Jan 15, 2019
Sex, Lies, and “Closer”: Lying to Survive as a Queer Kid, as Taught by Natalie Portman
Coming into one’s sexuality, Natalie Portman had taught me, goes hand in hand with learning how to deceive as a means of survival.
Coming into one’s sexuality, Natalie Portman had taught me, goes hand in hand with learning how to deceive as a means of survival.
It is no wonder that I am so in love with my bees. They fight for their lives.
When I was younger, I didn’t understand the restorative, purifying effect of tteokguk. Maybe I didn’t even feel like I deserved it. This year, I welcome it.
So many people have suggested I stop taking medication for my bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, and panic attacks. The stigma is strong.
On finding beauty in Houston amidst the ugliness, and what the city stands to lose from increasing gentrification.
In the midst of terrible isolation, reading Julian’s feverish words about her visions helped me feel sane. Here was another woman, enclosed.
There are two gay men in “My Best Friend’s Wedding.” There’s Rupert Everett, then there’s the gay man I wanted to be—Julia Roberts’ character, Julianne Potter.
Moving home to Newark has been a surreal experience because I have had to mourn places that once were, but are no longer.
Ramen is comfort food, a thing to soak up your regrets and get you through a rough day. But my favorite way to enjoy it has courted great controversy among my friends and family.
The sixth sense, second sight, third eye. We are supposed to have both extra-accurate hearing and perfect pitch, more numerous and more acute taste buds, a finer touch, a bloodhound’s sense of smell.
I have such immense anxiety. It sweeps me up into its furious winds. And my kids are at the middle of the storm.
It can be easy to confuse real emotion with the shiny drama enfolding it. Sometimes grand gestures are signs of grand feeling—sometimes they’re not.
My family enjoyed “The Fifth Element” without seeing how queer it was. Did that mean they could not see how queer I was?
How do we pass the time while traveling from Point A to Point B? What stories do we tell one another, and how do those stories connect?
I used to imagine having a Korean mother, someone rich in stories and jokes about Korean food and culture. My Korean mom would, ideally, be Maangchi.
Animation can teach a kid a lot about themselves and the world around them. Disney movies taught me about my queer desires.
It is very rare, as a disabled person, that I have an intense sense of belonging, of being not just tolerated or included in a space, but actively owning it.
Every day, when my kids come home from school, the first thing I ask them—like most parents do—is about school. But unlike most parents, I do not expect my kids to say that school was fine.
Montrose was unofficially codified as the nexus of queer life in Houston. If you held a map to the wall, I could tell you how we came to be on those streets.
I felt that whipping out the white cane would irrevocably launch me into the kingdom of the blind, and, for many years, I did not want to go there.
