ANECDOTLE

An essay anthology inspired by

Natalie Albaran ‘22 Professional Writing Minor Capstone University of California, Los Angeles June 10, 2022

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Table of Contents Preface…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…4 Month……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….6 Michael from the Mailroom……………………………………………………………………………………………..…8 Rules Don’t Apply: Stairs and the Myth of Meritocracy…………………………………………….………….12 Silly Little Honey Lavender Oat Milk Latte (with light ice)………………………………………………..….16 How to take a picture for your new license*………………………………………………………………………..18 Having Kids: a (mostly) irreversible (and entirely irresponsible) decision……………….…………….20 Stuck Keysss……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………26

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4 Preface Hello! My name is Natalie Albaran, and if you were to reduce my life story to one paragraph, it would go like this: Natalie Albaran (she/her) is a storyteller from southeast Michigan whose go- to fun fact is that she is a triplet. Her goal is to be a published essayist, and she will be graduating from UCLA in June 2022 with a degree in Communications and minors in Professional Writing and Asian American Studies. She is a biracial egg donor baby who was raised in the midwest as the child of Filipino immigrants. This, among other experiences, is what informs what she writes about and why she writes, which are usually personal essays where she unpacks her life and her perspectives. Currently, Natalie is a peer counselor for Samahang Pilipino Education and Retention at UCLA, and an advisor for Samahang Modern, a competitive dance team at UCLA. In her fleeting spare time, she can be found sleeping, reading, or watching comedy specials.

Other than this paragraph, my goal in this introduction is not so much to introduce myself, as this anthology packs a lot of information about who I am and what I believe all by itself.

I will, however, take a moment to introduce Wordle.

Wordle is a daily word game that was bought by the New York Times in February of 2022, about 5 months after Wordle debuted in October 2021.

The gist of the game is that you have 6 guesses to guess the 5 letter word of the day, and if the letters you used are in the word, they will be highlighted in yellow. If the letter is in the right place, it will be highlighted in green. If the letter box remains color-less, then you know that letter is not in the word!

On the right, you can see a screenshot of a Wordle game. I’m rather proud of this one because it was one of the rare occasions that I guessed the Wordle in 3 instead of struggling to get it in 6.

The beauty of Wordle is that so many people use different strategies to get to the word. Some guess randomly because they enjoy a challenge, and others guess words like “adieu”, to see what vowels are in the word; or “stone”, to see if any of the most common letters are in the words. This game on the right was from the month of March, which is Women’s History Month, where I decided that I would give the New York Times 31 days chances to prove themselves a feminist. I guessed “women” as my first guess for the entirety of that month. “Women” was never the answer to the Wordle, and some people may think I’m reaching, but it was giving misogynist energy.

But I digress.

5 I personally love words and games that require strategies which is why I fell in love with Wordle.

It gives structure to my nocturnal habits and gives me a sense of passing time which, yes, could be done by checking the clock more often. But this is more fun and entertaining anyways. It has helped me expand my vocabulary, and it has also helped me exercise my brain, especially when I’m getting to my last two guesses and I only know 2 letters for sure.

At the end of the day, though, Wordle is a game that reminds people, regardless of age, sex, gender, race, or class, that we can all be humbled by 5 letter words.

The genesis of this project was a rather uninspired, but stressful night. I had an essay due, and the only prompt was, “write what you want to write about.” I was struggling. I knew I always had a bunch of stories to tell, but nothing was pulling a story out of me. So, naturally, like any good UCLA student, I procrastinated. It had just turned midnight, which is when the Wordle resets, so as I stared at my screen trying to figure out what 5 letter word starts with M, O, and N, suddenly, my writer’s block was no longer. I had an idea for my paper which was already overdue. I would write about how struggling to guess the word “month” was a deeply humbling experience for someone who had just been complimented on her use of “meandering” about 6 hours earlier.

This project was also on my mind, and I had no idea what I was going to do for it. But writing about Wordle, and realizing that Wordle was, in fact, a daily occurrence, gave me an idea. The intention would be that I would write an essay a day, and each one would be inspired by the Wordle in some shape or form, whether it was the literal definition of the word, the circumstances around me actually solving the Wordle, or some random word association that only made sense to me.

My intention with this project is that I wanted to tell my stories. I am a storyteller, and if you talk to my friends or family, you will surely find that if given the chance, I will talk your ear off, telling stories big and small: what I call practicing for a comedy special that will never happen.

