Aug 01, 2019
For Black Women, Love Is a Dangerous Thing—“Bitter” Showed Me How to Do It Anyway
I imagine she wrote it for women like me. Women who wear their hearts on their sleeves but hold their hands over their mouths.
Love, Peace, and Taco Grease: How I Left My Abusive Husband and Found Guy Fieri
Guy Fieri allowed me to ask: who do I fear noise and brightness for? Who do I fear food for? And he gave me the answer: I fear it for myself.
Jul 29, 2019
How Wrestling Saved My Life and Let Me Express My Queerness
Wrestling never stops, so I couldn’t stop, and thus I am still here.
Jul 09, 2019
How the Grateful Dead Helped Me Embrace Mortality
Suddenly, miraculously, it was no longer dismay that I felt. It was freedom. It was Death doffing its blackness and revealing itself to me as life.
May 28, 2019
Falling in Love and (Finally) Finding Queer Representation on a Telenovela
I know that their lips are touching, and that this is the first time it’s ever happened on a free-to-air telenovela.
Apr 02, 2019
Spice Girls and the Rise and Fall of Girl Power
Girl power was the freedom to make a scene, make no sense, join together and make something irresistible, spectacular, unproductive, joyful, and to radically claim one another.
Mar 26, 2019
What Springsteen’s Music Means to This Child of Working-Class Immigrants
I relate to what Springsteen sings because he reveals much of the American Dream as an intoxicating illusion.
Jan 31, 2019
What ‘The Proud Family’ Gave to Millennial Muslims
The violence of the moment, conveyed in shades of melancholy purple, is bleak even for a cartoon. But it’s also honest.
Jul 23, 2018
Melancholia, Death Motion, and the Makings of Marilyn Manson
“Manson’s magical proximity to massacres of gun violence is, we know, not magical. His practice is prismatic, his lyrics a sieve.”
Apr 24, 2018
When the Way You Love Things Is “Too Much”; or: Why I Went to Portmeirion
As an autistic child, I scrambled to figure out when my passions became too overbearing, too ‘me’ for other people.
Mar 27, 2018
“If a Girl Isn’t Pretty”: When Beauty Is the Ideal and Humor the Fallback
“Being a funny girl like Fanny continues to skew the way I see myself.”
Nov 28, 2017
On the Internet, Everybody Knows You’re a Horndog: On “Beach Rats” and Gay Chat Rooms
Remembering the online world of gay chat rooms in the digital moment before social media.
Nov 16, 2017
What Miyazaki’s Heroines Taught Me About My Mixed-Race Identity
“Miyazaki tells us something about bodies in flux: There is no easy answer; only the conflict, the question.”
Oct 16, 2017
‘The Leftovers’ and Living Reminders; or, Why I Write About Grief
What if the grief never gets better? What if I don’t want it to?
Oct 04, 2017
Their Songs: The Ballad of Elton John and Bernie Taupin
Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin collaborated to create timeless pop songs during the 1970s.
Sep 20, 2017
Regeneration Sickness: On ‘Doctor Who’ and Second Chances
Thirteen regenerations of one Doctor over the course of a very long, very interesting life.
Sep 05, 2017
Subliminal Messages: On Nine Inch Nails’ “Broken”
I turned my stereo all the way down to barely audible volumes, convinced Trent Reznor’s singing was a subliminal message.
Aug 23, 2017
They Don’t Speak For Us: Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer’ in the Age of Collapse
There’s a latent sense of hope tinged with rage tucked away in the album.
Aug 08, 2017
Justin Bieber Is My Lesbian Icon
It’s not about getting away with things. It’s about becoming more comfortable with myself.
Jul 20, 2017
