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[saidtheredhead]

theses on toy story.

Originally posted 27 March 2018. 

I've seen Toy Story MANY times, including at least 3 or 4 times in the past year. (One of my jobs at my theatre camp is to watch lunch and play Disney movies/open tricky snack packages for the kiddos. Toy Story is a classic.) At the beginning of this semester, I audited the first session for a course called What Do Toys Want? Very Gallatin, very interesting. We watched Toy Story on the first day, and I had on my analytical brain. Thought it would be fun to share with the world.

LÉAH'S CONSOLIDATED INITIAL** THOUGHTS ON PIXAR'S TOY STORY    **though I've been having feelings + thoughts about Pixar for most of my conscious life. 

1. What is the criteria for the animated toys to be able to speak? Do they need mouths? But Lenny the binoculars doesn't have a humanoid mouth and he speaks constantly. And the remote control car RC seems to have a humanoid face but is incapable of speech. Is it just cherry picked for plot convenience? Lenny warns about lots of things, being the first able to see things and RC needs to be silent/controllable to make a lot of the plot function to further alienate Woody. Does it have anything to do with animal-ness? But the dinosaur and squeaky shark can speak, and the barrel o'monkeys can only make their animal noises. Why can't the mutant Sid toys speak? Do the toys need an coherent self/body in order to be vocal? Why does the mutation not seem to affect their animism/other forms of communication? The spider baby uses morse code in the planning session to save Buzz. 

2. What's the deal with agency of movement? RC can be controlled by his remote and I don't know if we see it move on its own? Also HOW could the batteries die if it's alive? (Besides conveniently foiling the plot). It seems like they have some kind of magic animism, but their bodies still function in their toy capacities, i.e. Woody is able to take control of Buzz's karate chop function when escaping the mutant toys. It seems like their range of movement is kind of dictated by the limitations of the material reality of the toy, but also a dash of magic animism. For example, Rex walks in a way that seems limited by his leg joints, yet his arms and knees also move fluidly. Also soft and floppy toys like Woody gain skeletal integrity when animated.

3. On a similar body note, I'm so fascinated by their material memory of body positions, like how they are/must be able to take up exactly the same expression/position at the first sign of humans, no matter how much time has passed. 

4. Continuing that thought, what's up with the bodily coherence of Mr. Potato Head?? Are there limits to the animated possibility of each individual body piece? Can they all move independently at any radius? How important is the potato as an organizing controlling force, i.e. brain? (NB: In the third film, he attaches all his face pieces to a tortilla to scout out something through a thin window slot and is able to fully animate himself as if he was attached to the potato.) How much of him is him? Also, how come Buzz's disconnected arm doesn't seem capable of moving on its own. 

5. How much does the agency of the maker/the intended use and personality of the toy affect the toy's actual personality? The soldiers fit their intended roles to a stereotypical tee, but the humor of Rex's character relies on the fact that he's a tender-hearted nervous ball of anxiety instead of the "intended" scary aggressive predator. In a world of mass production, how does personality work? Does every Woody toy have the same personality???

6. Which brings me to GENDER!

         [a] even in nonhuman toys, almost every single toy is gendered (with pronouns/names and with typical voice types) masculine, besides Bo Peep, the ultimate symbol of femininity/love interest (even though she is rad and has some snark/morality/agency, I love her.) Are we required to believe this is because Andy is a boy and he can only have boy toys??? I don't buy it. There's no reason that the pig, dino, shark, etch-a-sketch, etc all have to be dudes...

        [b] SO MUCH gender stuff to unpack in the separation of "toy" and "doll" and it's also not irrelevant that "doll" is also a word that is used on human women.

        [c] I feel as though the entire plot is motivated by a toxic masculine territorial and competitive spirit. Woody's problem is with Buzz--constantly demanding that Buzz lay off Andy, but how could Buzz have any control over Andy's play choices while they're inanimate play objects?

7. Why isn't the Magic 8Ball animated/alive? Is it not a toy? I feel like it could have snarkily responded to Woody instead of Woody just using the object. 

8. Million dollar question: what animates the toys??? I am interested in the idea that they are animated by the energy of children's affection/attention, similar to polytheistic deities who exist because of/through their worshippers. Hence Woody's stress at the prospect at being a lost toy. Also, Buzz wakes up for the first time only when he becomes an owned toy to be played with, unwrapped from the box. This is explored in film 2 as adult collectors come in the mix and in the third which is all about what happens to toys who are forgotten as their children grow up.

9. What exactly happened to Buzz? Did all the toys have this amnesia upon waking? Counter to this is the hilarious scene where we learn that Andy's toys know a LOT about how they were manufactured (I'm Mattel, I'm PlayMobil and so forth). Did they all have a moment of extreme existential crisis like when Buzz sees his ad on tv? (Also that moment has a lot of interesting things to unpack re: disability with losing his arm and gender in the tea party scene.) 

10. What's the deal with the little aliens' cult psyche? 

11. I'm interested in thinking more about the treatment of Sid's mutant toys as symbols of the Other. Buzz and Woody see them as savage cannibals (that's a painfully familiar phrasing...) just because they don't speak/look a little freaky (as an effect of their freaky owner). 

12. How does pain function? Do they feel it when inanimate? It seems like that would be a torturous existence, given the rough play that a lot of children go for. However, when Sid tortures Woody with the magnifying glass burn, he "wakes up" screaming, as if he had been feeling it the whole time, and just waiting to be able to react once Sid is gone. 

13. And last but not least, morality! What are the principles that guide the morality of the animated toys/the imperative not to be discovered? Their dramatic reveal to terrify Sid is immensely satisfying and feels narratively justified, but why don't toys reveal themselves more often/what happens if they do?!

Alright, that's that. Hope you enjoyed some heavy Academia TM applied to a classic childhood favorite! And let's please discuss if you have feelings about the toys. 

xoxoléah

[saidtheredhead]

baby gay books.

Originally posted July 20, 2017. 

I was back in LA for a month or so and one day I randomly had the urge to check out the library and renew my card. I was really pleased to see that LAPL was really promoting pride month with prominently displayed shelves of LGBTQ Young Adult books, big colorful spreads on the homepage of the website, and even a shoutout printed on all the receipts! It warmed my little gay nerd heart. I love the YA genre and all of its teen angst. Mostly because of academic burnout, I have a hard time making myself pay attention to fancy “adult” books. I get so tired of big words, and I like the instant gratification of tearing through “easy” emotionally saturated YA novels. I went back to my two local branches every few days and walked out with tall stacks overloading my arms. I wanted to write a lot about each one, but that makes me procrastinate on posting, so I'm just going to write a little blurb of whatever comes to mind! Happy to give more detailed recommendations if you want something to read though! (Heads up though, I pulled some of my favorite quotes that I had to mark down while reading, and they might contain spoilers!)

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (*****)

This is such a wonderful lovely read! Very tender book about summertime friendship. Does have some scary homophobic violence and hospital stuff, but it does not end in tragedy, at all! Both of the protagonists are Mexican American and they talk about their families. 

I wondered what it was like to hold someone's hand. I bet you could sometimes find all of the mysteries of the universe in someone's hand.

Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

So cute! Especially fond of it, because a lot of it centers around rehearsal for Oliver. Pretty heavy public outing plotline. Not everyone is white! Simon, the protagonist, is in a virtual relationship with someone at his school, and it reads kind of like a mystery novel, but the payoff is so lovely and bubbly. 

I don’t even know. I’m just so sick of straight people who can’t get their shit together.

You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour & David Levithan (*****)

THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD. I picked it out of the stack on a whim in my last few days in the city, and it was the best one I read. SUCH beautiful and diverse representations of queer relationships: crushes, friend groups, sudden best friends and mended old best friends, friends for dancing/laughing and for watching depression movies in bed all day. There was even a scene at a queer spoken word fundraiser, with all the poems printed out in full. Such beautiful angst. One of the poets was genderqueer and used they/them pronouns! In a popular published book! Seriously, go run and read this one, it's heart-warming and cute and real. 

Mark: I look at him in his Star Wars T-shirt and anchor-print boxers, clutching a pillow on this bed we have spent so much of our time in, and what I realize is that somehow, without even knowing it, I have stepped out of love with him, and where I've stepped instead may end up being the better place. I have to step out of love with him, because the ground I've always wanted to be there was never really there. He is capable of giving that ground, but I am not the one he wants to give it to. Instead I have the ground we've grown all these years. I love him indestructibly, and I care about him at a root-level, but in this three-breath-long moment I can understand that the two of us will never be boyfriends, never be husbands, never be everything to each other in that way. I can let that go, and hold tight to everything else. It should feel like a retreat. It should feel like my love is diminishing and my feelings are contracting. But instead I have a sense that they're expanding. And they are doing it because they have to.

Mark: Katie smiles. "Yes--the heart is a treacherous beast, but it means well. That just about sums it up." "What they never tell you is that it's actually the friendship part that's harder. Kissing is easy. Kissing has its own politics, but at the end of the day, it's kissing. It's the real stuff--the being-part-of-each-other's-lives piece of it--" "--being close to twins without being twins--" "Yes! That is both the challenge and the reward." I look at Katie and know that sometimes it isn't all that hard, that sometimes you can just fall into step with someone and keep pace for a good long time. Again, it amazes me that a week ago we barely knew each other's names. Now we're on this journey together. 

I have tons of other quotes, but I want to keep it fresh and special for you, pls read! :) 

A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend by Emily Horner

“I’m not saying it’s right, you know? And I’m not saying it makes any sense that some people draw lines between musicals or flannel or haircuts and who you want to make out with. God knows if shoe shopping and makeup could ungay a person, I’d have had an easier time of things.”

This book is great! Content Warning: the protagonist's best friend Julia is dead, but that should be clear from the title. Jumps back and forth in time, between her road trip right after her friend dies and the current rehearsal process with the group of friends producing Julia's unfinished musical. (Yikes bit: the musical is about singing ninjas, played by mostly white kids who just love Japanese culture...) 