While I cannot claim that I had the time nor the discipline to actually get one essay done each day during my final quarter at UCLA, I was able to finish a few essays. I hope, though, in the future, to continue this project in the form of a blog or some other published endeavor. But for now, I have an anthology that I am very proud of. I hope you enjoy reading.

6 Month the essay that started it all

Earlier this week, my coworkers and I went out for a staff dinner at The Boiling Crab. As the local driving aficionado, I offered to drive and pick up a couple people in my glamorous 2009 Ford Focus that still has the faint smell of a retired U.S. Marine with an addiction to cats and cigarettes, in that order. (I am open to any vacuum recommendations you may have.) As I was about to leave my apartment, I did my obligatory pee-just-in-case and from my more or less hygienically questionable positionality, I texted that I was on the way to pick up my first passenger.

J: okay nat can u give me like 7 minutes dhsjdbje No worries I’m meandering my way out V: i like that verb A: Bro fr needa talk to nat more A: I be expanding my vocabulary every time

To be completely honest, though, my usage of the word “meandering” was intended to be more sarcastic. Or funny? I didn’t get any “haha” reactions to my message, but at least to me, I thought using an inappropriately long word to say “I’ll take my time” was more entertaining. In my head, it sounded like I was a cowboy with a twang in his voice– “I–yim may-yan-der-in’ mye way aht”. Honestly, writing this feels like I’m painfully trying to explain a joke to a group of friends who are politely entertaining my incoherent thoughts, but at least I can go to sleep tonight knowing I at least tried to explain to my classmates that my intention while texting is not really to use the biggest words possible but to try to make jokes (and end up failing miserably).

Now, writing the aforementioned story within the context of an English class also feels a bit… pretentious? Grandiose? Self congratulatory? Setting high expectations that I will inevitably fail to meet?

One of the more popular (and humbling) methods of vocabulary expansion I’ve encountered recently is wordle. I’m someone who does the Wordle, quordle, octordle, sedordle, and semantle as soon as she realizes it is a new day (or 4pm for the semantle). Even if I feel like I have nothing to live for, my will to live can be boiled down to whether or not I have the daily opportunity to stubbornly stare at my screen and be relentlessly humbled by 5 letter words.

Today’s Wordle was “month”.

Though not necessarily a marker of vocabulary expansion, it was nonetheless a humbling experience. I guessed “monty” before I guessed “month”. I don’t even know what “monty” means. All that comes to mind is Monty Python and even then, the only thing I’d be able to tell

7 you about it is that my brother likes it. Or has talked about it? Or has mentioned it in passing? I don’t even know. I subsequently tried to guess “monti”, “monta”, “montu”, and “monto” before even considering “month”. The only reason I didn’t max out on guesses was because, while Wordle apparently loves non- American English words (bloke and rupee were equally humbling experiences) it will not accept fake words. Thank God because I could not handle the embarrassment of sending “ Wordle 263 X/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛🟨⬛🟨 🟩⬛🟨🟨⬛ 🟨🟨🟨⬛🟨 🟩🟩⬛🟨⬛ 🟩🟩⬛🟩⬛ to my numerous wordle group chats.

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8 Michael from the Mailroom Inspired by “smelt”

I once knew this guy named Michael. He worked in the mailroom, and I worked in “housing safety”, which, for those of you unfamiliar with the housing safety community at UCLA, meant that we were underpaid security guards. During the pandemic, we were security guards, janitor proxies, covid testing assistants, and fillers for the mailroom staff when they had to go off campus to the graduate family housing. Basically, if UCLA Housing & Hospitality was understaffed, we were the bodies that were plugged in so the operation could move along.

Mailroom shifts were my favorite. Before the pandemic hit, I just had to sit at a desk and scan people’s cards in and make sure there wasn’t anybody suspicious. The worst nights were the ones when residents were disrespectful or a freshman vomited at your feet, but honestly, it was a small and easy price to pay to do homework and get a paycheck for doing it. I happily paid the freshman-vomit-tax and got on with my night. $16 an hour PLUS a night shift differential made the midwestern girl I am feel like I was on the fast track to becoming a millionaire.

