Lately I’ve been trying to reconcile my two extremely disparate personalities. I’m sure you can relate, as all humans most likely go through a thing similar to this: humans are, at their very best, brilliant examples of how total paradoxes can (sometimes) function as living, breathing things. …

I have been a loner, a self-sufficient introvert, a great protector of myself for a very long time. I was an only child for the first six years of my life, and sometimes I like to write that off as the reason. When I’m feeling particularly self-satisfied, I attribute my…

Erin Malone Have you ever tried to teach someone to slow dance? I never have. I’m not sure I’ve ever slow danced with anyone. Maybe in middle school, I think, to a slow-jam R&B song, and we probably had two feet of space between us, and we probably didn’t make…

Michele Ursino I’m no good without you. I used to be a person who could be alone. I can be, I still can be — this I know about myself. I have no trouble being alone. Believe me when I say that I have been with a lot of people…

[The tiniest portion of a massive collection of thoughts on popular culture, art, and minorities.] Let’s talk about that argument of historical accuracy for a moment. I love history, I think it’s incredibly valuable to study and understand where we came from, and one of the few ways we can…

[Based on a true job interview + rejection.] Hey you. You did such a great job tonight. We know that group interviews can be a little intimidating, especially when we essentially required (or desired) you to out-interesting everyone in the room, bare a small portion of your soul, and handwrite…

I was not a pretty thirteen-year-old. It drove my mother crazy, but I was the kind of thirteen-year-old who wore plaid bondage pants (with very little conception of what bondage really was) and a dog collar. I had a slightly girlier version of the early aughts screamo boy haircut, and…

Today my father tells another father that his daughter has died in a car accident. My father was a cop and has told more than a handful of various relations that their other various relations have died: fathers, daughters, mothers, brothers — I can imagine he’s covered most of the…

I’m a person who holds onto things. Papers from high school, journals, loose paper, outdated clothing, scraps of fabric—I am absolutely sure that all objects in the world will, at some point, become useful in the face of a particular situation. A textbook about the cultural differences in the importance…