My husband called my name. He usually calls me “Honey” or “Baby” or “Hey, You,” but this time, he used my given name. I felt an unexpected wave of anger wash over me, and I stomped into the living room to confront him. “Don’t call me Karen!”
Maybe, it’s human instinct to look for someone or something to blame instead of accepting sometimes bad things just happen. It’s not easy to just accept that sometimes things just happen; humans almost always have a reason behind their actions, why not the world. Even if we are creatures of science now we can only find where the virus came from but not the cause but religion and superstitions can.
Dear White Moderate, I grew up well below the poverty line; I was homeless, for a time, in high school; I’m not a Christian; I’m pansexual; I’m a woman; I’m a feminist. These parts of my identity mean that my rights in the U.S. are theoretically in danger. However, I didn’t vote in the 2016 […]
Eons ago, when I was seven, I pretended to choke to death when my mother lit up a cigarette near me. I grabbed my throat, made wheezing, chortling sounds, and fell to the floor, writhing and flailing until I expelled a final “ahhhhh” and dropped my head sideways.
In late April, the three sisters who make up HAIM, the L.A. pop rock band, sat in their separate homes and performed the single “I Know Alone” for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. A keyboard, microphone, and various sound equipment surrounds each of them, Danielle, Alana, and Este, in their respective rooms. They sync […]
The conversation went the same as most of ours do: One of us came at it logically and the other was stuck in pure emotion. It was a warm, May evening, and my fiancé Matt and I were discussing whether we should postpone our wedding set for August, 23 2020.
When I was eight years old, my mother, Lucille Munera Galvez, died from breast cancer. I was coming back from a field trip to the King Tut museum and I looked to the sky and I knew she was gone.[…]
It hit 120℉—122℉ in fact—a few weeks ago in my desert town. The days before and after weren’t much better: 116℉, and then 119℉, respectively. While these types are unheard of, we don’t typically see them until the dead of August for a couple of days.
I’m lounging on my sectional, thumb hovering over the “Deliver” button in Uber Eats. I have Feel Good on the TV, a Netflix original about a queer girl with a drug addiction that she considers past tense. I just texted a friend asking if it was too risky to get cake delivered to me.
The restaurants are closed, shelves in certain parts of the stores are empty, people seem chaotic and self-motivated, uncertainty looms, media sources spouting contradictory “news” – such is life at the beginning of the quarantine for the Covid-19 pandemic.
I turned the freakish timing over and over in my mind that night, on the verge of connecting the dots, not quite ready to assign meaning to the event that had saved my life.[…]
The women of ancient Greece took this story to heart, they knew that Athena had given power to someone who was seen as powerless.[…]
#weclapbecausewecare. New Yorkers stop and give daily thanks and gratitude for coronavirus frontline workers. In Brooklyn, at 7 pm, my neighbors clap and whistle, bang pots. Cars honk. In the apartment across the street, two little girls hang out the window, howling like wolves. […]
My naïve assumption was the expectation of shaping her personality, igniting her spark. Staring through the bars of her crib at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday, I thought about this full-throttled willful child. She came with character included. I could not have foreseen how that spark would burn me […]
Experiencing personal tragedy against the backdrop of collective tragedy is disorienting. On April 6, I made the terrible decision to say goodbye to the magnificent Lester. In the midst of our global pandemic, I sense that my grief over my dog—and my guilt over my decision to end his life—seems trite and self-indulgent, even to some who understand who he was and what he meant to me. But regardless of this, I continue to mourn and wrestle with what I find to be a nearly incomprehensible question: how can the last act of love be a decree of death?
All of Adana’s therapists had been interested in her survival although that sentiment was a global curiosity. Survival stories of resilient people used to inspire and motivate others who couldn’t even begin to fathom such misfortune. But after the Merciless Spread followed by the Ruthless Contagion, every American citizen was left in a quasi-apocalyptic world that was still functioning and still had billions of people living in it.[…]
There’s a certain weight a person holds when they’ve been part of a monumental moment in history. That weight can influence the way they act, how they cope, and, ultimately, who they become. I’ve seen this weight on people like my grandfather, who flew in a total of 91 combat missions during World War II.[…]
(It’s about skiing.) Skiing requires too many accessories. Don’t get me wrong, I like accessories.[…]
Our management team addresses interconnectivity and creativity in this time of crisis […]
I transformed my lengthy, ash brown locks to a pixie in May 2019. I wasn’t nervous until I sat in the chair because that’s when a stylist asks, “What do you want?” And based on what you tell them things can go just as planned or take a left turn.[…]
As I sit and write this, it’s been a few days since the government announced that our nation is officially in a state of emergency over the coronavirus. I have been laid off for the same amount of time with no clear end in sight. There is ZERO work as all restaurants, bars, country clubs, hotels, and resorts have been shut down.[…]
In today’s world of screens, scrolling and endless information, it is hard to not feel overwhelmed. Having access to global news is daunting as it is and adding “fake news” to the chaos of information extends the complexity of comprehension. After three years of bipartisan war in America, I do not like the fact that I have in many ways shut down. Diplomacy seems more like sensationalist theatre.[…]
It took me ages to graduate with my bachelor’s degree — eight years to be exact. I kept changing my major, I took some time off, and I could only afford to go part-time for a while. All this to say, I had quite a bit of work experience by the time I graduated, so when I saw a job listing for “Marketing Director” at a small nonprofit, I jumped on board. It didn’t really matter to me what I would be marketing for.[…]
My friends and I are still reeling from the news of American Dirt, that pinche novel written by Jeanine Cummins, rolled out by Flatiron Books as the next Grapes of Wrath, and then chosen as the January selection of 2020 by Oprah’s Book Club. People all over the world are buying American Dirt, reading it, and declaring it to be an “eye-opening” piece of literature.[…]
One day, when I was little, I slid into my mother’s room and interrupted what was possibly a well earned nap. I told her I wanted a new name, a better name, something easy to pronounce
and where I didn’t have a nickname that people deliberately would say wrong.[…]
I. Lester is a beautiful Bernese mountain dog who stops traffic—literally. People pull their cars over to ask about him. He’s been in commercials. As a result of living in Los Angeles, he knows how to find the craft services table at any film shoot and charm a Teamster into giving him bacon; as a result of having been raised in New York City, he knows how to wait at the curb for car service. He has a big vocabulary and a well-trained owner (me). He used to be a solid 125 pounds, but he’s down to a skinny 105 as a result of degenerative myelopathy—canine ALS—with which he was diagnosed in August of 2018[…]
I. August evenings
Bring solemn warnings
To remember to kiss the ones you love goodnight[…]
Americans weren’t talking to each other. At least, that’s what the news was constantly saying. It was January 2017. Trump had just been inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States, and our country had never felt so polarized.[…]
Our first grandchild was born at home, in a warm tub of water that soothed my daughter-in-law so much that she brought forth her first child without any pain medication. As soon as we heard, my husband, Mario, hugged and kissed me. I held his face and whispered, “We’re grandparents! Our lives will never again be the same.”[…]
I feel so adult sometimes. Like I’m nailing it. Kick ass, beautiful apartment in a seriously expensive, glamorous, desired city? Got it. Fully supporting myself while chasing my dreams of being a professional writer, and pursuing an education that is life changing? You already know.[…]
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