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This is the archive page for my blog. I am now putting my writing here, and I have a newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.

You Have Privilege. Use It Responsibly.

I am sitting down to write while Baltimore is uprising. Or — since the National Guard has been brought in, and a curfew is in place — I am sitting down to write in the wake of Baltimore uprising, and I can say this without hesitation: my white friends have opinions about it. Their opinions are: “There is never a reason for violence"; “Violence begets violence"; “It’s an uprising not a riot"; “The media is racist"; “Rioters are thugs"; “Rioters (uprisers) are heroes"; and, most popularly, “This again?"

What Was Worth Keeping

Two days ago, someone broke into my car. I was at a concert — the kind of concert I hadn’t been to in almost a decade, with electric guitars and an obsessively-adored touring musician. Throughout the show, I kept thinking, “I wish there was some way to hold onto this feeling.” I could tell that I was nearing the end of a part of my life where I truly enjoy being pressed up against the front of a stage, digging my fingers into some twenty-something’s amplifier. Someday soon this will all feel less exciting to me. I wanted to be able to remember how it felt to be that kind of alive. Meanwhile, someone quickly went through everything I’d left in the car since I started to move, and made judgements about what was worth keeping.

Collaboration

I have been collaborating with Rebecca Gabrielle Porath Katz. We sent half-comics to each other in the mail and then finished them. Here's the half I got in the mail, and, below that, the half Rebecca sent me.

Introverts & Cats #7

Introvert goes on a date with a boy.

Naming Things

If I could buy one indulgent new book for myself (and I’m not the type to buy indulgent new books; I am the type to buy nickel books and falling-apart books and books that have been out-of-print and gathering dust for decades), it would be “Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Catalog of Beautiful Untranslatable Words from Around the World” by Maria Popova. I saw it propped up on a shelf while I was browsing for gifts last month, and I lost a full hour going through it. It contains page after page of words that exist in only one language, and then whimsical little marker drawings to go alongside. For example, there’s the Norwegian word “forelsket,” which is “the indescribable euphoria one feels while first falling in love.” Or “tsundoku,” a Japanese noun meaning, “the leaving of a book unread after buying it.”

Keys

My friend Ben used to collect keys. He kept them in a jar: keys that had belonged to him, keys that had belonged to friends, keys he’d purchased at thrift shops (by the way, who are these people giving their old keys away to thrift shops?), keys people had lost or forgotten and he’d stumbled upon in passing. In the jar, the keys caught the sun sometimes and looked like an artifact out of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Your eye could wander around the corners and spaces the keys left; the collection altogether was art-gallery dazzling.

Unlearning "These Kids Need You"

My senior year of college, I had my mind made up about what I was going to do, but no idea how I was going to do it. I was going to move to New York and become a journalist, somehow. I had spent some time working at The Nation Magazine the summer before, and i wondered if maybe they would rehire me to do some kind menial task (after all, I'd been a diligent fact-checker, and I wore such quirky outfits to the office). So there I was, perched on the edge of the vast unknown of a freckly job market, determined to succeed at find a profession in a dying industry, when I got an e-mail from Teach for America.

Nomads and Hoarders

I sat in the attic, staring at “the pile.” When we moved into this house, four years ago, it felt like a godsend to have so much space for everything: the woman who owned the house had asked us not to live upstairs, but she said we were welcome to use it for storage. So whenever something appeared in my life that I needed but did not need, I put it upstairs.

Take The Day Off

It was very easy to cut class at my high school. You simply walked off campus, and that was all. I know how easy it was because I cut class all the time — at LEAST once a week. Once one of our school security guards even tipped his hat at me (yes, his literal hat) as he watched me disappear down the street in the middle of the school day. There were plenty of things to do while not in school — you could watch “Kids In The Hall,” buy Oreos at the grocery store, or try to find secretly dirty pictures in the health books at the public library, for example — but my favorite thing to do was to get into Ben’s Geo Prizm with him and drive into the nothingness of the afternoon, blasting “Better Son/ Daughter” from the cheap car speakers with all the windows down.

When The Time Comes To Let It Go, To Let It Go

I have been holding rocks in my pocket ever since I read Byrd Baylor’s excellent children’s book, “Everybody Needs A Rock.” She says, "I’m sorry for kids/ who only have/ TRICYCLES/ BICYCLES/ HORSES/ ELEPHANTS/ GOLDFISH/ THREE-ROOM PLAYHOUSES/ FIRE ENGINES/ WIND-UP DRAGONS/ AND THINGS LIKE THAT — /if / they don’t have/ a rock/ for a friend.” I mean, how can you argue with that? This woman feels sorry for people with WIND-UP DRAGONS if they don’t have a thing as simple as a rock. So my desk drawers and jacket pockets are full of kumquat-sized stones I've stolen from rivers and beaches and yoga studios. (Yoga studios are always trying to sell you pieces of jewelry or fabric headbands by displaying them in dishes of stones. Those are usually the BEST ROCKS.)

