ELECTRIC LIT – “Did you know that hungry people feel less pain? I mean this literally: hunger activates a neural pathway that inhibits the perception of and response to pain. So I don’t eat brioche or butters or creams or custards or anything that makes me flush, full, or moan. Instead, I eat leafy things, watery things, bland things. I am always hungry. I am always hungry. And I rarely feel pain.”
THE WASHINGTON POST – Today, I am alive because a pink-haired stranger stopped me for a picture
INSIDER – When I was 13, my spleen was removed, leaving me immunocompromised. When I was 29, I was accepted to grad school, so I had to choose between my health and education. I’m entering my second year of grad school and hoping more people will wear masks.
TODAY.COM – I’ve never been comfortable with romantic date nights. So I came up with a solution: the anti-date.
LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS PUBLAB – “Cleanse, tone, apply serum, moisturizer, rosehip oil—these were the five steps of my mother’s skincare routine. If you do this every day, you’ll look good as you age, she said.”
CNN – “Part of what fueled my addiction was a deep sense of isolation rooted in an estrangement from my nuclear family – my queerness directly informed this estrangement. I cannot meaningfully discuss this reality with people who may have never faced rejection based on their intrinsic identity. It is like trying to explain the sensation of water to someone who has never gone swimming: You have to feel it to know it.”
HUFFPOST PERSONAL – “For as long as I could remember, people told me I would look and feel better if I lost weight. … By the time I was 10, I ritually put myself on weird diets.”
HUFFPOST PERSONAL – “We had sex in three different bathrooms the day we got married in San Francisco City Hall, and I drank so much tequila, the bars turned to fluorescent red pulp.”
THE INDEPENDENT – “On Mother’s Day, most of my logical family avoids social media the way people with migraines avoid concerts with strobe lights. In some ways, all Mother’s Day posts are identical: sweet-looking people smile in pretty places. They almost always touch. Some people post collages of multiple images. In the collages, the children become adults. The mothers soar into middle and golden years. The posts showcase continuity.”