Answer one question regarding "This Isn't the Actual Sea" and one about "Moon."  Make references to the stories when you respond to the prompts.

1) In "This Isn't the Actual Sea," the narrator's friend makes a movie that portrays the real event in the park where the narrator was dogsitting her friend's poodle and the poodle bit another dog. The two friends did not speak to each other for some time until the friend invites her to a screening of the movie. What rift was revealed or created by this incident in the park? How did making a film where the incident was depicted fit in?  Does the narrator's comment that the film didn't imagine enough or that it simply "wasn't enough" speak to the limits of their friendship?

  The narrator's friend is at first angry that the narrator took the dog to the dog park, as she never told her that this would be okay. This incident is escalated by a few things, the first being that the narrator's friend is only having her watch the poodle while she takes a trip to decompress from her recent divorce; the narrator's friend is also upset about how the narrator treated the dog after the accident immediately disowning it. We see the narrator gain a deeper understanding of her friend watching the movie, "I noted how brusquely the friend who was dog sitting treated the dog after the attack, how completely she shunned the animal, and I realized that my friend identified with her dog very closely." I didn't fully understand the meaning behind this short story, but I tried my best. With that being said, it seems like the narrator's friend is more to blame in the situation than the narrator herself; she doesn't specifically tell our narrator not to bring the dog to the park and twists this fact in order to shift blame, saying that she sensed the potential of violence at the park. The narrator then points out, "It was your dog's potential for violence you sensed." This causes the filmmaking friend to call our narrator selfish and storm out, and here we understand what the film she made is about and the recent falling out their friendship experienced.
 	Regarding the limits of their friendship, the filmmaker has an interesting quote about her relationship with her ex-husband that fits pretty well with this: "You can't know what it's like to be another person, not really. This is what we depend on." There was a lack of understanding on both sides that caused the rift in their friendship; we see this when the narrator makes the observation that her friend identified more closely with her dog than she imagined and when the filmmaker calls the narrator selfish. The filmmaker's film is a way to express her feelings about the situation; this may be her way of apologizing for what she said to the narrator. But, based on the narrator's comments about the film, the filmmaker didn't do enough to express her feelings, or the film wasn't enough to mend their friendship. The narrator's comment that the film wasn't enough speaks to the limits of their friendship, as I believe that our narrator is feeling that despite illuminating her side of their falling out, the filmmaker didn't take into consideration why the narrator brought the dog to the park, and how her words affected her. Even if this film was an apology, it's hard to imagine it worked as the lack of understanding on both sides has caused our narrator to feel like she cannot even discuss the film with her friend, "I considered how to talk to my friend about her movie. I knew she'd deny an explicit connection."

3) In "Moon," Vavra criticizes the narrator for not doing anything with what she reads. We find out later that the narrator is employed as a copywriter for an Australian expatriate's canned artichoke hearts business. What might this have to do with the way the narrator gets consumed by Moon? Be specific and reference the text.

  Our narrator is a very observant and well read person, but she is also very self-conscious. Even before she is entranced by the boy's we see her reading a book at her desk, determined to shine a negative light on everything, including her seemingly kind roommate. At the story's beginning, it seems very unlikely that our narrator would ever become entranced with this Boy Band. Upon reading it a second time there are hints that she will, saying, "But her return to normalcy, to a world of stultified passion, struck me as a failure of commitment." referencing her roommate Vavra's trance. At the concert, our narrator is unaware which boy is which in the band and notices how Vavra is "shouting for all five again and again, taking care, on principle, not to say one name more than another." It is interesting to think that the narrator's obsession, which eventually becomes greater than even Vavra's, is focused on only one of the boys, while Vavra seems to be obsessed with them all. It's like Vavra is able to spread her obsession out, making it seem more reasonable. During the concert, the narrator starts to travel down the path of obsession; she goes from being unable to discern which boy is which to remembering Moon's backstory, saying it, "It made perfect sense."
  Before the narrator's obsession with Moon, she emphasizes that she wants to be a serious person, saying it's her biggest fear even "What I feared most wasn't death or global cataclysm but the everyday capitulations that chipped away at the monument of seriousness that was a soul." Based on this, we can see that the trance-like state her obsession with Moon puts her in is a way for her to escape the everyday capitulations she fears. This trance allows her to realize her dissatisfaction with her life and job specifically, "I'd always felt a kind of aristocratic apathy about the task, but in the days following the concert, I avoided my boss's calls altogether, nauseated by the prospect of speaking seriously about such unserious work." Overall, it was interesting to see the narrator go from seemingly so far removed from Vavra's silly obsession with a boy band to becoming obsessed herself. The narrator's attraction to Moon, the one member of the group who sees finds different than the others, is telling, as it seems like she is trying to find something different in her life as well. 