“There was this girl,” I said. “I mean—“ All of a sudden I felt flustered and added, “we were just friends.” “No such thing.” “We were.” “Look. Despite what you may have heard, people have sex all the time with people they don’t love, or particularly care about, or sometimes can’t even stand. So why in the world do people say that it’s just friends, like it doesn’t matter as much, if you’re not having sex? Real friendship is true and forever and with all your heart. It’s not Relationship Lite.” (142)

So much good stuff about friendship and love in all its forms!!! I'M HERE FOR BOOKS THAT DEAL WITH FRIENDSHIP IN COMPLEX WAYS WITH JUST AS MUCH CENTRALITY AS ROMANCE NARRATIVES. 

"Julia, well—Julia was my friend. I was careful to omit the just when I thought it this time. But I could hardly remember discovering her, could hardly remember her being new to me. I’d never needed to scrutinize her like I was scrutinizing Maggie, trying to figure out the vast sea of what I didn’t know from what was right in front of me. This was new—and I didn’t want to stop just yet.” (149)

Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan

I liked this one well enough. The protagonist is Iranian-American and she talked a lot about her family culture and language. Again, there's some horrible outing stuff--one of the characters is a really awful person and her dialogue was hard to read. There were also some questionable moments kind of belittling and making fun of theatre techs and stage managers (in awe of the coveted actors) that rubbed me the wrong way, but I still love books about gay teens doing high school theatre! 

It astounds me that Tess is as brilliant as she is and still hasn't figured out I'm gay. I wish there was a manual on how to come out and what a young gay person is supposed to do. Like, is there a secret handshake I don't know about?

"No boy is harmless, especially around my daughters. We should have sent you to an all girls school." Ha! I would really never get any work done. (30)

None of the Above by I. W. Gregorio 

The only book I read about intersex teens. I am not sure its reception in the intersex community, but it feels like a so-so book. It was written by a doctor who had an intersex patient and got /inspired/ which feels like a red flag. The main character struggles a lot with her "diagnosis" and has a lot of internalized self-loathing. A bunch of problematic ideology and slurs in some parts, but she also has great conversations with some other intersex girls through a support group. I am not qualified to know how well it portrays these topics--I have more community-based reading to do, however I will say that I'm not sure how well the author handled the topic of surgery. 

Naomi and Ely's No-Kiss List by Rachel Kohn & David Levithan

I tried to start reading this one, but I didn't give it much of a chance. Not a fan of the writing or the characters. Apparently it got made into a movie though, with Victoria Justice! 

Tessa Masterson Will Go To Prom by Emily Franklin & Brendan Halpin

Intense read, but the payoff was so lovely! It's one of those books where the first-person narration switches back and forth each chapter between two characters: gay Tessa who wants to bring her girl crush to prom in a conservative small town, and straight Lucas, the best friend, who realizes his love and extravagantly asks Tessa to prom. Most of the book is a pretty brutal homophobic uproar about this girl wanting to wear a tux and bring a girl to prom, but *spoiler alert!* it ends with mended friendship and a big gay party. 

"You want to watch movies or something? I just got Bringing Up Baby! Katherine Hepburn!"

"Black-and-white and you going goo-goo about your crush all night? Can I ask you something? I mean, if you're attracted to girls and stuff, why can't we watch one of those videos where drunk girls lift their shirts up or something?"

"Lucas, I'm a lesbian. That doesn't mean I'm a man."

It's funny. When I imagined this--dancing with Tessa at Prom--it wasn't like this at all. First of all, in my imagination, she was wearing something that at least suggested that she has breasts. But also, when I imagined my hand on her hip, it wasn't just that I imagined something more satiny than a tuxedo under my hand, but I thought the touch would be electric, that it would be the moment when our friendship turned to love. Dumb ass. It was love all along. Just not, you know, that kind of love.

"Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna have a hard time finding somebody to dance with," Tessa says. She gestures at the scene. The dance floor is already full, and people are still streaming in through the front door. There's some up-tempo dance-pop number playing, and the floor is jumping with joyful dancing like I've seen. Tessa is not the only girl in a tux, but there are also girls in Prom dresses and combat boots, girls in regular Prom dresses, guys in dresses, guys in tuxes, and a fair number of people who are either male or female, but it's not clear from what they're wearing or who they're dancing with. And, at the wall, there are about forty girls giving Tessa that I'm-trying-get-up-the-courage-to-ask-you-to-dance look. She smiles.

Non-LGBT YA Books I've Been Reading: 

Golden Compass and Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman  

I was really excited to revisit this series from my youth. (I don't actually know if I ever made it past the first one as a kid though.) It didn't really hold up for me. Didn't even feel like reading the finale of the trilogy. Not sure how I feel about the intensely religious undertones and "soul" business. Also, I remembered Lyra as a badass girl protagonist, but she gets kinda shunted into supporting the ever-so-special boy, Will by the second book. Also, *spoiler!* throughout the books, the witches and other important adults are all whispering and obsessed with this important little girl Lyra, though they know her by another name. The big reveal: she is the new Eve, meant to be mother of all? Idk, man... Not into it. 

Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick 

So lovely and quick to read! Brian Selznick is a very inventive and moving author. (If you haven't seen his books before, they alternate between sections of text and series of gorgeous full-page pencil drawings. He wrote The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which was made into a lovely Martin Scorsese film with Asa Butterfield. Anyway, I really enjoyed this one, full of nighttime museum adventures, Deaf culture and sign language, wolves, and family reunions. Highly recommend checking this one out from the library! It's a heavy brick, but only takes a few hours to read. Ooh and apparently, it also got made into a movie, coming out this October! Looks good, and they cast a Deaf actress, Millicent Simmonds as Rose. Looking forward to it!!! 

[saidtheredhead]

maman.

Originally posted June 11, 2017. Today is my mom's fiftieth birthday. 

50 Things About Sophie Chiche

As Best As I Can Remember (but don’t quote me on every single detail being 100% accurate)

At least once a year, Sophie pulled absolutely everything we owned out of absolutely every drawer and shelf to reorganize and declutter. No such thing as a "junk drawer" in our home.

Sophie is a woman of passionate drive--just watch her open a new Shape House, up at 5 am to get the right shaped plumbing joints for her industrial lighting with two little buns in her hair.

Sophie loves to dance, she has some great mom moves, grabbing her belt, kind of like Michael Jackson.

Sophie is not one for rules--I have never seen her follow a recipe or pay attention to the painted lines in the Target parking lot (when the best spot is to the left, not right!)

Sophie is intensely friendly. I’ve never seen anyone else collect immediate best friends like this woman.

Sophie has a rapid-fire tongue for languages, seamlessly switching between chatting with her family on the phone in Français, answering my question in English, and asking someone for directions in Español.

Sophie is an UNO fiend!

Sophie gets into obsessive fads--like that month of eating hamburger patties and fried eggs, or listening to Ben Folds and Regina Spektor sing “You Don’t Know Me” a thousand times.

Sophie finds giraffes everywhere. (After all, she is Sophie la Girafe!)

In the past year or so, she also finds lighthouses everywhere.

Sophie has an impeccable eye for design.

Every house she has decorated (whether personal homes or of the “Shape” variety) is a masterpiece.

I love her fashion style, Sophie sure knows how to layer long necklaces with knee-high boots.

Even though Sophie never follows recipes, she always whips up something delicious.

One of my favorite food fads of Sophie's was the savory oatmeal phase with homemade macadamia nut pesto.

I think I have only seen Sophie with our matching natural curly hair maybe three times in my entire life.

Sophie is the opposite of a hoarder, but over time, she has collected a few gorgeous old pieces that fit perfectly, no matter how many times she moves, like the old telephone box or the long piece of wood that look like a mancala board.

Sophie can whup your ass in Backgammon.

Sophie is an amazingly inventive collage artist. At our old house, she collaged and mod-podged the front of the stairway.

Sophie was a little rebel. On one of our Paris trips when I was very young, she showed me around to all the schools she went to, almost one per year. I asked her if they switched schools every year in France, and she replied, “No, I just got kicked out of all of them.”

Sophie is a collector of skills and jobs. I’ve been around to see her create two amazing businesses, LifeByMe.com and the sweaty adventure Shape House.

Did you know that Sophie went to clowning school? I’ve heard some great stories about that time.

At least once per semester, I have an existential crisis where I doubt my place in academia and convince myself of my failure and Sophie always laughs and tries to remind me how we have the same exact conversation 2-4 times a year and I still manage to get perfect grades at the end of the day.

As a parent, Sophie believed in allowing space for children to have agency and be their own autonomous human.

Sophie once had a casual chat with a friend about how he unschooled his kids, and mentioned it to me with no ulterior motives and two weeks later I was out of school.

If everyone is six degrees from Kevin Bacon, they are four degrees from Sophie Chiche.

Anytime Sophie meets someone, she figures out immediately where they are on their life trajectory and does what she can to move the game along.

Sophie knows what she wants and doesn’t settle for less. I don’t think I have ever seen Sophie order something directly off a menu with no substitutions.

Her most (and only) Mom™ action: every time she sees me, she automatically pulls the filthy glasses off my face and cleans them, even if she is actively driving...

Sophie has the most vague and teasing social media presence, but such an interesting eye for piles of things.

Sophie moved to the United States, got set on a blind date with my francophile dad, dated him, got engaged, got married, got pregnant, had me, and got divorced within 3-ish years (two of which were after I was born).

Sophie got emotionally and physically invested in American democracy before she was a citizen by volunteering during Obama’s first presidential election. (Her first vote as a citizen was for Obama’s second term! She cried.)

Sophie has a great collection of shoes (and we excitedly share the same foot size!)

People used to think my ex-step-sister Sarah was actually her daughter instead of me, because they share the same coloring and hair. But even after the divorce, we are still all family. We call ourselves the “permanent party” and go on adventures, like spending a week in Joshua Tree.