After the pandemic hit, though, my job became pointless. Though I hesitate to call it generosity on behalf of UCLA, I will say that I was very fortunate to keep my job and therefore a source of income. We worked at night and it wasn’t pleasant working 30-40 hour work weeks while still in school and rarely seeing the sun, but every time I started drafting my 2 weeks’ notice, a paycheck would drop and I suddenly didn’t mind being a cog in a capitalistic machine. But because people moved out of the dorms and those that stayed moved into the dorms that didn’t require my security guard presence, my coworkers and I were moved elsewhere.

Everyday when we’d clock in at 8:28pm, 2 minutes before our 8:30pm call time, we’d speculate about what task we’d be given for the night. Usually it was patrolling the dorms and making sure there were no suspicious activities or broken lights (It was 97% broken lights, 2% ghost stories, and 1% suspicious activities, but that’s neither here nor there). But sometimes, we’d get sent to the mailroom.

I remember the first time I was sent to the mailroom. I’d heard good things about it- how, when the student supervisors were driving, sometimes they’d stop by 7/11 on the way back and get snacks, and how it was so much more fun and easier than patrolling the hill. Everyone was sitting in the main meeting room waiting for our assignments for the night, and my name was listed under “mailroom” on the whiteboard. The pandemic had put everyone into a state of bored monotony, and the novelty of going somewhere that wasn’t my apartment, the same dorms, or Ralph’s was exciting.

Everyone hopped in the car, and we started driving. It was dark and I had no idea where we were going, but after about 20 minutes, we arrived in a large condo complex. Our supervisor said “bye” to us, then drove away. And then it was me and 3 other members of the staff– 2 people from the mailroom who actually knew what they were doing, and two people from housing safety- just here for the vibes. The task was simple. Fedex and Amazon Prime delivery drivers would often drop packages by the P.O. Boxes by the doors leading into the condo complex, but

9 the packages were getting stolen. So, it was our job to gather the packages and deliver them directly to the door of the address listed on the package. Legal obligations and ethics aside, it was a decently brain- stimulating task that was different from everything I had been doing, and we knew that if we did this quick enough, we could just sit around and talk until our shift was over, or if we walked slowly enough, we’d be able to justify staying for a long time and therefore not work later. Either way, it was a win.

Like most other jobs of this nature, the most fun parts about it were (1) when we were on the clock but doing nothing and (2) getting to hang out and talk with my coworkers. The great thing about meeting people at a job is that, unlike clubs or classes, the thing that brought you together wasn’t necessarily a common hobby, interest or passion. Or at least not in the traditional sense.

What’s great is that the thing that brought you together is your common interest in money.

Everything else is up for debate and the people I met on the job were people I would’ve never met otherwise. And everyone was so incredibly interesting. I heard about the drama in people’s lives (anything from annoying roommates to shocking life stories), the covid scares, their favorite music, and everything in between. When our phones died, there was nothing better to do than to pick the brain of the person you were standing next to, and the people I was surrounded by were so incredibly interesting.

Michael was on the mailroom staff. I didn’t know him well, but all I knew was that he seemed like a pretty chill dude and everyone got along with him. Though people would often have really interesting conversations with each other, tonight was a more reticent night when the most interesting topic of conversation were our greetings to each other and then we’d go on TikTok or Twitter. But when we got picked up to go back to campus after our shift, everyone suddenly got more talkative. It might’ve been my supervisor’s presence, or something else- I don’t know.

But Michael’s friend who was the other person on mailroom staff who was present casually mentioned that Michael’s didn’t have a sense of smell. This was before losing your sense of smell was a classic indicator of having covid- so our initial reaction wasn’t one of “oh shit get away from me,” it was one of genuine interest and intrigue. And also, because it was about 1 or 2 in the morning, a little bit of ridicule. I was sitting shotgun, and my supervisor and I could just not stop laughing. Let me be clear- we weren’t laughing at Michael. We were laughing at all the things he started telling us after his friend mentioned his lack of smell.

We were about half way back to the dorms- home base- and we started bombarding the poor man with questions. We found out that he had never had a sense of smell, so he didn’t know that he didn’t have that sense until well into his elementary school years. He and his classmates had gone to a museum that talked about the 5 senses, and at the smell booth, when a scent would be released, it was the students’ job to correctly identify the smell. Something about picturing small, 7-year-old Michael looking at his options and frantically choosing “lemon” for a smell that was, to everyone else, clearly coffee, was hysterical, and my supervisor and I cried with laughter.