You're Wrong About Valentine's Day

Yeah, I know. We’re all supposed to hate Valentine’s Day. If you’re not in a romantic relationship, you’re supposed to hate Valentine’s Day because you’re so lonely, and you have to watch everyone else be happy and coupled up. If you are in a romantic relationship, you’re supposed to hate Valentine’s Day because corporate America is trying to take ownership of your love and have you spend money on stuff no one really needs in order to pacify your significant other one day a year. We’re supposed to hate all the Celine Dion they play on the radio, and all the pink and red, and even the chalky candy hearts in all their glorious ubiquity.

How To Find Four-Leaf Clovers, And What To Do With Them

When you’re filling out your OK Cupid profile, you are supposed to complete the sentence, “I am really good at _____.” It’s kind of a tough question, because you don’t want to BRAG or anything, but there is so little in life that a person can be objectively GOOD at. Ideally, you’d be able to cite something where data backs you up: “I am really good at being tall;” or “I am really good at getting fan letters to Michael Bolton published on his fan page.” Lucky for me, I have exactly one skill like this. I am really good at finding four-leaf clovers.

That's Baby Food

But it's organic! Why would a baby even CARE if something was organic?!

Alexis Johnson Is My Boyfriend

I have almost never been single. If we were to psychoanalyze, this is probably because I was the last to have a boyfriend in high school. I wanted one SO BAD, but I was extremely moody in public, and openly read “The Babysitters’ Club” way past a time when it was socially acceptable, so. I wrote in my diary every night about how I would do ANYTHING to have a boyfriend, and how if I had one, I would take him on a train ride and put my head in his lap, innocently, so he could stroke my hair. (This was my main fantasy: train ride hair stroking. As an boyfriend-having adult, I have secretly made, like, six boys ride on trains with me to live this out. Can’t lie: it’s as amazing as I imagined it would be.) The moment a boy finally took interest in me (Eli, when I was sixteen), I clamped onto him and thought, “I am never, ever, ever letting this go."

Drunk In Love (and Mardi Gras)

I don’t drink much. Really, I feel uncomfortable writing about alcohol, because it feels a little like I’m a twelve-year-old writing about being a teenager. I have observed some things about alcohol and drunkenness — I’ve flirted with it — but I have no authority at all to write about it. My observations are things like, “Whoa. Alcohol is so WEIRD. Things get kind of spinny, and you can kiss people with less reservation!”

There Is No Mastery

I had really been looking forward to my contracted trip to Washington, DC. I had been hired to present a workshop on working with students who have emotional differences (my preferred term for what the rest of the world calls “disturbances,” “disabilities,” and “difficulties”). I'd spent a lot of time preparing the workshop, and I was excited to spend the extra time I had to romp around DC, finding new libraries and eating at vegan restaurants alone. Maybe I would even go to a MUSEUM. No sarcasm here: heaven for me is a day at an unfamiliar library or museum all by myself. Because apparently I’m 65 years old.

Imaginary Friends For Grownups

I only ever had one imaginary friend, but she was awesome. Full disclosure: I didn't get my imaginary friend until I was way too old for it to be socially acceptable. Granted, there's no real age where it's socially acceptable to have an imaginary friend, but I was WAY too old. I was 14 and about to start high school. "Lizzie Maguire" was on television (I was too old to be watching that, too, and yet); I liked how she had a little cartoon who thought things out for her and gave her advice. Also, I thought it would adorably quirky to have an imaginary friend. I thought that telling people I had an imaginary friend would make them think I was cute. I'm very lucky that, of all the people I told, no one acted on what must have been a very visceral impulse to call some kind of authority.

Let's Try Some Cosmo Sex Tips IRL! (NSFW)

I read this piece in Cosmo a few months ago called, "18 Surprising Sex Tips From Men." (The title alone should have given this one away, but I am ever a slave to the clickhole.) It's the oldest news in the world that Cosmo's sex tips are consistently beyond-sexist (local slam poets Desiree Dallagiacoma and Kaycee Filson did a great piece about this which was posted on YouTube the exact same week as this "article" went up on Cosmo.com).

Ten Years

I’ve turned into one of those insufferable people who gets painfully nostalgic about high school. You know my type. Give me a drink and a copy of the ’04 Wilson High School yearbook and I’ll be happy for days.