[NYC/BK] part of my world.

September 24, 2017

the brooklyn book festival is the event of the year for me. it’s the event that marks the end of summer in my head, the beginning of fall, and it’s the event i look forward to because it’s books, authors, readers — how much better can something get?

this year, i had the opportunity to take over the official bkbookfest instagram account (twice!), and it was so much fun, walking around and sharing random things from the day. i also took over the account earlier in the week to share some photos from previous years because this was my sixth year at the festival — six years, can you believe it? six years since i literally stumbled upon the festival that first year i moved to new york because it was a sunday and i’d somehow talked myself into going to church and borough hall was my subway stop that year. six years because i’ve been back every year since.

and i can’t wait to keep this tradition going next year.

highlights: meeting people from bookstagram “in real life,” getting coffee, going to panels together, standing around and sweating and chatting. exchanging hugs, hearing voices, revelling in the familiar. as it turns out, i’m not as much of a total introvert or a misanthrope as i thought. i love meeting people and being around people.

hearing authors talk! it’s always a pleasure hearing authors talk, especially when they’re on a panel with great moderators, like that 10 am session with jenny zhang (!!!) and julie buntin moderated by jia tolentino. jia tolentino has been knocking it out of the park for the new yorker these last few months. jenny zhang is always a delight. julie buntin made me want to read her book, which i’ve heard amazing things about but haven’t read yet.

the cookbook panel! there is always a cookbook panel (or there was this year and last; i admit i didn’t go to the cookbook panel in 2015), and it is always awesome (maybe i should stop saying “always” when i’ve only been to this year’s and last’s). this year, the theme was cookbooks and cooking at home, and chef sohui kim of the good fork was there along with cookbook authors raquel pelzel and stacy adimando, and i loved this panel because i think about that question a lot — exactly who are cookbooks written for? what are they written for? because you have cookbooks that are more like coffee table books (pretty much anything by phaidon) because the recipes are much too complicated for any home cook to attempt (like, seriously, who’s cooking from the noma books? the benu book?). and what about cookbooks that are more to record a restaurant’s history/moment in time? and how should food in cookbooks be photographed? do we want them to be exquisite and perfectly plated like the chef would plate in her restaurant? isn’t that too daunting? but what about this trend right now with artfully just-consumed food? what is kristen kish’s book going to be like? because when you have a chef who’s all about technique and has a more elevated, formal style of cooking, can that translate into recipes that an average home cook might want to attempt? and who is an average home cook, anyway? how do you measure that?!?

does someone have to cook from a cookbook for that cookbook to be considered successful?

because i rarely cook from cookbooks — my measure of a good cookbook is if it tells a story of that chef, that restaurant, the food, well.

coming back from that list of questions i spend kind of a stupid amount of time thinking about … (i think a lot about food. in all forms.) (i’m also really excited for the kish cookbook. and the cherry bombe cookbook.) (i also spend a lot of time thinking about how i can get publishers to send me cookbooks …)

more highlights: catching up with friends and getting dos toros and taking over outlets because my phone was dying. discovering another cool lit mag (the point) (it’s based in chicago), buying more back issues of the common, chatting with chef sohui kim and getting my book signed and gushing about the just-opened jeju noodle bar in the west village. chatting with authors and them not being weird about me being all OMG I LOVE YOUR WORK I THINK YOU’RE GREAT HI! sweating non-stop, taking an ice cream break at one of my favorite ice cream shops (van leeuwen), finally dropping in at books are magic and buying a mug and checking out the space and, oh, buying a cute enamel pin, too. (i’m starting to get into enamel pins.)

stepping into regular visitors and discovering that they make a great unsweetened matcha latte. roaming around my old stomping grounds (because downtown brooklyn/cobble hill/boerum hill — this whole area, all the way to park slope, gowanus, prospect heights, and clinton hill, is my brooklyn) (i know; it’s bougie as hell; and i don’t know how that works because i’ve always been broke as hell). just being in those masses of people, of readers and writers and publishers, this community of people who love stories and story-telling and came out en masse on sunday to be a part of something that i believe, that i believe they believe is a vital, thriving part of life.

i’ve walked this stretch of dean street from cobble hill to park slope so many times. i’ve walked it to go to blue bottle, to one girl cookies, to trader joe’s, and i’ve walked it in peace, in joy, in tears. i’ve walked it while starving, while full, while panicked, while depressed, while content, inspired, angry, worried, despondent, happy, lonely. i’ve walked it and been told by a nice lady that i shouldn’t look so sad, life would be all right. i’ve walked it as my arm went numb from the groceries hanging on my shoulder.

i’ve walked this stretch of dean street on nights i was too anxious, too depressed, to do anything else. i’ve walked it because i was forcing myself to get out of my apartment, to do something, even if it were walking and walking and walking. i’ve walked it to nurse my broken, fractured brain and heart. i’ve walked it to exhaust my insomnia into letting me sleep. i’ve walked it to mull over story problems, writing problems, life problems.

