don’t get me started about “Saving Private Ryan” (which spawned the best porn spoof name I’ve ever heard: “Shaving Ryan’s Privates”). Come on.

All the while — being NICE. God I hope Tom Hanks is as nice in real life as he’s seemed all these years. Maybe it’s best I don’t meet him. But I want to. Not in, like, a stalker-y way. In a I-want-you-to-dress-like-a-woman-and-I’ll-wear-a-mermaid-tail-and-break-glass-with-my-voice-while-jumping-on-a-trampoline-and-we’ll-share-a-box-of-chocolates-while-following-where-feathers-lead way. Yeah… WAY less creepy.

Hanks for the memory
Seattle afternoons, high-pitched mermaid poons
Money pits, pirated ships and 1930s prison goons
How lovely it was

Hanks for the memory
Of boxed chocolates and tiny corn, shaving Ryan's porn
Woody for kids, those Klopeks and "The DaVinci Code's" Catholic scorn
How lovely it was

Hanks for the memory
Partnered up with Hooch, or rocking one red shoe
The mispronounced “Oneders” in the cute “That Thing You Do”
How lovely it was

Hanks for the memory
AOL’s “Hello,” you thought of Jenny so
Volcano Joe, perdition roads, volley-bros before hoes
How lovely it was

The stage at TD Garden in Boston is at once a cross and a penis with a heart tip. Of course it is. It’s Madonna.

A film plays showing Madonna talking about shaking her ass and then breaking into “Iconic,” which features Mike Tyson. Then Madge herself is lowered onto the stage in a cage, which opens, the crowd goes crazy, she’s singing, steely-faced and in good voice. She looks fabulous. No shit. She’s in a huge red kimono by Arianne Phillips. She certainly puts on a hell of a show, as I learn finally seeing her for the first time at the end of September.

As I’m listening to Madonna’s new album, “Rebel Heart,” I’m trying to hear how much heart and how much rebel is there. Or at least how much it makes me want to dance.
“Bitch, I’m Madonna” with Nicki Minaj is certainly an “I’m-gonna-put-my-big-Madonna-penis-on-this” answer to everything from the club antics of Gaga’s “Just Dance,” to Miley’s “Party in the USA,” to Ke$ha’s “TiK ToK.”

​(I just died a little inside as I replaced an “s” with a “$.”)

But “Bitch, I’m Madonna” also lets everyone sing along and get a feel for what it’s like to be her — which is what so many fans would love to know. I also can’t help but love all the cameos in her video of Chris Rock, Miley, Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Kanye, and oh the list goes on, saying “Bitch, I’m Madonna.” We’re all Madonna and yet none of us is. Eh, screw it. Let’s dance.

Some of this tour and album feel like she’s in a war with Lady Gaga to see who’s simultaneously a worse and better Catholic (which is actually super fun to watch). Madonna wins with the line in “Holy Water”: “Don’t it taste like holy water? / Jesus loves my ***** best.” Well then.

Lest you think she’s all stripper poles and stage banter dedicating songs to the “Popey-wopey” when Pope Francis is visiting the U.S., I’ll have you know she also sweetly accompanies herself on ukulele and dedicates “La Vie en Rose” to her 10-year-old son, David, for his birthday. She then invites David onstage to dance during “Unapologetic Bitch” and she pretends to spank him and kick him in the butt (during the tour she invites a “new bitch” onstage to spank, like Amy Schumer, who opened for her in New York). David — super cute in a red suit — doesn’t smile at all. Then she tells him he gets a prize but he is disappointed when she hands him a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toy with a banana:

“You get lunch and a toy to play with while you eat it,” she says and he rolls his eyes. The audience groans. We’re with her most of the way — from the sexy “Last Supper” set piece with nun strippers to her signature stage-hump during “Like a Virgin” — but she momentarily loses us when she gives her 10-year-old son a banana on his birthday. Something’s gotta give, I guess, when you work it so hard.

Jenn Sutkowski definitely caught some kind of Madonna bug from so many Madonna fans because now she’s Madonna sick and lying in her Madonna bed and having a Madonna sore throat. Find her dreaming of Madonna grandeur at jennsutkowski.com.
(This Full Frontal column appeared originally in the Newport Mercury.)

Maybe it’s just the goddamn preciousness of it all but whenever I talk to my Dad it makes me want to have a cry. So I do. Today is his birthday and I just got off the phone with him. I think what’s so intense about it is how sweet our relationship has become since he’s had Alzheimer's. It’s almost overwhelming to hear him tell me how much he loves me. It makes my heart hurt because I know I will cherish these memories. He’s just so very kind to me now. It makes me want to bawl my eyes out.

It reminds me of when my mother was sick and she and I were dancing at my sister Nancy’s wedding. I knew this would be the last time we danced together. I was so aware of every moment: her holding onto my arms, a huge smile on her face, the flashbulb and the photographer taking our photo. When I look at that photo now I adore her smile (and how long and red my hair was) and it’s tinged with that bittersweet memory of knowing this would be the last time.

“If you ever want to talk to someone who will really listen because they really care about you so much I’m here,” my Dad says. I thank him and hold back tears. “Or just for a quick chat. I’m here for that, too.” I tell him I'm here for him as well.

I tell him it makes me heart ache that I don’t visit that much. And he says he understands and my heart shouldn’t feel bad. He says he’ll call more when he thinks of me (but not every time he thinks of me because he thinks of me so often and that would be a “Daddy bore”). He tells me he can’t remember what the right words are.

“I’ll have to come up with my own words. Jennifer special words,” he says.

We talk about music as we always do and he compliments my skills in writing and music. I tell him again about my recent writing retreat to Carmel and how much it lit me up. He is so pleased to hear this. I thank him for never telling me trying to be an artist was a stupid idea. I tell him about the nourishing friendships I’ve cultivated over the last few years and how much I like getting enough rest and taking good care of myself and that turning 40 has actually been fantastic. This makes him happy, too (even though he’s forgotten I’m 40 — which is totally fine, of course). 

I’m so glad I can share these things with him. I want to leave him with an impression of me where even if he can’t remember the details he knows he doesn’t have to worry. I want him to know he helped me so much and that I’m finally able to fly on my own. 

“Save your money,” he says. I tell him I do and I will. 

Lately whenever we talk he tells me I should take up tennis. We discuss our wrist problems and golf and the sports he used to play. He talks about how in tennis you don’t have to do too much. 

“And you don’t have to run or even worry if the ball flies over the…” he pauses.

I think, “Cuckoo’s nest.”

“Cuckoo’s nest,” he says. And I tell him that’s exactly what I was thinking and we laugh. He corrects himself: “Net.”

Just…these moments. I don’t even know what to say. Our relationship was so different a few years ago and he was so tough but now he comes at me from this place of pure love. Like the way psychic mediums say your loved ones come through when they’re on the other side. Just so purely. I know he’s not always going to remember or even be this nice to me or even know who I am. It just simultaneously destroys me and lights me up every time. Ugly cry.