As the perfect embodiment of the English major who would happily spend hours dissecting a Sally Rooney novel in the corner during a bustling dinner party, it has never occurred to me to question her cult following, of which I could very well be the leader.
tw: homophobic slurs in English and Spanish
They called themselves an army. They set up camp on a private pot farm in central Oʻahu, locked out the legal owner of the property, and stayed there for nine months. They wore knockoff military uniforms. They carried rifles. In a lawsuit, the legal owner of the land described them as “squatters.” ...
The ineluctable presence of mid-dark tan when the cold weather comes will find no welcome, at least, in my closet. Yes, fall weather is upon us, and with it the great unifier of men’s fashion across campus: the tan overcoat. I am, of course, talking about the great, the steady, the horrendously ubiquitous ...
On the grayest days this fall, when all you want to do is curl up and read a book…maybe that’s exactly what you should do.
We sat down across from each other in the corner of a West Village cafe. How does one even begin a conversation of such colossal proportions?
I am sitting in class with my hair limp down my back. It does not curve and it does not layer and it does not flutter. It sees my scalp for the chair that it is and sits there, unfashionably, without appeal. I have lost my claw clip.
Before moving to New England, I thought seasonal depression was just a saying. The raging wind and episodic chills seem to have wiped the idea of warmth from my head (Have I ever been warm before?). It was not until two weeks ago when I was greeted by a blossoming sakura tree that I recalled the existence ...
Last semester I cracked my phone and dropped my Andrews pho just because I would not sit down alone in a dining hall. I’d just gotten out of a class that met from 6:30 to 8 p.m. (awful, I know) and I had a four-page Spanish essay to write before the clock struck midnight. There was no time for the ...
It’s my favorite feeling: when a really good idea hits me. Almost like I’ve been dumped face-first in a cold bucket of water and the chill is traveling all the way down my back, yet I can’t help but grin.
How do you begin to articulate an end? Perhaps shakily. Or hesitantly. Perhaps with your heart on your sleeve, or else on the verge of tears. Perhaps, like me, you wouldn’t want to begin at all. Perhaps you can tell, even in these words, that I am trying my best to run away from goodbye.
Light twinkled through the windowpane in front of me, hopscotching across my worktable and glinting off the gems in my fingers. I was beading with rubies, stacking them between my fingers and sliding them carefully onto a strand of wire. Legs tucked up on my stool, I sat quietly, lost in the simple ...
I went to my first pen show when I was in high school, the annual Los Angeles International Pen Show to be specific. According to its outdated website: “started in 1989, [the Los Angeles International Pen Show is] the West Coast’s premier pen show. It brings together pen dealers, collectors, and ...
I don’t mind the gaps. You know the kind. The moment before an exhale and a laugh not yet realized, still bundled in the lungs. The instant before a foot hits the ground, a great crack of thunder right before the strike. A liminal space where everything hangs in the air, simultaneously fated and foiled, ...
I’m going to let you in on a secret: I am obsessed with the game Dots. Maybe you have heard of it or seen it in the App Store, not that either would make my addiction more legitimate. Dots was my go-to game in middle school on my blue iPhone 5C, and I would spend hours a day connecting the stupid ...
Today I was on Instagram, and I saw a post from a girl named Victoria, whom I babysat from when I was in eighth grade all the way through high school. She was 10 when I first met her. I used to drive her to lacrosse practice and help her pick out the colors of her braces. I taught her how to play Egyptian ...
To sign “best friend” in American Sign Language, hold your hand in front of your shoulder, palm facing in. Cross your middle finger over your index and gently close your remaining fingers. Hold it the way you might hope for something half-heartedly. Perhaps a best friend.
Solutions by The State News