Though my red hair skipped a generation with ma and pa, if you compare baby pics (and current pics) of Sophie and I, we have the same lips and face, just different colors.

I don’t think Sophie has a French accent, but people often think she’s Spanish or Israeli.

I was mean and used to make fun of Sophie for her French idiosyncrasies in English, like saying “shrimps” or never being able to pronounce “ew”. But if I ever made fun of her, she would say back, “uh-huh, and come back to me when you can say it in French!” In fact, when I was a kid, I used to give Sophie little English exams that I would hand-write and grade.

Her most Jewish mom phrase: “May that be the worst thing that ever happens to you!” any time I complained about something.

(Even though I do wish I had learned French--and Spanish!--while my brain was more plastic) I am very grateful that Sophie did not force me into learning it while it was still kind of traumatic for me.

On that note, I am so grateful that Sophie did not force me into any activity. I tried plenty of things, but groped around until I found my passions and developed a severe work ethic in the theatre.

I was a goody-two-shoes uptight nerd, and sometimes I felt like we switched roles. On many an occasion, Sophie would suggest playing hooky for the day and I would reply, “Moooooom, I can’t! I have school!”

But when I did need/want it, Sophie was very supportive of taking mental health days.

As a mom, Sophie struck a great balance between letting me live my life but swooping in whenever I rang the 911 call.

Sophie is an avid TV watcher, and I love her recommendations even if I take years to finally get on board.

Sophie is also into a lot of hokey self-help treatments and food programs and spiritual audio tapes and so on. I give her a lot of shit, but they work for her (and usually me too, whenever I do actually try them.)

No matter how hokey I think her things are, somehow they always magically align for her. If she needs to find a man with duck feet and an umbrella hat, she will randomly strike up a conversation with the person buying candles next to her who will mention his neighbor who happens to have duck feet and an umbrella hat. Every single time, without fail.

As a Parisian, Sophie is a wild driver. I often cling to the armrest in anxiety. I know that she can handle the car impeccably, but I worry about everyone else around her sporadic speed and turns.

Sophie always has a gorgeously stocked arts and crafts room that makes me swoon. She currently has two boxes overflowing with rolls of washi tape. (See where I get it from?)

Sophie takes all of my friends (who she has met) under her wing. Our beloved house on Nichols Canyon was home to all of my friends and many a theatre kid slumber party.  

Sophie is Wonder Woman.

Je t'aime, maman! 

[saidtheredhead]

exodus.

Originally posted April 11, 2017. Tonight I went to a Queer Seder at my school, called Exodus (get it? coming out... of Egypt and the closet and so on) and the event holds a very dear place in my heart. This holiday is one of my favorites (mostly because of Prince of Egypt, let's be real) and in this Haggadah, we have members of the community share coming out stories at each cup of wine. This was what I shared. 

My name's Léah and I use they/them pronouns. 

(Look at that, I just came out! That's it, I'm done! Just kidding.)

I had been in a rut trying to think about what I wanted to say when I got here because I don't really have an eventful Coming Out™ moment that fits into a clean narrative. Which I think is fine, for life, and it reveals the truth of how coming out isn't one big moment but rather a process that happens in big and little ways every day. But that doesn't make for a very exciting story. And this holiday is all about exciting stories.

Perhaps instead of retelling a story of a closed chapter in my continuing coming out book, I can just come out to you now, as who I am today. Mah nishtanah, ha-laylah ha-zeh, mi-kol ha-leylot (Why is this night different from all the other nights?) This night is different from all other nights, but only as all other nights are different from each other, because my identity is never stable and the words are never adequate nor complete. In the right contexts, I am a firm believer in the utility and the benefit of labels, but only so far as they are allowed to be flexible and impermanent.

I don't see myself as being one thing that I narrate to others, my self-ness is very relational and depends on social and cultural context, and sometimes conscious choice. In that understanding, I have various self-narrations that I shift through kinda like Hannah Montana's remote control closet.

I am gay when I joke with my friends about gay memes and the gay agenda. I am not really that gay when the "gay rights movement" centers homosexual rich white men and their marriage in the name of all queer liberation.

I am queer when I am angry, when I am witchy, when I'm too tired to explain other words, when I am taking academia into my own hands and language. I'm just generally queer as heck. I am cautiously queer around my elders because I can hold simultaneous truths of liberation and deep pain held tight within the same word hurled like bricks or gleefully sewn on denim jackets.

I am bisexual when I want to fit into the LGBT acronym comfortably or when I want to make a political point about bisexual erasure and biphobia. I'm not bi when it means only men and women.

I am ace because I connect to the asexual community and parts of their conversations are deeply resonant for me. Identifying as ace was immensely socially and psychologically helpful for a spell, and parts of it still are, but I can feel myself shifting away from the usefulness of that narrative now.

I am panromantic polyintimate because I like shoving prefixes and suffixes together to make meaning. What else are words? I made these words in my first year of college, and they still fit pretty well, but I only really use them as conversation starters/enhancers, and less as fill-in-the-blank form responses, because they aren't really legible without a deeper conversation and sometimes I don't feel like going there. Pan for type of people, aka lots. Romantic for romantic attraction, aka squishy heart feels and deep care. Poly for amount of people, aka lots. Intimate because sexual doesn't feel right, but I feel a deep-seated need for physical and emotional intimacy, aka lots of snuggles and deep talks.

I am kinky when I go to makeout parties in Brooklyn because I NEVER grew out of wanting to play spin the bottle and let's face it, Berlin is a great place for coming into yourself as a sexual being. I am kinky even while also communicating the boundaries of my asexuality.

I am sexy when I blues dance. This one isn't really a label I put on myself, but it is still something empowering to claim and I love playing with normative gender roles and desires within the safe confines of a dance. There is no doubt in my mind that my dancing is related to my queerness, to my gender, to my sexuality, and that dancing has actively healed wounds and opened doors into confidences and skills intimately intertwined with my intimacies.

I am nonbinary even when I don't say anything about pronouns. (Or am I? Ahh!) This one has a lot more to do with visuals than language, for me though. Visibility is a double-edged sword, especially for trans and nonbinary people. For some, like trans women, hypervisibility can lead to violence on the daily from psychological micro-aggressions and invalidations to potentially fatal physical injury. On the other hand, I often feel entirely invisible in my nonbinary identity because I don't look like the traditional thin, white, masculine androgynous model--I've only got one of those: I'm very white. I always joke that I'm going to title my autobiography Unintentionally Femme, because the oppression of beauty standards under capitalism or whatever means that pants don't fit my body shape and I compensate with lots of floral dresses and fun patterns. Which I love, don't get me wrong, but I don't love crying from frustration in Target dressing rooms, because I just want ONE pair of pants that fit comfortably enough--just enough!--for when I work in theatre or just want to leave the house in a tshirt and jeans with no purse. Am I still nonbinary as I grow my hair out and don my violet lips? I think so, but it's hard to feel that way out in the world. So even as I feel comfy in how I personally understand my identity, I know that my gender isn't able to be legible to others in the way that I want, which can wear on me.

There. Those are some of the words that feel right today. (Or at least, on Sunday when I wrote this). Maybe next year I will tell a coming out story about today.

[saidtheredhead]

follow my lead.

Originally posted April 5, 2017. 

If you've been around me any time in the past year and a half or so, you've probably heard me mention dancing at some point. I've already written some posts about it, but this one is specifically about my feelings and preferences around leading and following and how those differ for my two main dance forms: blues and contra. Maybe this won't be interesting to anyone outside of the physical vocabulary of these dances, but I personally see a lot of connections between these dynamics on the dance floor and in the "real world". I mean, it all boils down to power and creativity and control and negotiation and communication, which as topics do not belong solely to dance roles. 

Blues

I like leading because I generally find it easier to dance to my own natural rhythm to bluesy music since there are so many individual ways to feel the music and I can better implement that as a lead. Also I like close embrace--when the full torso and hips/pelvis are connected, as opposed to just the frame of the arms, or a simple open handhold. However leading is also hard because I often forget to pay attention to spatial awareness and crash into other couples/objects. Also I feel a conscious and concerted effort to be aware and thinking all the time--whether that's the spatial awareness safety thing or a pressure to be consistently creative. I feel like I can't (currently) sustain a full dance as a lead, but I think with more practice and tricks up my sleeve, I'll enjoy it more.

I like following because I can totally let go of myself. I have to listen intently with my body, but I don't have to think in the same way. I almost always close my eyes (which is prob not the best idea, even as a follow). It's a fun kind of corporeal listening to follow my lead's rhythm and the minutiae of their body, especially in close embrace. In blues, I feel pretty empowered to have agency as a follow and mess around on spins and such. The dance form--at least on the social dance floor--is pretty open to doing whatever I please, and I like using the space around me and playing with tempo when I'm released into spins--possibly taking it very slow or suddenly a quick one. 

As a femme who often follows with men who lead, the possible creep factor is always a risk (and occasionally a handsy actuality), but it's worth it, because there's really nothing like a great blues dance as a follow, being whirled around.

Contra

I think leading and following are slightly more neutral here cause there's a little less creativity and control involved. My fave of the three is definitely switching roles back and forth down the line when my brain is up for it. That's always the most silly and fun and exhilarating. It's a brain workout and it always results in giggles. 

I like following because of the swirling and twirling around and because (if there are experienced dancers in the line) I might do fun/new flourishes that I can use later (...if I remember). I feel more secure as a follow, especially in the more challenging dances. The flip side of that though is that I'm at the mercy of my leads, especially during neighbor swings, and sometimes they are a lot more fast/intense than I would like/my muscles can handle.

I like leading because I can control that better, like if my calves are sore, and I want to do a walky/bluesy swing, it's a bit easier to do so as a lead. It's also really fun to confidently lead flourishes--I just need a lot more variety. I generally feel a lot more in control of my body as a lead. Also, when there are a lot of new dancers, I prefer to lead, both to help, and because I don't always loooove following new leads, because of the bodily control thing. 

