Columns
Breaking Up with Your Best American Girl
Since voicing my intention to transition, I’ve been revisiting my favorite love-as-a-woman songs and reorienting myself within them.
Prenatal Nightmares
I try to focus on this. What is my anxiety telling me? What can I say in response?
On the Nature of Legacies and Joanna Newsom’s “Sapokanikan”
Who will remember me when I am gone? Will my stories exist beyond my life? And what about the things we already forgot?
Seeking Sacred Spaces in Vietnamese New Orleans
Here, Vietnamese people hold the distinction of having been refugees twice over—first from Vietnam, second from Hurricane Katrina.
The Pioneer Woman and the Fairy Tale of Country Cooking
What does the word “country” mean? Does it mean anything on its own or does it just color in Americans’ fuzzy sense of what constitutes Americana?
Living in Paris, I’m Just Another American—and the French Don’t Seem to Mind
My life as an American in Paris is a far cry from what the glamorous direct-to-DVD movies make it out to be. Still, that’s the story I tell.
On Delilah and the Villains We Make of Women Who Seek Power
Succubus, siren, gold-digger, temptress: There are so many words for a woman with money in her hands.
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The Grammar of Time Travel
There is a comfort in believing that all our ancestors’ understandings of time and space, however met with destruction, live on.
“Here Comes the Sun” Was an Anthem of Hope, Now It’s a Reminder of Climate Change
Every day, as news reports about climate change become more threatening, I grow more nostalgic for the places and objects of my childhood that feel increasingly imperiled.
Walking Paths to Self and Family in Darjeeling
In Darjeeling, the landscape and my familyscape seemed to be living, breathing beings, the paths like veins and the stories like the flow of blood.