As I walked home that morning, though, I started thinking of the times where the random question had been posed, “If you had to lose one of your five senses, which would it be?” And rather quickly, the answer I’d give (and hear) most often would be smell. Smell is the most

10 underrated of all five of our senses, and I’ll tell you why. When I think of losing my sense of smell, I think of losing my ability to smell pine trees, freshly cut grass, and the smell of the promise of rain in the midwest. I think of losing the ability to smell garlic and onions being fried up and the smell of a pie in the oven. As romantic and as beautiful as these things are, I do not think of losing my ability to smell a possible fire. Or to smell rotting food. Or the myriad of other smell- related red flags that help our survival. I also don’t think of the prank potential that Michael illuminated to me and everyone in the car: the ability to fart around others and not suffer the consequences. To drop bombs and still be standing after they blow. Also a poetic and slightly romantic way to view it. They always say, whoever smelt it dealt it but if that’s true, if you can’t smelt it, you couldn’t have dealt it.

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12 Rules Don’t Apply: Stairs and the Myth of Meritocracy Inspired by “stair”

When you look at landmarks and buildings, and you see the stairs, do you ever wonder what’s missing? Is there anything missing at all? What could possibly be missing from the picturesque view of the Supreme Court? The Lincoln Memorial? Kuruvungna (formerly Janss) Steps at UCLA? The Great Wall of China? These works of art have aesthetic value but are first and foremost a practical device: stairs are meant to connect two levels of different heights.

Stairs are seemingly made to connect. They’re for everyone! Allegedly.

But for whom is this connection actually a connection? Stairs, while a seeming minor obstacle to scale hills or reach statues, at the end of the day, is a marker of levels. It is a marker of hierarchy. It is a marker of who can use it and who cannot. For people with disabilities (especially physical or mobility disabilities), stairs are often not as much a marker of connection but a marker of, at best, inconvenience, but mostly inaccessibility and separation. Othering. For some, there might as well be a wall.

Is there a way someone with a physical disability could make it up stairs? Yes, technically, whether it be someone literally carrying them up, or them working significantly harder than able- bodied people to push past the pain or the ways their bodies cannot move. Are many places “wheelchair accessible” on a technicality? Yes. But at what cost?

Take UCLA for example. To the best of my knowledge, if someone in a wheelchair wants to get to the top of Kuruvungna Steps, the only option available to them besides getting into a car and parking at a different parking lot is to go all the way to the business school (Anderson) and take an elevator there (that was only installed within the last couple years, I may add!). There are options to go through the convoluted Chutes and Ladders situation that connects Bruin Walk and Powell Library, but on a realistic note (as well as a humanizing one) how fair or equitable is that commute? Students (and people in general) are busy, and while I have not found it the most enjoyable, each time I have had to sprint from my dorm, the parking lot, or a class to another obligation of mine, sprinting up and down stairs expedited the process– it didn’t hinder it. Was I out of breath and unable to pretend to be hot and mysterious as I panted my way through the door of my class? Absolutely. But I wasn’t required to take some convoluted path that made me even later than I was going to be in the first place.

In thinking about this, I tried to figure out some novel metaphor- what the equivalent of the Glass Ceiling (or Bamboo Ceiling) was for people with disabilities. What was the metaphorical ceiling made out of? And then I realized that I didn’t need to coin some new term. Stairs were it.

The “Ceiling” is not a ceiling whatsoever. It’s literally stairs.

When women (or any other marginalized groups) are dealing with invisible ceilings that hinder their growth, they are made to think that they’re doing something wrong. Maybe they’re not working hard enough. Maybe they’re not competent or qualified. But recognition of the Glass Ceiling is recognition of the institutional (or infrastructural) barriers that make it so women and

13 members of marginalized groups can’t transcend to the top. Questioning their perception of their own value is what happens when a society is marketed to be a meritocracy. If society is truly a meritocracy– a society that only looks at everyone’s merit– it only follows that people who don’t get the best jobs (or other things) don’t have the qualities that the person who did get the job does. But– and I can only truly speak for the U.S.– a meritocracy, while it is what some people strive for, is a myth. Furthermore, what defines “merit”? According to Google, merit is “the quality of being particularly good or worthy.” What is “good”? What is “worthy”?

Te ways that “merit” can be defined often reveals certain biases that different people have. While some traits such as patience, empathy, and logic are pretty uncontroversial in terms of encompassing “merit”, other definitions of merit may come to mind. A certain gender. A certain sexuality. A certain race, ethnicity, or nationality. A certain physical capability.