Alright, that's all I've got for now, even though I have a lot more to say about that role that gender plays in all of this, but I am actually running out the door to a blues dance! 

[saidtheredhead]

creating home space.

Originally posted February 17, 2017. 

It's about a month into the new semester, and I finally feel like I can call my room a home space. I had some belongings issues at the start of the year that impeded my settling in and I've also been busier than a bee. This post is to show off my cute little space, and also call out to the people I love and honor in this space (with pictures of us, art from them, gifts from them, and so on). 

I was in Berlin last semester, and I only brought a small carryon suitcase and backpack with me. I shipped two small boxes to and from the US with some extra things (winter clothes on the way there and books and memories on the way back). I shipped these boxes out on Dec. 17 and they left Germany on Dec 30 (and with them, any sort of tracking information) and I didn't get them until last Friday, February 10. I was really anxious because they had a lot of sentimental things, like all my letters and tickets and things, as well as lots of art supplies, and also the backpack and notebooks I was intending to use at the top of the semester! I made do, but I care quite a bit about special material items and it really stressed me out. 

In addition to my Berlin things, I also had lost things flung across the world, literally. I had accidentally left my dresses and skirts and REALLY IMPORTANT EMBROIDERED DENIM JACKET in Dublin, and my friend/lovely host was in the process of shipping them back to me. (This also caused a stressful and awful self-esteem day in Paris where I spent 2 hours going to at least 6 stores trying to find one dress or skirt that could fit my body comfortably enough for my blues dance evening. I hate shopping, especially when it's an urgent need. Yay bodies and capitalism!) 

I also had left several things with my mom when I left LA in July to be sent to me in NY in January. There were some clothes, which I don't need, but most importantly, my fairy lights were there. Fairy lights are the number one most important thing for me to create a home space/calming mental health comfy space. My mom was in the middle of a big life transition, and was unable to find my lights. I ended up buying some more here, but that definitely threw a wrench in my settling-in plans. 

Lastly, my dear friend who stored and transported my stuff over the eight months had left my blankets and hangers in Connecticut, so we had to find a time with our busy schedules to drive out there and get them back. 

It's all settled up now, but I felt really unsettled and pulled apart for the beginning of the semester (in addition to getting reaccustomed to NY/the United States in this fascist trash fire of a time). 

Below the break are the pictures I just finally took this morning! 

Featuring my Avengers blanket that I bought to go to Cherubs in 2012 and my carrot friend from IKEA. 

(Clockwise from top left) 

Dangly jewels that were hung in the trees for Dan and Rebecca's Halloween wedding. Such a special little aesthetically pleasing reminder of their love and my connection to YADA. 

Fairy lights! I have blue, green, and pink for now. 

Beautiful cherry blossom fake flowers. 

My pastel map of Paris that I bought for a class on the history of Paris with my favorite Professor and dear friend, Olivier. 

A scattering of punny valentines leftover from this year. Silly self love! 

Three pretty pages from the gorgeous book of paper things that Christina gave me for my birthday this year. It's the best thing in the world and she went out of her way to drop it off at my dad's house so she could celebrate me even from out of town. 

Pretty back cover of the Valentine's Day issue of the Washington Square News.

(Top to bottom)

More dangly wedding things! This one also has flower petals. 

Batman mask from my old roommate/love of my life, Zev. He bought them in a pack for his Ben Wyatt halloween costume one year and we had them hung all over our apartment last year. 

My first cross-stitch! It says "fuck you gender".

Hear Our Voice postcard by the Women's March group. 

Hand drawn by Arden at ETUSC.

Yellow monster dude drawn by Samuel at ETUSC. 

Feminism poster from Bitch Magazine. 

Kyra section! Brown little monster drawing, polaroid of us, and necklace she made me at ETUSC. 

Beautiful print I got at a graffiti art gallery in Berlin on my last day. 

Planned Parenthood sticker, NYU LGBTQ Student Center sticker from the old days (when it still felt like home), and Amoeba, love of my LA life! 

Awesome patch I got at the tattoo studio I went to in Berlin. My friend Jane went there and got the same patch so I think of her too! 

Polaroid of me and Anna at the end of the year party in Berlin with Anna. 

Edelweiss flower from the Sing-A-Long Sound of Music with my dad at the Hollywood Bowl. 

Another cross-stitch: one of my fave FB sticker packs, the cactus! Made this while finishing my first watch of Parks and Rec and crying on Susie's couch in Chicago. Hanging from the pin on the bottom is a shrinkydink necklace I made at ETUSC, in Laura's workshop.

ETUSC photobooth pics from the past three years! Featuring: Will sandwich with Will S and Will T, Anna and Aytch, all the ladies of the staff last year, Abi, Ezra, Clack sandwich with Andrew and Noah, Julia, Fire/Ruby, and Kyra. 

On the doorknob is a crocheted flower headband that Xena made for me in freshman year. 

Queer shrine, mostly. (clockwise from top)

Lovely homemade owl and elephant garlands from Papersource. 

Hedwig and the Angry Inch shroud. 

Protest poster from the rally at Stonewall a couple weeks ago. It says my go to fave "not gay as in happy, but queer as in fuck you" 

3 pieces of the ETUSC paint wall from the past three years. 

Punny cute frog valentine from Mollie this year. 

Gorgeous daisy painting from Brittany. 

Lupita Nyong'o and Kristen Stewart from the stack of magazines left by the person who used to live in this room. 

Messy desk! 

Featuring my Fun Home buttons, post-it penpal addresses, letters about to go out to Anna and Willa in Berlin and Amsterdam (finally bought global stamps!)

Let's Stay Home banner from the Christina paper book.

My FAVE pictures of my mom and my dad that I always bring with me: my mom and I at the same age with curly haloes and me on my pop's shoulders. 

Okay that's it for now! But please send me letters with cute things and take pictures with me and help me add more love always! 

xoxoleah

[saidtheredhead]

written in the high of walking home in the crisp air.

Even with a million reasons why this shouldn't be true, tonight will go down top ten magical evenings. I just poured the elixir of stress and ill health and missing shoes and looming midterms onto the dance floor to meld with the sweat and spilled drinks. My body flowed with strength and stamina I didn't know it possessed. Slinky silly sensual bonds were forged, the likes of which rivaled Hephaestus (who, incidentally, was there, checking out the competition at the OkTogaFest themed evening). The goddess fairy and the lederhosen kept me company on my lonely coat check shift with a perfect trio dance, in spite of any benches or backpacks who threatened to topple us. Later, another trifecta. My favorite couple, continuing our tradition of silly trios. And then my tall lanky weirdo: supportive creative sexy slow interesting, my favorite. Getting warm for the bitter outdoors and sneaking in one last half a dance with another favorite, leading me to the door with a kiss in the ear. How do I tattoo these moments into the holes between my ribs who yearn to bend and twist whenever I'm not in that smoky swirling room? How do I crawl into bed at 4 am and end it when I can hear the strains of trumpet still blowing in my ear like the ocean from a seashell? And how on earth do I go to school tomorrow and dive into the mountain of midterms I've been avoiding?

[saidtheredhead]

berlin moment.

Berlin is full of so much--so much history, so much culture, so much art--that it can feel daunting to sit down and try to capture a single impression. A better way might be to capture single moments like verbal snapshots that get into the nooks and crannies of making a vast universe into a familiar home. Here’s one of those moments.

A Particular Memorial Moment. 

There's history exploding out of every corner in this city. It's almost easy to get accustomed to crossing over the line of paving stones that mark the spot of the Berlin Wall on my way to school each day. If you forget to look down, you cross from East to West in the space of a blink. 

It's almost easy to pass over the Stolpersteine (Stumble Stones) in front of buildings to mark the names and dates of the people who lived there before being deported and murdered by the Nazis. They're every few feet almost, and my brain registers them, but doesn't always quite go there all the way into remembering.

But this Saturday, I was struck by history. Viscerally. I hadn't been feeling that well and I stumbled out of the U-Bahn with a headache in the shining sun. I saw a lovely sculpture of silly children smiling and goofing off with suitcases in hand, on their way to school maybe? I saw the title and went over to the plaque to read about it. It was to commemorate both the children shipped off to gas chambers and the children who managed to escape on the Kinder Transport to places like England, heading to a life of survivor's guilt and sometimes abuse at the hands of opportunistic foster families. They all left from this station, Friedrichstraße Station. I looked at the grueling pictures and read the devastating words and felt the weight. Sometimes it sneaks up on you. I had forgotten for a moment. 

[saidtheredhead]

blues dance heart.

Originally posted September 2, 2016.

Over the past year and change, I've gotten more intensely into social partner dancing, specifically blues and contra. New York is overflowing with dance opportunities, there's pretty much a dance every night of the week--something I definitely took for granted until spending most of the summer in LA. Dancing has been such an amazing addition to my life--physically, mentally, sexually, emotionally, and maybe even spiritually. It allows me to disconnect from my analytical mind in a way that is so necessary to my mental health. It also lets me embody a certain kind of sexy and flirtatious energy that I have a very hard time accessing in “real” life due to intense social anxiety and insecurity. And perhaps most importantly, it satisfies my skin hunger and feels so good and rewarding.

When I was preparing to travel to Berlin, I looked up the blues dancing scene in the city. I found a weekly dance in addition to various weekend dances and festivals. I arrived here on a Monday and went to the Tuesday weekly dance the very next night. I am so glad I did. I had a lovely time, although somewhat jet lagged and shy. However, this week, I went for the second time and it was magic. I floated home on a cloud and had to call my mom for a while to unwind before bed.

This week, I showed up for the lessons but I was the only student there so I hung out with the instructor and read some of Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin (the inspiration for Cabaret). Eventually some other dancers came and we had a small lesson on close embrace with only 5 students total. It was nice because we had an uneven number of leads and follows, so I ended up doing a good share of both. Close embrace--where your torso and hips are in total contact instead of just your arms and hands--is my favorite of the positions. The more contact in the embrace, the more that I am able to shut off parts of my brain and respond solely to my body and my partner’s cues. This works differently when I’m leading and following.

