12 Lives in 15 Tweets

A collective self-portrait of ENGL 143N

As I’ve done the past two years, I asked each student in my fall 2019 creative nonfiction workshop to try encapsulating their lives or sense of self in 140 characters or less — in a tweet, that is. The idea behind the exercise was to encourage students to think of how they might sketch themselves, quickly, as a character, with the understanding that they might be both boxed in and liberated by the absurd constraint on the length of their self-portrait. I added two tweets of my own to the mix. Here’s what the exercise produced.

All the Catholic guilt without the Catholicism. Vacillates between millennial despair and political vigor. IKEA is a haunted house.

When I told my mom Nora Ephron didn’t write her first movie until her 40s, my mom informed me she was a successful essayist long before that.

Can I still be a socialist if I spend $70 on face cream?

A creator of perfectly aligned disorder.

Age 13: I decide to be a poet, join a novice roller derby league, & adopt pet chickens named after seasonal berries. Parents shocked to discover daughter is a lesbian.

Pencil shaving smile on third cup of coffee. I’m under the desk.

88 Aces in my pocket, I smile. I’m still shit out of luck.

This morning I watched two birds grooming themselves from my breakfast nook. Come back, birds, so we can work on our relationship!

Small white girl flies off a Lime Scooter in Oakland at a stop light in two-inch heels, with a baseball-sized bruise and Indian leftovers to show.

I did something I haven’t done in a long time. I stepped on the heel of a girl’s shoe and it came off. Thank you all for understanding.

I fall for artists who aren’t at home in their own skin. But do two misfits make a match, or just some clumsy friction?

1am. Dark room. Cold floor. I am standing before my refrigerator. Ben & Jerry’s in hand.

Kimchi stains on the kitchen wall, steaming ramen fills the pot. I take a bite and cry with my parent’s tears.

Taco Bell enthusiast, reluctantly plugged back in, can I stay here forever?

A whole bunch of parts; part-whole relationship TBD.