Columns | Bayou Diaries
What It Means to Live in Houston

In a city made up of many cities, spread out, like tiny countries, ascribing their influence is a lot like trekking through a tiny country of your own.

Feb 20, 2019
Columns | Bayou Diaries
The Case Against Making a City “Beautiful”

On finding beauty in Houston amidst the ugliness, and what the city stands to lose from increasing gentrification.

Dec 17, 2018
Columns | Bayou Diaries
Montrose, the Neighborhood That Gave Us Everything

Montrose was unofficially codified as the nexus of queer life in Houston. If you held a map to the wall, I could tell you how we came to be on those streets.

Oct 16, 2018
Columns | Bayou Diaries
We Were Prepared for a Storm, But Not Hurricane Harvey

There will be as many different iterations of this storm, and the ones to come, as there are Houstonians. And we have to hear them—they’re what will determine our map for the next one.

Aug 27, 2018
People | Asides and Offsides: Notes on the World Cup
We’re (Kind of) All in This Together: Watching the World Cup at the End of the World

It isn’t that we sought to separate the “real world” from the matches—just that, for a time, we had something else to think about.

Jul 17, 2018
People | Asides and Offsides: Notes on the World Cup
“We won either way”: The People I Watched the World Cup With

On watching the World Cup in spite of everything, and finding camaraderie with friends and strangers alike.

Jun 27, 2018
People | Asides and Offsides: Notes on the World Cup
Confronting the Myth and the Reality of Soccer as Another World Cup Begins

As in any other sport, the point is the narrative—but no other sport magnifies its lore in the same way as soccer.

Jun 20, 2018
Columns | Bayou Diaries
Finding Peace at the Rothko Chapel: What Local Arts Can Teach Us About Our Cities—and Ourselves

In Houston, as with everywhere else, the arts serve as tiny lifeboats—and sometimes, if we’re lucky, we all find ourselves floating together.

Jun 11, 2018
Columns | Bayou Diaries
The Rodeo Is a Holdover from Texas Lore, and Part of the Changing Story Houston Tells About Itself

If traditions like the rodeo can accommodate Houston’s diversity, whole new traditions will be formed—leaving us with something even better.

May 23, 2018
Columns | Bayou Diaries
Finding Holiness Beyond Houston’s Scores of Sacred Spaces

We’d made a connection across tables, generations, tongues, our own tiny blip of transcendence. Holiness in the noodle bar.

Apr 24, 2018