When I follow, I focus more on being conscious and receptive to the leader’s rhythm. This rhythm usually isn’t 100% natural to how I might move on my own. That’s kind of the fun part--almost being embodied by someone else and learning to anticipate how they feel the music. I often close my eyes actually.

As a leader, the rhythm stems from me, so it can flow more naturally for my body, but I also have to stay a bit alert--especially about our surroundings so I don’t knock into another couple. I’m pretty bad at that part, but I’m getting better at the spacial awareness bit.

Because I started the night with the lessons and got somewhat familiar with the bodies of my fellow students, I was able to transition into the social dance part of the evening smoothly. I also felt more comfortable as I recognized some of the faces from the previous week. I was able to switch pretty seamlessly between leading and following which I love doing.

There was one guy from class that I had a great connection with and we melded very easily even though his rhythm was kind of irregular. We had a lot of head and temple contact. Interestingly, the teacher talked about how that connection was too intimate unless you know the person and that it didn’t add information as a point of contact, but I disagree for myself. It feels like a grounding force when I’m dancing, especially when I might feel off balance. It’s also more relaxing to really lean into the other person for moments.

God, I just love it so much! It’s been amazing to satisfy some of my need for physical intimacy without my social and sexual anxiety that rather forcefully takes hold of my “real” life. It’s like an exploration ground of flirtation and sexiness in a relatively safe space. Sadly, I know a lot of people who have had uncomfortable and icky experiences with handsy and aggressive partners, and I’ve had my share of too-tight grips. But for me, it’s worked wonders on unlocking parts of myself that get choked up and freaked out in other situations. I can wear cute crop tops and get extremely close to people and there’s no pressure/strings attached. I might dance with them again that evening, but I often barely get their name, if we talk at all.

I plan on going every Tuesday if I can and I’ve already signed up for Berlin Blues Explosion, a weekend full of workshops and social dances. Also, I found a map of Europe with pins in cities all over that have blues dance opportunities and I might use that as my guiding force of where and when to travel while I’m abroad.

Anyway, if we’re ever in the same city and you’re interested in trying it out, PLEASE LET ME KNOW AND I WILL TAKE YOU.

p.s. I’ve also started listening to more bluesy music and here are some of recent obsessions.

Black Coffee - Peggy Lee

Your Heart is as Black as Night - Melody Gardot

Booty Swing - Parov Stelar (thanks Will for this gem)

Sacred Heart of Mary - Mojo Juju & The Snake-Oil Merchants

Why Don’t You Do Right? - Amy Irving

House of the Rising Sun - Haley Reinhart

[saidtheredhead]

latest adventure in existing!

Originally posted August 4, 2016. 

I’ve been having quite a time lately. It’s been longer than I can remember since I felt 100% amazing in my body all the time. I don’t really know what it’s like to not have some minor ache/pain/nausea/something in the background of my life. This summer, I’ve been trying to take my health and wellness into my own hands. I saw a holistic wellness doctor/chiropractor and he’s been awesome. I took some fancy expensive blood tests, including one that tested me for a ton of foods. 

At the end of June, I got my results and there were definitely some answers! Basically, there's a reason or two why I feel like a pile of crap most of the time!!!!  Here's what's up. Before I even get to the food part, I also did a regular set of blood tests to test general health things. I already knew I had Hashimoto's Syndrome, a thyroid situation that messes with mood and weight and fatigue and achey joints and depression and temperature control and a bunch of fun things. I also learned that I was a "functioning anemic", and super iron and protein deficient, as well as having high homocysteine levels (which also contributes to mood and fatigue stuff and also too much estrogen I think) This explains why I've been PMS-teary all the time lately. Working at my children’s theatre this summer was so hard, because I would look at a cute kid singing and immediately feel the tears rise in my throat. It literally interfered with my ability to do my job. I'm taking a few supplements to help with that stuff. 

But the food stuff is the real adventure. I found out that I can't really eat most things. But good news! It's because of leaky gut syndrome, so it's very likely that I will be able to heal my gut and reintroduce stuff. I made a full list of yays and nays, but the highlights are no meat, gluten, yeast, potatoes, and a MILLION veggies and fruits that I would not have expected. But eggs, rice, dairy, nuts, and beans are ok, so there's lots of good protein there.

Yay! So I'm pretty much eating food I have to make myself for the foreseeable future, which is fun but also pretty intense and overwhelming, especially as I jet around from LA to Chicago to Tennessee to Chicago to Berlin. 

I’m about a month and change into my new regime, and it’s going ok. Apparently I won’t start to feel the total effects for a few months, which sucks. It feels like I’m working really hard and restricting my life in a lot of ways, without the nice payoff and evidence that it’s doing anything. 

Although I miss a lot of food (especially here in Chicago, damn), the hardest part is the social and mental aspect of it. It’s so draining to do intense food things and have to plan every bite of food ahead of time and make sure I get enough protein. Food is so social and even though it's mostly jokey, it can get really tiring and depressing when people are constantly trying to peer pressure you into going off your commitments. Everyone in my life has been very kind and supportive, but it makes me feel like a burden to have to order special things or explain again and again the specifics when they offer me a bite. 

I’m really interested in the social world of meals. I’ve always loved cooking and baking to feed others and sharing stories and opinions about different flavors.I haven’t eaten desserts in a few years now, but I still joke that I partake in “sugar culture” and I love that. I still have strong opinions about the best kind of candy and which desserts I like and hate. Also, smell is such a huge part of taste and I get so much out of smelling people’s desserts (when we have a close enough bond that it’s not totally weird. Just kinda weird.) 

I also have less spoons to go around lately, which takes a toll on my busy bee over-achiever lifestyle. I find myself dreading leaving the house to walk around sometimes or spending some much-needed couch potato time. I’m leaving for my summer camp tonight and I’m way excited as always!!! But I’m also a little apprehensive because I want to be able to throw myself in like I always do, and I’m not positive I’ll have quite the energy I need to burn both ends of the candle as in past years. I’m hoping to strike a balance between taking care of my needs and also pushing myself to just get through the week and deal with sleep and recuperation later.

I have plenty more thoughts on the social and emotional ties to food consumption, but for now I have to pack for camp and head to Whole Foods for some rice crackers and cans of beans. 

[saidtheredhead]

purim: unmasked.

Originally posted May 6, 2016. 

There’s a recurring event at my school called Chavurah where various students lead a weekly discussion about something Jewish with texts they bring in. I led one about Purim. I had a really good time engaging with both Jewish and non-Jewish texts, and I wanted to curate them here on my blog. I’ve also added a few ideas after the group discussion.

I didn’t really know much about Purim before I prepped for this. I knew the bare bones of the story, and I’d made hamentaschen a couple times. I grew up with Beth Chayim Chadashim, an LGBT synagogue in Los Angeles, and participated in a couple Purim shpiels when I was a teen. In typical West Hollywood fashion, we did parodies of big musicals, like Cabaret and Hello Esther (instead of Hello Dolly). I remember singing a Jewish version of the Cabaret song “Don’t Tell Mama” featuring lyrics like “Mama thinks I’m living in a shtetl, a secluded little shtetl.”

I read a translation of the Book of Esther and many other resources over spring break and ruminated on the themes of the holiday. I kept coming back to the idea of masks and unmasking.

Text 1. Kavannah (Intention) on Masks for Purim, Cantor Susan Caro

Tonight, donning masks and veils; in celebration of our people’s rescue and the fragility of our existence; in remembrance of God’s hidden presence in the Purim miracle. Consider the masks that we wear all the time–out of habit, out of necessity–they become like gods to us; we may find them fixed or unchanging. In a few hours from now, we will mask ourselves with the threads and tapestries of stories past. Detaching, disengaging from our daily authenticity, veiling us from one another. [...] We are concealed by our masks; our defenses down, we open to the mysterious reality of ourselves and our world.

Text 2. The Punisher to Daredevil in Season 2, Episode 3

You run around this city in a pair of little boy's pajamas and a mask. You go home at night, right? Take that mask off, maybe you think it wasn't you who did those things, maybe it was somebody else. Well, see, soldiers… we don't wear masks, yeah? We don't get that privilege.

Text 3. The Book of Esther

2:10 Esther had not shewed her people nor her kindred: for Mordecai had charged her that she should not tell it.

י  לֹא-הִגִּידָה אֶסְתֵּר, אֶת-עַמָּהּ וְאֶת-מוֹלַדְתָּהּ:  כִּי מָרְדֳּכַי צִוָּה עָלֶיהָ, אֲשֶׁר לֹא-תַגִּיד.

4:13 Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews. 4:14 For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

יג  וַיֹּאמֶר מָרְדֳּכַי, לְהָשִׁיב אֶל-אֶסְתֵּר:  אַל-תְּדַמִּי בְנַפְשֵׁךְ, לְהִמָּלֵט בֵּית-הַמֶּלֶךְ מִכָּל-הַיְּהוּדִים.יד  כִּי אִם-הַחֲרֵשׁ תַּחֲרִישִׁי, בָּעֵת הַזֹּאת--רֶוַח וְהַצָּלָה יַעֲמוֹד לַיְּהוּדִים מִמָּקוֹם אַחֵר, וְאַתְּ וּבֵית-אָבִיךְ תֹּאבֵדוּ; וּמִי יוֹדֵעַ--אִם-לְעֵת כָּזֹאת, הִגַּעַתְּ לַמַּלְכוּת.

(I apologize for the weird formatting of the Hebrew. Tumblr doesn’t give me too much power.)

Text 4. Masks, Shel Silverstein

Text 5. Topsy Turvy Day, Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz

Once a year we throw a party here in town

Once a year we turn all Paris upside down

Every man's a king and every king's a clown

Once again it's topsy turvy day

It's the day the devil in us gets released

It's the day we mock the prig and shock the priest

Everything is topsy turvy at the feast of fools

[...]

