“What are you doing?” I turned and looked over my shoulder to where my husband was standing. He was watching me at the bathroom sink as I scrubbed my face with an exfoliating pad covered in toothpaste. “Giving myself a facial. What does it look like?” “With toothpaste?” “Of course.” Read More…
If you’ve often felt conflicted about popular aspects of American culture, like drinking or sexuality, chances are your value system has been impacted by a different culture. Perhaps it’s been influenced by your parents, your friends or where you grew up. You may even be part of the 1.5 generation Read More…
They came to me in the middle of the night. They were young and beautiful and dressed up like they were about to go out. I had about an hour’s warning, and their knock on the door was light so as to wake no one who wasn’t already up. When Read More…
Over the past few days, I’ve become the most unproductive, groggy, exhausted human being. This is no doubt a result of my erratic sleeping patterns. My sleep schedule has consisted of going to bed no earlier than 3 a.m., waking up no later than 2 p.m. and taking obscenely long Read More…
Corn tortillas were being warmed over an open gas burner, perfuming the kitchen with that taco night scent. A simmering pan bubbled and spat, and I spotted a mounded bowl of shredded jack cheese. Tomatoes, lettuce and onions were arranged like birthday balloons in bright colors, and bottle of crema Read More…
Despite the title of Robin Thicke’s new song, when a friend of mine first mentioned the “rapey” undertones of “Blurred Lines,” I was taken aback. The fact that the song’s music video is grotesque and objectifying wasn’t new to me, but I had failed to recognize these more problematic undertones Read More…
“We’re going to go on an adventure.” My mom had woken me up sometime after midnight to tell me this news. I blinked in the low light, trying to wake up fully. “What?” “You’re going to pack up your backpack for a trip. Bring clothes and the stuff that’s most Read More…
A friend of mine recently talked to me about an experience he had after smoking marijuana — after getting high enough, he objectively looked at himself in a mirror and saw his face, his body and his total being. Because he wasn’t imposing his own subjective self-perception on his body, Read More…
If you attended high school in the United States, you probably read a story called “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant. It’s a story about a poor woman who borrows a necklace from a friend and loses it. She then panics because she believed the necklace was worth a great Read More…
When I think of all the untold stories stagnating in the suburbs of Southern California, where I attended high school — in Santa Ana and Garden Grove — it saddens me that popular TV Shows like “The O.C.” and the “The Real Housewives of Orange County” have overshadowed the true Read More…