It is a meaningless way to describe 4.6 billion people.
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.
Which all brings me to a…
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A poem about life.
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. …
A poem I wrote nine years ago is still so true.
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…
It turns out many people are superficial.
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…
Both apps, though problematic, have their uses.
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…
I don’t accept what we lost.
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…
There is no drama, here. Only love.
I have been friends with him for many long years. He has been in love with me for almost all of them.
He’s never said it. “I love you,” yes. A million times over. I’ve said it to him too. Never anything more. There never will be anything more.
But a year ago, after a long call about our pasts and our futures and the meaning of the universe, he said there was something he’d wanted to tell me for a while, something he’d never shared with anyone. I encouraged him to just tell me. After a lot of back…
We need to stop glorifying early academic success.
When I was a kid, I was a baby genius. I wasn’t the most insanely accomplished one and so it’s something I denied for years. I hated everything about the word “genius” and didn’t want to end up the classic story of bitter regret. The “geniuses” or “gifted kids” I knew were conceited, rude, and unhappy. Like the phrase “teen mom,” I thought “baby genius” was a cautionary phrase, a pejorative.
But saying I wasn’t one didn’t make it true. I started playing the piano at four. I taught algebra when I was twelve, the year I started researching in…
PSA: Be careful with which ones you try
Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about how cute TikTok couples are. There are many relationship videos that feel real and many compilations of LGBTQ+ couples who are featured less in traditional media. A lot of clips are cute, heartwarming, or perfectly staged to be gorgeous snapshots of life and love.
But some of the most viral videos are just crazy. (Note: I am not linking to them because I think these challenges are inadvisable, private, and likely shouldn’t live online. But if you’re curious, there are many compilations on YouTube.)
There have been a string of recent TikToks popping…
Ten fundamental questions that are probably easy for you to answer now.
I am not one of those people who goes around claiming the pandemic didn’t suck. It has been a year full of death, despair, isolation, chaos, and destruction. Even if there were points of light (I was in D.C. on November 7), most of 2020 was a disaster. I even co-founded a nonprofit to make things suck less.
But there’s one thing I realized as I scrolled through Buzzfeed’s personality quizzes and read yet another Medium article on love languages: COVID 19 was one hell of a personality test. They say when you’re put under stress, your true nature comes…