Ugly folks, forget your shyness

Topsy turvy! You could soon be called Your Highness

Put your foulest features on display

Be the king of topsy turvy day

[...]

And it's the day we do the things that we deplore

On the other three hundred and sixty-four

Once a year we love to drop in

Where the beer is never stoppin'

For the chance to pop some popinjay

Text 6. The Purge (2013), James DeMonaco

In the early 2010s, "The New Founding Fathers of America" have established a new totalitarian government and a police state, following economic collapse. Using the 28th amendment of the U.S Constitution, the government has established one night a year - called "The Purge", which occurs on March 21 to 22, in which all crime, including rape, murder, arson and theft, is legal and all police, fire, and medical emergency services remain unavailable for 12 hours. The purge has resulted in crime and unemployment rates plummeting to 1% and a strong economy. It is thought to be used as an act of catharsis for the U.S. populace.

Text 7. "Halloween and the Veil Between the Worlds," Astrologer Jessica Murray

For untold millennia before the Julian Calendar, Halloween, or Samhain (pron. SOW-wen) to the ancient Celts, marked that poignant moment at the golden end of the warm season when the veils between the worlds are thinnest. Back in the days when people timed their lives by the birthing of their herds and the ripening of their harvests, Halloween served as a solemn gateway to winter, the Dark Time (Dark meaning, not bad, but hidden).

[...]

In the zodiac, the power of Halloween is represented by the sign Scorpio. Scorpio and its planetary ruler, Pluto, govern all kinds of secrets: classified information, detective novels, lost objects.

Fun facts for reflection:

The Book of Esther is the only megillah where God isn’t mentioned, is God hiding?

The root of the name Esther is hester, meaning “hidden”.

Questions:

What masks do we wear everyday?

Does anonymity allow for another kind of (perhaps greater) intimacy?

Are masks a privilege? Do they allow for a certain kind of hiding from oneself?

Is there a connection between Purim and other secular/fictional holidays like Topsy Turvy Day, the Purge, and Halloween? Is there something inherent in human nature that craves this day of release and putting on personas?

Ideas/Notes from the Discussion:

New Text 1. Halloween, Mean Girls

In the regular world, Halloween is where children dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In girl world, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it. 

Yes, this is a silly parody of high school girlhood, but I think there is something really interesting here if we take the idea seriously (and in conjunction with the reading of these other holidays). I think there’s a difference between the ridiculous objectified/sexualized costumes that get SOLD (like sexy crayons and Nemo and shit) and the people who decide to dress however they want and show off a little more skin. 

New Text 2. Stick to the Status Quo, High School Musical. 

Another silly but interesting example. What masks of conformity do we wear to fit in? What could it look like to unmask in a public space, like the high school cafeteria. 

New Text 3.

I don’t have a specific text for this one, but we discussed cosplay and roleplaying online. I am not the best person to speak to this, cause I haven’t really done much of either. In the discussion, people mentioned the community of support in cosplay circles, as well as the comfort and safety in that space of online anonymity and embodying other characters. 

There’s so much to think about, but I’m gonna wrap it up for now. Shabbat Shalom! 

p.s. To me, Judaism is all about questions and conversation, so please reach out to me if you wanna chat more about this topic!

[saidtheredhead]

jew things.

Originally posted February 29, 2016. 

This post has been percolating for a while now. For the past academic year, I’ve been diving more into my Judaism and it’s been a really beautiful journey. I’ve gone to Shabbat services most weekends of 2016 so far. I have a lot to say but I want to post this before leap day is over. 

I usually identify as culturally Jewish, if not quite religious. Meaning, I’m all about the holidays, family, food, humor, traditions, etc of Judaism, but I didn’t necessarily feel a spiritual connection. Lately, I’ve been reframing that idea. I think I’m experiencing holiness and spirituality through these religious traditions and community. Even if I don’t believe in some big dude pulling all the strings. 

Shabbat and the holiness of setting-aside. 

I’ve been trying to go to as many Shabbat services as I can and to be intentional about setting aside some time to rest and recalibrate every weekend. 

My first services of 2016 were at the temple of my childhood, Beth Chayim Chadashim (BCC). It's the world's first LGBT synagogue. I went with my dad and it happened to be a special intergenerational service. It was such a lovely entry back into that community to be surrounded by queer families of all ages. 

The next week I was at Creating Change, a huge queer conference and I went to a really interesting alternative Shabbat that had a super social justice-y framework. There were some quotes in the little program that made me feel all sorts of ways. 

Then I was back at NYU and I’ve been to a handful with our lovely Reform community since I’ve been back. Our services are super cozy and homey: all the chairs are in concentric circles and there’s beautiful music and it’s mostly student-led. It feels very casual and yet traditional and established. 

Last Friday was a big Shabbat for all the alumni and current members of the Jewish Learning Fellowship that I did last semester and it was so magical. There’s a tisch afterwards with tons of music and sharing stories and those classic Jewish cookie plates with the rainbow marzipan cookies. It fills up my heart and spirit. 

This weekend I’m going to Saturday morning services in Brooklyn at our lovely Reform Rabbi’s congregation and then brunch at her apartment with her adorable family. I can’t wait. 

Challah!

I’ve been making Challah with my roommate! It’s so easy (even if time-consuming) and it’s magical to knead something to life with your own hands and make toast with it for a week. 10/10 would recommend trying to bake bread at least once. It’s so rewarding. We listened to Falsettos and snacked on Matzah Brie while we made it and I felt very domestic and Jewish. So lovely.

Music. 

I think one of my deepest connections to Judaism is through the music. The prayers that I know are so embedded melodically in my soul, even if I forget the words. And when I don’t know them, I can somehow always sense the next note/word/melody. It feels like it emanates up from my bones. 

At the tisch last Friday I was moved to speak after a rousing Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu. I just felt so amped by the ebbs and flows and energy of a room full of jamming Jews. The next song was a slower dreamier one and I was reminded of my childhood. My parents weren’t very religious, but my mom always sang Yedid Nefesh to me. I could not tell you the lyrics or even hum you the melody offhand, but whenever I hear it, it deeply moves me. She only sang it to me when I was feeling small and lost and needing a sanctuary. She built me a sanctuary with those notes. 

I feel so grateful to be embedded with this musicality and community, so intertwined. 

[saidtheredhead]

i can't take a joke.

Originally posted January 30, 2016. 

This post has been formulating in my thoughts and feelings for a long time now. It’s not a topic I’ve wrapped up neatly with a bow, but I wanted to put something down in words to capture where I’m at right now. 

It’s hard to pinpoint an exact start point, but basically since I began college and started diving deeper into the process of unlearning some fucked up racist, ableist, classist, xenophobic, islamophobic, transphobic, _____phobic/ist shit, I’ve been told often that I just can’t take a joke anymore. I have some things to say about that. 

In those moments, part of me just wants to stop engaging with family and friends back home at that point because I have been “enlightened” and they just can’t understand me. It’s easier to just chill in my new comfort zone with my friends who get it. But actually, that method is no good for me or for the work. I want to engage them in these topics precisely because I love them and believe they’re fundamentally pretty rad and just aren’t in the same spaces as I am for learning and questioning. On top of that, as a white person who is on the privileged side of most of these -isms and -phobias and trying to practice better allyship, it’s my job to do the work of calling in my people. I think the burden of fixing these supremely unjust systems is on the people who benefit from and are complicit in them every day (while uplifting the marginalized voices and stepping WAY back). I have the privilege of checking out of the fight and the conversation if I want to, which is all the more reason why I can’t. 

So back to being called a buzzkill. I think that kind of thinking allows people to sit nice and comfy in some fucked up places without facing the consequences of how those “jokes” affect real people and casually–yet viscerally and deeply–perpetuate these embedded systems of oppression. “It’s just a joke.” No. We don’t exist in a vacuum, our words have impact, especially if you hold positions of power and privilege. Is that joke punching up or down? Who’s the butt of the joke this time and are they usually portrayed in the same unsavory light? And do those jokes reinforce stereotypes and ideologies that support the systemic injustice? It would be rad if we could unpack where those ideas and thoughts are coming from and analyze how it might feel to be on the receiving end. 

But ALSO, to chat about my feelings for a second! I hate this rhetoric because it feels like I’m being pushed into this serious, radical, austere (and definitely not funny) corner. And that’s a shitty feeling. It also butts up against my lived experience with people who are working to unpack and challenge these things who are HILARIOUS. We’re constantly cracking jokes and I often can’t breathe for laughter. 

A lot of times, my family will say things like “I wonder how your radical friends feel about xyz” in this tone that makes me feel like I’m on trial to defend my still-crystallizing beliefs. But I guess that’s a pretty universal youth thing. Like, ugh the adults don’t understaaaaand me and my friends, they’re so backwards. That’s not fair to anyone. Maybe they’re not there yet, but I love them and want to love and respect them (and myself) enough to challenge their (and my) oppressive behaviors. And maybe this post is patronizing and self-aggrandizing. But maybe we can start breaking down these binaries and supremacies together and laugh at ourselves a little bit along the way. 

p.s. there are so many cute and funny and REAL social justice-y things on the internet. For a start, I recommend checking out Franchesca Ramsey’s youtube videos and Assigned Male, a super cute comic. 

[saidtheredhead]

pulled cuticles.

I've been having a bit of a rough time lately. I feel really great socially (for maybe the first time ever), but I’ve been lacking academic motivation. Just feeling slightly less than amped and not really into doing work until I have have have to do it. Luckily, I am still doing super well in classes. Which actually feels weird, because I feel like I am giving nothing and yet flying by just fine. (That’s an obnoxious thing to say, but it concerns me sometimes.) 

I laughed to myself (and had a mini existential crisis) because I realized that right now is the same time I left academia (late Fall of my sophomore year in high school). I am a lot more committed to academia now, and I currently plan to follow this journey all the way to the cap and gown, but it does give me pause. A lot of similar feelings are being stirred up. I think some people call it the “sophomore slump” which I feel some kind of way about, but it does sort of describe it. My feelings about academia are by no means enthusiastically positive, but there is definitely magic here and I kind of want to prove to myself that I can commit to something for four years and follow through. 

