When I was young, I loved deeply. I’d meet strangers and upgrade them to the best friend tier within weeks. I wanted to share my entire life with my family, my extended family, and my classmates.

I fell in love with buildings, places, and songs. I cried when we flew out of Egypt, head against the cold airplane window, because I didn’t know when I’d be back to one of the most gorgeous countries in the world.

I loved and I loved deeply, passionately, unreservedly. I wrote poetry because my heart was open, the words were honest, and there were…

Over the last few weeks, we’ve started to have a lot of powerful and important conversations about racism and hate crimes targeting Asians. As an Indian American, I’ve supported my Asian friends, spoken out against injustice, and fought hard in the past to elect people who work towards meaningful diversity. But one thing has been bothering me a lot lately: the use of the word “Asian.”

Colloquially, it means East Asian. On the census, it means people from “the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent.” Geographically, it includes Middle Easterners and Russians.

This all brings me to a…

There are many things in my life that I have learned the hard way, after some of the most painful experiences it is possible to have. One day, I sat down and compiled a long list of the lessons I took away from it all and realized that I wanted a way to share it: a way that captured the punchlines without a long essay after each thought about how I learned it and why. …

Whenever I come home, he is the first to greet me, wagging his tail hundred to dozen.

I sit by the piano with my fingers seemingly creating music on their own, music that I can never play twice, music that transcends the little world I live in. He sings along, not listening to humans who might think the raucous noise is anything but Beethoven. He believes it’s beautiful and that’s all that matters.

He jumps up, gorgeous large eyes flitting from my lap to the screen where I write about difficult political issues and send important emails. He dozes off…

When I was a kid, I was ugly. Not in the cute but wears glasses way. Actually, really ugly. I had a huge overbite, top teeth that stuck out, a scrawny and ungraceful body, and frizzy, thin hair.

People let it be known, too, and although I suppose it hurt sometimes, mostly it didn’t. Beauty wasn’t something I internalized as important until I was a teenager. I didn’t realize that beauty was special — that you can never compare people on beauty, that “everyone is beautiful,” and that there are a million sociopolitical aspects to the concept of looking good…

Weeks ago, I said I’d eventually review Clubhouse. It’s an app I joined a couple months ago that is invite-only, audio-only, and operates by people hosting rooms in which they talk for a while, let other people speak back at them, and then leave. So here’s my take on it.

First, to point out the obvious, Clubhouse is extremely selective. It literally grew on the strength of the fact that the first few users were all celebrities. Through those users inviting their friends, it trickled down from there. It’s still open to only a select few, those of us who…

One of my favorite memories from the long years of my short life is this: a boisterous and loud group of my friends and I, drunk on nothing but the buzz of youth and a warm autumn night, spent a perfect evening wandering the heart of D.C. It was Friday in the middle of a busy law school semester for me, my working friends were longing for a break, and we invited a miniature crowd. After a pizza dinner, about ten of us made the short walk up Capitol Hill, arms laden with board games and cards. We climbed the…