I know better now — You can listen to the Soundcloud recording of this post here. I sometimes think of myself as a failed experiment. My parents hoped I’d be valedictorian of everything, but my college GPA was a dismal 3.2, and I’m convinced I only ended up in AP Calculus because of a clerical…

An ode to my very first bucket of bolts — In 1992, my dad went down to the garage where my grandfather was the shop manager and bought me a used vehicle that would eventually be known as “Loretta.” The photo above is not my truck, of course. Mine was black, not navy, and my tires were chunky off-roaders, not…

On doing things that you don’t think you deserve to — When I look back at my teenage years, I think about how many opportunities I missed. Most of the time, I didn’t even hear about the opportunities or appreciate how important they were and how much they could change my life, so I didn’t develop my senses for it. The…

Even if it isn’t an epic hike — When I was in my twenties and extremely bored, I came across a book by humorist Bill Bryson called A Walk in the Woods. As I remember it, the author and a very sad and angry friend, neither of whom were equipped for long-distance hiking, decided to thru-hike the Appalachian…

Silly sadness, anxiety, or a means of living and loving more fully? — I have a 10-month-old kitten who I named Sayang — this means “love,” “sweetheart,” or “darling” in the Malay language. I adopted her from a shelter when she was four months old. I have more than 200 photos and videos of her on my iPhone and my husband tells me…

It’s not what you think — Only one of the two small elevators at the Ace Hotel in downtown L.A. works, but the young person with floral forearm tattoos working the front desk assures me that everything’s fine. The Ace (calling itself “ADTLA”) is designed to communicate a casual, rock vibe — autographed electric guitars for…

Being a twirtysomething is a strange but illuminating thing — I’d been warned as a teenager that growing older was a scam. “Being an adult,” Meredith Grey began, “TOTALLY OVERRATED.” In the first season of Grey’s Anatomy, she told me: Seriously, don’t be fooled by the hot shoes and great sex and no parents anywhere telling you what to do…

An ode to everyone who failed to teach me how to whistle, but gave me other gifts instead — I. I began learning how not to whistle when I was starring in the first grade class play, Snow White Thinks Twice. …