Anyway, back to the everyday. I didn’t really have a social community growing up. I had a lot of amazing loving wonderful magical acquaintances/casual friends, but no solid group. That really weighed on me as a tiny human. Although I do consider myself to have introvert tendencies when it comes to physical energy, I draw a lot of emotional energy from socializing. I crave connection--even as it exhausts me. I’m full of contradictions, weeeeee. A big part of the reason I came to college was to find rad humans and relearn how to socialize with people my age. I wanted to immerse myself in the intense and messy and exciting intellectual/social/emotional environment of a college campus. And I’m finding that. Hard core. I am surrounded by such lovely and caring and passionate and fierce and intelligent people every day and it kinda explodes my heart a little. Right now, I feel like I am struggling to motivate myself academically because I just want to dive into my social life, especially because it all feels so new still, and I want to grasp it as hard as I can so it doesn’t disappear. Also, cuties! This is content for another post another day, but I’ve been really lacking the cutie feelings lately. Very aware of the lack of romantic/snuggly situations in my life and feeling bummed about that. Same undercurrent that’s always there, but especially pronounced lately. Basically, I just want to touch mouths with a bunch of people and maybe hold some hands. 

I just found this article on Buzzfeed about experiencing the double-edged sword of depression and anxiety. I teared up a little because someone put WORDS to my FEELINGS! I had been trying to describe these sensations and failing. It was such an immense relief and comfort to know there were other people feeling similar ways. I immediately shared it on Facebook and received so much love and support. I also texted it to my mom and dad as a tool to kind of place where I’m at right now. Or rather, where I go when the funkiness hits. GOD DAMN, I love finding words that translate my ethereal feelings into the concrete and help me learn about myself. I describe this catch-22 all the time where I know the things I could do to make me feel better (move my body, eat better food, sleep, sit down and do the shit, etc) but the funkiness stops me from feeling like I am capable of doing those things. And my "rational" mind fails me because I KNOW things but somehow I don't/can’t do them. This article really inspired me (hi blog post). This feeling that I felt is what I want to do with my life. I want to create things that give people moments like I experienced today. Art is cool. 

Also, I’ve been looking into Highly Sensitive People (this term feels weird to me, but it’s like A Thing). I’ve always been really sensitive, but it’s been becoming much more pronounced and much less ignorable. Bright and/or flashing lights and loud and/or repetitive sounds really fuck me up, as well as strong smells (especially garlic) and tactile stuff like tags on clothes. Thanks mom! I’ve been gathering more and more of her sensitivities which is kind of a bummer, but I’m glad to be having these conversations with myself at 20 and not later, like she did. I can begin to figure out how I work as a human and how best to serve myself. 

I always joke that my mental health is directly represented in my fingers. I normally have really healthy and long nails but when I get stressed, they start to fray and weaken and I get icky hangnails. I also pick at and pull cuticles and my fingers just end up hurting a bunch. Also, when my mind is elsewhere, I’m pretty prone to paper-cuts. Right now I could put band-aids on seven of my fingers, but I’m about to go to bed and no one wants overnight wrinkly dehydrated fingers. 

But anyway, right now I’m laying in my cloud of a bed staring at my magical mermaid lagoon fairy lights and I just got an 115/100 on my computational linguistics midterm. Life isn’t so bad. 

[saidtheredhead]

whether you like it or not.

Originally posted May 22, 2015. 

Hedwig and the Angry Inch has been playing on Broadway for just over a year now and I’ve had the luck and pleasure of seeing every combination of the rotating cast. At this point, there have been five Hedwigs and two Yitzhaks. Neil Patrick Harris originated the role in this Broadway revival, followed by Andrew Rannells and Michael C. Hall. Next to don the wig was original Hedwig, John Cameron Mitchell. Currently wearing the heels is Darren Criss. Lena Hall played Hedwig’s husband through the first four Hedwigs before passing the leather jacket over to Rebecca Naomi Jones who got to make out with both John Cameron Mitchell and Darren Criss. They just recently announced Darren’s successor: Taye Diggs, beginning July 22nd, for 12 weeks. 

(Note: sometimes I wasn’t sure of the best pronouns to use when talking about these actors who play characters of a different gender. Please excuse any errors and let me know so I can understand/fix them.)

I LOVE this photo. Perfect amount of glitter and grime. There’s a sadness in the eyes and a sexiness in the mouth. The filtering of the photo makes it look almost black and white and I love the bluish green lips. 

Neil Patrick Harris

Neil Patrick Harris holds a special place in my heart because he was the first Hedwig I ever saw on stage. At 41, Harris was a great age to play Hedwig who is in her mid-to-late forties or fifties, at least. The character talks about being in her mid twenties when the Berlin Wall fell. Neil brought a gritty glitz to the role that was thrilling and a little bit uncomfortable, in a good way. The way he kicked and jumped around the Belasco Theatre was shocking—in both explicit content and sheer physical stamina. His choreography in numbers like “Sugar Daddy” was crisply executed and deliciously sinful, while also bringing intricate layers to the more poignant songs like “Hedwig’s Lament.” I am glad his choices were immortalized on the Original Broadway Cast soundtrack. He had a perfect mix of high-caliber vocal skills and raw emotion. One thing I remember about his performance was how skinny he was. His embodiment of the character was really affected by the amount of space he took up. Also, without judging bodies or prescribing “health” to anyone, to me, he was almost scarily skinny and with his age, it added to the grittiness and rawness of the character in an interesting way.

I like this one fine. I like that we can see his nail polish and more of him. For some reason, the pose feels a little too much like a boxer for me. 

Andrew Rannells

I’ll admit I was shocked by this casting announcement and went in a little colored by my skepticism. His performance was precisely what I thought it would be. He rocked all of the high-energy loud and fun anthems like “Tear Me Down” but fell a little flat with the stripped-down emotional songs like “Wicked Little Town.” I honestly think it was a matter of age. He just didn’t have the emotional and physical maturity the role requires at 36. I loved him in Book of Mormon as Elder Price. That role was made for him. I also loved him on Girls and The New Normal. I feel like he brought too much of his pop-ish style to this show. Nowhere near enough rock and roll. It often felt too forced and superficial and his vocals weren’t quite matched to this score. But also to be fair, he had a tough act to follow with Neil and it was unclear at the time that he was part of such an all-star rotating ensemble.

For some reason, Michael had two posters. I like them both. The one on the left feels vulnerable and pained. The closed eyes are interesting since so much of their marketing has to do with the eyes. I like that we can’t see his hair in the tight close-up on the right. The nails matching the lips is a nice touch. His emotive eyes seem semi-seductive semi-sad, in perfect Hedwig fashion. 

Michael C. Hall

This casting choice also seemed to come out of nowhere, but once I heard the name Michael C. Hall, I was thrilled. I’ve been a huge fan of his since Six Feet Under. To this day, he’s my favorite Hedwig. At 44, he had the acting chops and emotional maturity to pull off the sadness and rage, as well as the physical stamina to control the stage and jump around in the frenzied choreography. He really leaned into the sadder and rejected bits. Punk rock: I’m pretty sure he swallowed a cigarette in every show, but I was sitting on the side, so that’s just what I heard from someone else in the audience.

They went a totally different route with John’s poster. I like the paparazzi feel of the faded contact sheet. Hedwig feels more in her element in these little thumbnails. 

John Cameron Mitchell

It’s difficult to compare John Cameron Mitchell to the other Hedwigs, because he is so embedded in the creation and evolution of this character. He starred in the original off-Broadway production and movie, as well as writing the book with Stephen Trask’s music and lyrics and directing the movie. At 52, he is actually the appropriate age to play the role. He has a huge cult following; you couldn’t go to one of his shows without seeing at least one Hed-head, dressed in a perfect replica of Hedwig’s opening costume, usually accompanied by a friend dressed as Yitzhak. For his stint, the design team changed up the costumes and wigs a bit, to make it unique and special for Mitchell. Hedwig’s signature ‘do was more elaborately curled and fluffed, and the acid-washed handprints on the butt were in the shape of rock and roll hands instead of just flat palms. The giant Cyndi Lauper-esque wig was tinged purple instead of pink. Unfortunately, Mitchell hurt his knee early on in his run, and had to perform in a full leg brace for the rest of his run. They revamped the script and choreography to include the injury into the plot. In the world of the show, some unknown assailant kneecapped Hedwig that very morning. He had to spend most of the show sitting in a chair, but they worked in some hilarious puns and jokes involving the crate he needed to elevate his leg. It also added another element into the relationship between Yitzhak and Hedwig. Mitchell made up for any missing energy with his highly intelligent and subtle slow-burning humor. The script is littered with these magical jokes that start off with a little giggle, but just keep building until the big punch line. I’ve seen the show seven times, and there are still some jokes that go over my head with their political and historical references. It really adds a deeper layer to the rock concert of a show. While John wasn’t necessarily my favorite Hedwig in terms of entertainment value, there is no denying he was the most comfortable and deft with the script. Understandably so--he wrote it. He flawlessly executed nonstop series of subtle puns and deep dark one-liners. I am so grateful I got to see him in the role he was born to play/create. It was magic. 

Oof, I REALLY hate this one. It looks so plastic and clean and photoshopped. I don’t like the white background either. It’s too clean and bright. The pose makes his jawline/chin way too prominent, too masculine. The whole thing looks like one of those parody posters where fans photoshop on makeup. It doesn’t fit in with the aesthetic of the show and it doesn’t do Darren justice. The more I look at it, the more I squirm. 

Darren Criss

I was definitely a little worried about this casting choice going in. At 28, he’s the youngest one yet. While I’ve loved him for years, I wasn’t sure he could handle the chops of this show. I saw his opening performance and he totally blew me away. Granted, I tried to go in with as low expectations as I could, so he didn’t have to do much to impress me. He was a little too loud and forceful with some of the subtler jokes, but he had a convincing and moving grasp of the variety of deep feelings. He also brought back a much-needed energy and physicality to the pulsing core of the show. As much as I adore John Cameron Mitchell, the show needs the choreography to really thrive and carry us through the long rambling monologues of exposition. 