i walked this stretch of dean street after the brooklyn book festival, after dinner with a friend and her boyfriend. it was humid, and it was night, and it was everything familiar — the trees, the buildings, the house with the zebra in its front yard, a zebra that now has giraffe friends. i walked it with my heart throbbing inside me because, yes, i do concede now that coming back to california earlier this year was what i needed, that this move literally saved my life, but it hurt still, it hurts, but it hurts now in the way that tells me, you are alive, and it is on you to find your way home again.

i walked this stretch of dean street again knowing exactly where i want and need to be, that 2017 has been a weird, incredible year, despite all the struggles and pain and disappointment, that i am lucky to be here, to have the people in my life whom i do, people who have and continue to do so much for me, to love me, to care for me, to support me.

i walked this stretch of dean street, knowing that this won’t be the last — i know i will walk this street countless times again.

[NYC/BK] the heart goes where it's known.

September 23, 2017

i spent friday night alone, revelling in being back home in familiar spaces, and started stacking my time with people starting on saturday morning, beginning with breakfast at prune with a friend i met on tumblr about 7 years ago. (holy crap, it’s been 7 years! i literally stumbled onto her tumblr when i was going through hashtags for one of alexander wang’s RTW shows!)

the concept of “online friends” might seem alien and/or weird to some, but i’ve been making friends via the internet for at least a decade now. some have become good friends, while i’ve yet to meet some “in real life”, but whatever the physical status, these friendships are like any other friendship — the fact they originated and/or continue online doesn’t make them any less real or valid or valuable than the ones i carry out in-person.

maybe this will make better sense to some out there if i add this: that living across the country from my core group of people has inevitably taken my core community on-line. we primarily text now. we email. we exchange DMs on instagram. we occasionally facetime or talk on the phone. we might facebook chat if i were on facebook.

long-distance teaches you that being present in people’s lives doesn’t always mean being present physically. it doesn’t mean those physical relationships aren’t important; i don’t actually believe that online relationships are totally sufficient because we need physicality, we need hugs and sensorial contact; and that’s why i will continue to make the effort to bring as many of my online friendships into “real life” as i can. i love these connections i’ve made, though, and i love them even more when we’re sitting across the table from each other, talking about everything we talk about online but in-person, interrupting each other and laughing together and becoming more than social media handles and profile pictures to each other.

saturday was a day for old friends, though, friends i’ve known for years, who have been a part of my life for years. these are the connections i was afraid to lose when i had to come back to california earlier this year, so i was a little nervous going back, wondering if much would be changed, if i were holding onto nostalgia when our lives had gone marching on for months. i’m glad to report all that nervousness was for naught.

one of the biggest highlights of my weekend was catching up with my book club. we came together a few years ago because i went to a marilynne robinson event in park slope in 2014 and i was leaving when someone stopped me in the aisle and said, are you anna? it turned out we were in the same vocational intensive that season, and she gave me her email, so i emailed her, and we became friends, and she said, i know these other women who also read robinson and maybe we should get together and talk about lila, so we did that, and that became a book club, and we’d meet every month (or so) to chat about our book of the month but, really, to eat and talk and hang out.

i don’t think i can ever fully express how much i miss this group of women when i’m in LA.

we met up for lunch at one of my favorite places, at their west village outpost, and we exchanged sweaty hugs and sat down to drinks and pizza in a noisy, cozy restaurant space, shouting at each other even though we were smushed together against the wall. we talked lives and books (and got in a mention of lacan at one point) and current updates, and time went faster than i wished it would.

i wished it weren’t so loud in the restaurant. i wished we could linger more. i wished i wasn’t so far from all this now, that this was still our monthly thing, gathering at an apartment and sharing food and alcohol and company.

i miss a lot about home, but there’s little i miss more acutely, more intensely, than this.

[NYC/BK] home again.

September 22, 2017

apparently, september is the month of daily blogs, and this new one is about home. this time last week, i was en route to brooklyn for a glorious five days back in my city, roaming my stomping grounds and seeing all my favorite people and eating so much delicious food. it was a wonderful few days, and, of course, i took so many photos, so here, over the weekend, are five days of posts, one for each day the week before.

there will be fewer words than usual in these because they’re intended to be more like photo-essays than anything — or maybe that sounds fancier than i intended because all i’m really doing is putting down a record of the weekend, because i want to share some images from the city i love and consider home, the city i hope to return to sooner than later.

and this goes without saying: this expat new yorker was so happy to be back in the city she belongs to, the city that belongs to her, and you will never be able to convince her that there is a city in the world greater than new york.

[NSPW17] stay.

