Jan 21, 2021
I Traded My Image for Money, Now I Want It Back
The largest archive of footage of myself, ages twenty-three to thirty-years-old, never belonged to me but is owned by brands.
The largest archive of footage of myself, ages twenty-three to thirty-years-old, never belonged to me but is owned by brands.
It was the middle of a pandemic. Mom had just died of cancer. Why leave my home of four and a half years?
For all the pain, there is also beauty in the margins those outside of them may never understand.
‘Stardew Valley’ doesn’t challenge capitalism by trying to escape from it, but by teaching a lesson on generosity.
From the beginning, I knew that terror is a god. But now, I also believe that what might sound like a death rattle is merely the echo of ancestral song.
As a queer descendant of Holocaust survivors, I knew my first time visiting Berlin—a hub of queer life and Holocaust memorials—would not be easy.
The raw stuff of life is only changed by the meanings we give it. Memory can be dissolved by scent, but also redeemed.
There are entire lines of therapy that basically boil down to “learn self-control so you never upset the sane.”
We were two stereotypes—the sassy gay best friend, and the hyper-sexualized reporter—working at a place that highlighted our biggest insecurities.
On the internet, I didn’t have a body. It was like astral projecting into a secret treehouse with other non-embodied weirdos.
I was husbanding—providing for my household by physically taking care of my land and livestock. And they were providing for me.
When we look at women who work, what remains unseen and what is expected to remain hidden?
I borrowed a bicycle and explored, in the same way my great-grandfather had gone about on his pony sixty years earlier.
Are these the only two stories? The one, where you defeat your monster, and the other, where you succumb to it?
Disability justices can be, and are, plural.
Everyone’s experience of a diagnosis is different. Here is mine: A key opens a lock I didn’t know existed, sending a door swinging wide.
I’ll drive with that tender balance of guilt and curiosity and a lifetime of learning and unlearning, still looking for an America that was there, is there, and will be there.
When you attribute someone’s evil actions to their mental health status rather than their actual root cause—like white supremacy—then that evil is no longer presented as a choice.
I am the only one in the room who is neither asked nor allowed to answer: “How does that make you feel?”
I try to feel my lungs expanding and contracting, just to make sure they still are. There is something soothing, like the indigo of a fading day, in that reminder.