Oh lord, Lena Hall is my everything. There’s a video of her getting in her Yitzhak get up and there are so! many! layers! including a packer. And those glittery tights from the drag costume.

Lena Hall

I saw Lena Hall perform with all four of her “wives,” and she was the spirit of the show for me. I loved seeing the ways she adapted to each of them. I am a little bit too in love with her. Her Yitzhak was moodier and more apathetic into the anger of the end. He barely has any lines/solos, but somehow manages to captivate me throughout the whole show with his silence. Also, Lena’s vocals are UNBELIEVABLE. I always loved watching her do the high wailing backup vocals in big numbers with her very masculine physicality. God, I love her. I saw her last show and it was very emotional. I burst into the ugliest tears right at the end when she walks off stage to change. All the audience members on the aisles each presented her with a single rose and I lost it. So did she. Neil, Andrew, and Michael were there, as well as Stephen Trask, and she made a beautiful teary speech that I got on film and then ran off stage to drink her brains out. So glad I was there for that magical night.

I like that they changed up the drag reveal a little bit, but I feel like Lena’s was a little more decadent. I love love love that they decided to keep Rebecca’s natural hair as Yitzhak.

Rebecca Naomi Jones

I was so damn excited when I saw this casting announcement. Woman of color! American Idiot! Even as I was upset about my queen Lena leaving me, I was thrilled about the fresh meat. I’ve seen her twice now, once with John and once with Darren. I think she’s totally killing it. Her Yitzhak is a little sadder and more like a dejected puppy which is an interesting take on the character. I like the rapport she has with Darren, since they’re basically starting fresh with each other. 

Check out Darren Criss at the Belasco Theatre through July 19th and Taye Diggs beginning July 22nd!

[saidtheredhead]

flow it, show it.

Originally posted May 5, 2015. 

Spring has sprung! Body hair! Is a thing! Springtime is always a fun time for me and my body feels. All the cuties are out in force and it’s toasty warm so it’s time for bare legs and potentially tank tops! I don’t shave any of my body hair, so this time brings forward my eternal inner battle between my politics/comfort and my self-conscious internalized beauty standards. 

I don’t shave partly for ~political reasons~ and partly for ~gender feels~ but mostly because of comfort and laziness. I hate the prickliness and upkeep that shaving requires. Also, my leg hair is blonde and not quite as noticeable from far away. Plus the fuzziness feels nice! Especially in a breeze. 

BUUUUT when I’m out in public, I think about it constantly, like “Is everyone staring at my legs?” “Can anyone see my armpit hair peeking out from my t-shirt sleeves?” “Should I keep on my flannel shirt even though I’m super over-heated?” “Oh look, at those clean-shaven smooth gams, they must be judging me/I’m jealous of that silkiness.” 

I often make decisions when buying clothes or deciding on outfits that depend obsessively on these questions. I rarely ever publicly wear my rad “You make me weak in the knees” tanktop that features a pair of legs, cut off and bleeding from the knees. Thank you, Hot Topic. I feel icky wearing shorts and sandals and sometimes wear my sparkly black knee socks instead, even when I’m too hot. 

I’ve rarely had any negative responses from people that warrant these feelings, besides the general dude bro “Heh, you’re a feminist, I bet you have hairy pits and burn bras in your free time! *snortle chuckle*” The ickiness and judgment are just so ingrained in me/society, that it feels like I can’t escape them. 

But all that being said, they haven’t affected me enough to break down and shave! So there’s that! This has been a short feels PSA in the midst of finals life! Go forth and be fuzzy (or not)! <3 

xoxoleah

[saidtheredhead]

family dichotomy.

Originally posted April 10, 2015. Originally written March 9, 2014. 

This is the college essay that I used on the common application. I wrote it about a year ago and I decided that I really wanted this writing to be up online. At first, I edited it with my step-mom, sister, and friends and didn’t let my dad or mom read it which I think made them think it was worse. I just didn’t want to make things weird between us because I’ve never really directly addressed these issues with them. But last night I asked them if they would mind if I posted it and here I am. Enjoy a slightly outdated but also very much still relevant piece of my brain/soul! 

I live many different lives. My parents divorced when I was two and I never remember them together. Every once in a while, I catch a glimpse of why they fell in love, but I always see why they didn’t last and why it went so quickly. My mother and father could not be more different. In every way, they seem to be polar opposites. Take their homes for example. My mother lives in the Hollywood Hills in a concrete, minimalist, Asian-inspired mansion and my father lives in a 1909 Victorian house that has a basement with deer hooves on the wall—from the first owners, naturally.

When I walk into my mom’s house, I see a grey staircase, collaged by my mom with gorgeous scrapbooking paper and the industrial-chic lamps she made with giant light bulbs and plumbing pipes. We have a housekeeper five days a week named Isabel who has been there since I was a wee baby. Everyone eats on their own schedule and comes and goes as they please. There’s an air of independence. My room is my living masterpiece. The walls are covered in art and stickers and there are books on every surface. The room is lit solely by multiple strings of twinkly fairy lights hung from the ceiling. My closet mirror has Disney Princess decals in ranking order from top to bottom. There are some of my favorite movie quotes and song lyrics painted onto my bright orange wall. The room’s décor is constantly changing and growing, like its inhabitant.

When I open the door to my dad’s house, I am greeted by two slobbering dogs, Henry and Emma. Once I’ve wiped the saliva off my legs, I step inside and see the fantastic molding in the old floor with dog scratches from eager running puppies. I can see into the red dining room with the cushy armchairs for seating and our ancestors’ portraits all over the walls. My room is filled with my dad’s screening and interview notes, my baby brother’s toys, my step-mom’s bills and receipts, and everyone’s laundry. I usually stay at my mom’s house so my room at my dad’s house has become a sort of holding cell for stuff and a break from the chaos of the rest of the house. There’s a strict no dog rule inflicted past my doorframe. When I’m there, we usually make a big homemade meal with my brother in the high chair and the dogs trying to get the pity scraps.

Everything’s covered in a layer of dust, but it’s charming. It feels like a lived-in home.

I have a two-beings-sharing-the-same-place sort of relationship with my mom, often to her chagrin. It’s a lot different from the homemade meals and nuclear family vibe that I have at my dad’s with two parents, a sibling, and dogs.

There are a lot of differences in their personalities as well.

My mom is all about change. She moves at the speed of light, picking up comets in her orbit. She’s always running around for some project or another, making it perfect and redesigning and redesigning and still making time to become best friends with the lady buying candles next to her. She’s all about connections. If everyone is six degrees from Kevin Bacon, they’re four degrees from Sophie Chiche. She’s trilingual—I’ve often seen her speak French on the phone to her family, Spanish to our housekeeper, and English to me all in one breath. She’s a moving train and nobody can derail her.

She’s very spiritual. She’s constantly telling me that something will come up and manifest for whatever you ask for, and by golly it works for her. She’s always joking that if she said she wanted to find a man with duck feet and an umbrella head, she would walk into a coffee shop and the first stranger she happened upon would ask her if she wanted to meet their friend with duck feet and an umbrella head. And it does happen all the time. 

Fighting with her is nearly impossible. She has taken many psychology and self-help and new-age courses and books and things and she knows all the lingo to sound like she knows what she’s talking about. As a kid we would only fight every so often but it would be an explosion. She would word-vomit all over me and it felt like she was 120% right because the words sounded right. Then she would calm down and come back to me and apologize for being out of line. In those fights, I couldn’t think of anything to respond to such well-formulated thoughts. I just shut down and take it all in. I could always think of a good response afterwards but by then, she’d have moved on to the next thing and I wouldn’t want to dredge anything up. I have a really hard time articulating my feelings as a young adult.

My dad is rooted more in the past. I’ve never met anyone who knows more about old movies, old houses, old history. And I’ve never met anyone quite so passionate either. An INCREDIBLE writer. Obituaries of glamorous old movie stars, heartbreaking personal stories, genius movie reviews. There’s no one better. Phobia of change. New things are scary. It’s easier for him to just let the world turn how it is and follow along. He’s led one way or another by the strong women of his life. From my strong? Domineering? mother to my step-mother to me, he sure knows how to pick them.

He abhors conflict and dealing with confrontation. I was often a middle-man between my mom’s conflict-hungry philosophy and my dad’s avoidance.

Money: My mom is often extravagant beyond her means and loves to be comfortable. She will always valet her car if it’s available. She has classy tastes and cares deeply about style and beauty. My dad once broke his foot trying to find a free parking spot. My step-mom keeps rigorous accounting records and tracks every single penny that slips through their fingers. I find myself somewhere between the two. I try to be frugal in general but also fine splurging on theater tickets or books or a good meal.

My mother cares deeply about appearance and style. My dad doesn’t know what fashion is.

I’m so grateful to have been exposed to such polar ends of the spectrum. I got to see how different choices and personalities play out in the real world and now I can pick and choose what parts of me to bring forward into my adult life. I think it has really shaped me into the well-rounded person I am, for better or for worse.

When I want to curl up in bed and watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade every year while the turkey roasts downstairs, I can pop over to my dad’s house. When I want to go on a shopping spree and gossip over lunch, I meet up with my mom. When my mom’s being crazy and irrational and I need a breather, I can go play Bananagrams with my dad and stepmom. When my step-mom is driving me crazy and the house is dusty and Charlie is screaming, I can escape to the zen garden in my mom’s backyard.

My dad gave me a respect and a fascination with history and what came before us. He inspired my greatest passion, musical theater, by embedding thousands of show tunes in my head as lullabies.

My mom fostered in me a strong sense of self and independence and the tools to figure life out. She instilled in me the importance of design and thoughtfulness of appearance.

xoxoleah