September 16, 2017

i have this tattoo on my wrist, and, when people ask what it means, the simple answer is, it’s the logo of the band i love. the more complex answer comes with a story involved, or a scene, maybe, to be more specific, and the scene is the kitchen at my parents’, at the house in which i grew up, and it’s a sunday morning in december 2009, and it’s the first time i’m really going to try to carry out one of the ideations in my head.

in the end, i won’t. i’ll spend the morning crying on the kitchen floor because, see, i’m barely in my mid-twenties then and there’s this band i love, this band i want to see live one day, and this isn’t about the band, per se, it’s not even about music necessarily — it’s about here, here is this thing you love, this thing that comforts you and makes you feel less alone, and here, here it is as a reminder of all these things you want to do, all these things you won’t get to do if you die, here is this thread being thrown at you, this tiny little thread of hope — and here, hope is a lie you cling to to get through these bad moments, and hope is that thing you’ll come to hate through your twenties, but hope is that lifeline you will hold onto to get through the next time you try dying and the time after that.

i tell my therapist i hate hope, and i tell her i spend a lot of time trying to put a damper on hope because i don’t want to raise my expectations, to have to deal with the tumble of disappointment.

i’ve been spending a lot of time these days putting a damper on hope because i’m waiting, in that weird in-between space where nothing is concrete and everything is, well, something hoped for, a job, an agent, a book deal, a move back across the country.

at time of posting, i’ll be back home in new york for a glorious four-ish days of seeing some of my favorite people, eating great meals, and spending time fully immersed in the book community. i’m doing an instagram takeover for the brooklyn book festival. i’m saying hello to a prospective agent. i’m roaming around all my old stomping grounds, eating whatever the hell i damn well please because new york is home and it’s been eight months since i’ve been home.

at the time i’m writing this, though, i’m trying to put a rein on my expectations. new york is a city that changes, and a lot could have changed in eight months. the prospective agent could still turn down my manuscript. people will have gone through cycles in their lives, and, maybe, we’ll be different people now. i tell myself these things not because i necessarily believe them to be true but so that i’ll be less hurt, less disappointed, if home doesn’t end up being what i’ve been holding onto these eight months.

i tell myself these things to brace preemptively against the sadness and loneliness that will come slamming back into me when i get back on the plane on tuesday to come back to california.

much of life, to me, feels like this — a constant balance between what’s in my head and what’s not. my therapist reminds me to take time to pause and assess situations, especially when my anxiety and/or depression threaten to bubble to the surface and explode. she tells me to pause, think about what i’m feeling, what i’m thinking, to collect evidence that supports whether or not my thinking is substantiated or not, to think of evidence that shows that i’m just freaking out.

and maybe that goes to show that it isn’t total bullshit when people say not to believe the lies depression tells you because, yes, sometimes, rarely but, still, sometimes, it is possible to remind yourself that the things you feel are indeed distortions your brain is creating. sometimes, the reminder is nothing more than a footnote because you’re too mired, too much in the darkness, for the reminder to be more than something you barely shrug at before mentally curling up.

so maybe i dislike that statement so much because i don’t like that people say not to believe the lies when i think of them as distortions because anxieties and fears and insecurities are all rooted in something — we’re often just making them so much bigger, so much more monstrous, than they actually are.

so maybe that’s a better thing to remember — that whatever is going on in your brain is a distortion, that the power of depression is distortion, that the insidious nature of it is distortion. it’s that kind of distortion that leads us down the path to consider suicide, to create plans in our brains and hold onto them, to think of dying as a viable option when considering the options laid before us.

because i don’t have the ability to say that dying is never not an option. as much as i have let go of a lot of my suicidal ideation, i can’t say i’ve completely stopped tinkering with that plan in my head. i can’t say i’ve completely let go.

and that, too, is okay.

my word of the year, apparently, is “stay,” and i feel like i’ve been using it kind of excessively recently, but i mean it every time i say it: stay.

it’s a word i tell myself, too, stay — stay in the moment, stay in the present, stay in this life. stay in whatever is here before you right now; the future will arrive when it does. stay where you are in the here and now. stay.

now that our pre-approved sessions are coming to a close, my therapist asks how i’m doing, especially on the suicidal end of things. i’d told her before that my main consistent conviction through my twenties was that i wouldn’t live past thirty, and she asks me how i’m feeling about that, about my most recent fear that i will die in california. i tell her that that hasn’t fully faded but it has softened. i tell her, yes, i still have that plan in my head, but it’s fading. i tell her it’s all something i’ve carried so closely, so tightly, for so long that i would feel odd without it.

she says that’s okay, that we don’t need to try to excise all that from our lives, our brains. all we need to do is turn away and look in another direction, to turn our backs on that plan, that ideation, that desire to die, to let it fade and ghost away on its own.

and maybe that’s one reason i feel more compelled to talk more and more about all this — the fact that i live with this, will continue to live with it — because talking about it is one way of turning away. talking about it is bringing it into light. depression and suicidal thinking are things that flourish in darkness and silence, and it’s why i won’t stop talking about it, won’t stop pointing at it, won’t consider them as things to be ashamed or afraid of.

mental health is like any other paper tiger, frightening in the shadow it casts when the reality is not, does not have to be, nowhere near as frightening as we think it is based on its shadow. it’s a challenge, yes, and it’s difficult and painful, and all of us don’t “make it through.” we don’t all “survive,” but “surviving” isn’t the point.

the point is trying to live the fullest lives we can. the point is trying to do better by each other, for each other. the point is to learn to live our lives in light, not in the shadows, because, god damn it, we deserve it. we deserve to live our lives in the open, not hiding, and we deserve to be seen, to be understood, instead of shunned and cast aside.

we deserve to be loved.

so, yes, maybe i’ve said this word so many times that it seems to have lost all meaning, but i’ll say it again anyway — stay.

you are meant to be here, and your life is worth living, and you are a human being worth knowing. stay. and demand to be seen. stay, and fight together for a better world. stay, and make all those things you want, all those dreams you wish you could accomplish — make them into reality.

because you are stronger than you think you are and you have something to offer the world that others don’t and your life has value, even if you can’t see it right now. just put your head down, count the days, and let time pass.

stay.

national suicide prevention week '17.

[NSPW17] cuddle a monster, eat a monster, be a monster.

September 15, 2017

if i had a cat, i’d snuggle that, but i don’t have a cat, but i have this stitch that’s been with me for fifteen years.

something i hate to hear is, most people who live on don’t regret not having killed themselves. most people don’t regret surviving. here’s where i’d typically add an it’s not that i don’t appreciate the sentiment behind it, but …, except i’m not adding that because i don’t appreciate the sentiment behind it — it’s a statement that does me no good when i’m locked in that darkness.

i also hate when people talk about the lies depression tells you, the lies suicidal thinking tells you. it doesn’t matter how often or how forcefully people tell you you’re not alone when you feel so totally alone. when you’re in that dark, terrifying place, you’re not exactly sitting there debating what’s true and what’s a lie your brain is telling you.

sometimes, i think it’s just as crucial to change the ways we approach the suicidal as it is to take away the shame and guilt and stigma that cloak suicide. sometimes, when i hear the catchy phrases, the platitudes, i think, wow, here are great ways to skirt the issue, to let fear render people so freaking ineffective because they’re afraid of saying the “wrong” thing, they’re afraid of putting the idea of suicide in our heads, because of this, because of that, blah blah blah, here are some talking points instead.

because, when i hear that most people don’t regret “surviving,” i think, well, bully for them (screw survival narratives). when i hear that my depression and/or my suicidal mind is lying to me, i think, well, what do you know? are you in my head right now?

and i wonder, okay, then, how do we talk to the suicidal? how would i want someone to talk to me when i’m going through one of those episodes? what are the things that help me? — and i think that it’s not even about what people say, it’s what they do. it’s saying, hey, how’s it going? wanna get some pie or food or coffee? i’d love to see you. it’s saying, hey, it’s beautiful out; wanna go for a loop around the park?

it’s not saying anything at all, simply being there with hugs (and/or ice cream) and a solid, warm, physical, living, breathing presence that says i’m here. i’m here; you’re not alone; and you can cry or just sit there or whatever you’re feeling — i’m here, and i’m not letting go.

because, yes, i’m a writer, and i believe in words, but words never do much for me when i’m hurtling down the abyss — the people who show up, in whatever shape or form, do.

that’s not to put the burden of “saving” us on other people. i think that’s bullshit, too, even just the fundamental notion of “saving” someone. savior/messiah complexes piss me off because of the sheer ego involved.

it is not on anyone to “save” us. that is not anyone’s burden to bear. we are not someone’s responsibility. (that kind of thinking does more damage than good.)

however, i do believe that we should all be here for each other because life is a communal experience — humans are relational, social beings after all, and we all need people in our lives. we need interpersonal connections to thrive, to be our best selves, and we need to talk to people, to confide in them, to be soothed and comforted and reassured by them.

though, sometimes, there are limits to that.

this might sound crazy, but i admit i sometimes talk to my stitch. when i hurt too much, too deeply, i talk to him; i confide in him the things i can’t tell another human because that kind of confession frightens me too much, requires too much vulnerability or self-defense, and i don’t have the strength or ability to help someone understand the pain i’m trying to diffuse.

because, yes, there are things that are impossible to say to another human thing because it’s too personal or because we’ve been hurt when we’ve tried to reach out in the past or because to give some feelings the strength of words feels like too much. there are things that just need to said out loud into nothingness to get them out of our heads but things that don’t need to be heard or known by another human being.

there are things that other people shouldn’t have to bear.

national suicide prevention week '17.