In talks about getting ahead and excelling in whatever field someone finds themself in, people will say, “Nothing is impossible”, or “If you wanted to, you would.” While I believe there is truth in these statements, it requires contextualization. Yes, anyone can do anything, but the paths to those achievements are not created equally. Even if they were, everyone’s toolkits vary so widely that blanket statements like these come off as more condescending than encouraging.

College, for example, is advertised as an academic (and sometimes holistic) endeavor; assessing people on their intellect and pre- collegiate achievements. But if the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal, among other generally accepted truths regarding legacies and how much money and social status actually does influence admissions, means anything, it’s that the path is advertised to be the same: get good grades, be a good student, and do a lot of extracurriculars.

However, students’ toolkits (or perhaps, more appropriately, wallets and socioeconomic privileges) are far from equal.

I am not suggesting that we live in a society where we control everything- where everyone is equal in every facet of their lives. That’s utterly absurd. But empathy and wider recognition of the ways that things advertised as accessible are actually significantly more inaccessible to some leads to increased understanding and generally less contention. Instead of getting angry that somebody didn’t make it up the stairs, period, recognizing that said person is in a wheelchair invalidates any potential anger that someone could have without the context. Instead of getting pissed off that somebody didn’t pay a Venmo request immediately, recognizing that they may not have the same economic disposition as you or that today, rent was due and they’ll need to wait until next paycheck, is imperative to not blow up over something that, contextualized, is pretty reasonable.

In conjunction with wider recognition of people’s individual situations should be the removal of implicit or unspoken criteria for admission or entry into different spaces. If there is a standard, economic or not, let it be known. Was someone taken out of the running because they are of a certain physical (in)capability? Sexual orientation? Gender? Race? Nationality? If verbalizing that standard sounds unjustifiable, or if making the standard public feels like a bad PR move, maybe it’s time for some reflection. Furthermore, if it’s advertised that the “rules apply to everybody”, I have to ask– how consistently are those rules enforced? Ruling with an iron fist is

14 not my suggestion, but if standards are enforced on an inconsistent or contradictory basis, how justified are they to begin with?

Personally, I believe that not everything needs to be codified in some rulebook or document to be taken seriously, and there are definitely exceptions that I am not thinking of, but in matters like voting, college admissions, job interviews, or even assessing people on a individual or group basis, recognition of personal and institutional biases and how those biases influence decision making processes is crucial.

I will also say that learning to not take things personally is also an incredibly valuable skill, and not entirely outside the realm of this discussion. However, it’s undeniable that in some circumstances, as impersonal as someone may take the decision, the decision has real ramifications in their very personal life. Not taking a job rejection personally may be good for your mental health and separating your worth as a person from your worth as a worker, but if the reason for the rejection is some unspoken standard advertised under the ambiguous moniker of “merit”, it is completely reasonable to feel aggrieved, or even cheated. More grim is what these inconsistencies mean within the context of the justice system. Encounters with the law are, ostensibly, reflections of the crime, but why is it that Ethan Crumbley, the student that killed 4 students and injured 8 more at Oxford High School, was detained? Detained. Alive. But Grand Rapids resident Patrick Lyoya lost his life over a traffic stop?

Deconstruction of biases and institutional injustices is one of the many steps necessary to improving society as a whole. These biases will only be revealed once we look at the myriad of stories and perspectives that have not been listened to or recognized. To me, sometimes it feels like we give more deference to the United States Constitution than the stories and beliefs of the people standing right in front of us. Those people who give more deference to a document written in 1787 have the same logic as the people who think that the Bible, verbatim, should have any bearing on what people, living more than 3000 years after the events in the book [supposedly] happened, do. Great! We have documents written by people who do not have nearly as much knowledge or perspective as we have in the present day! And we still, somehow, give them more credibility and authority because… Why? I’m not suggesting that there aren’t good ideas in the Bible, the United States Constitution, or any other piece of text written on yellowing parchment or animal hide. What I am saying, though, is that deifying those words or refusing to recognize their issues only obstructs any sort of progress or recognition of truth.

Yes, the founders of the United States as we know it said that “All men were created equal”, and some people would argue that they created a system of government that honored that sentiment.

But when you recognize that these were the same people who committed mass genocide against the people who lived here originally, and built an entire economy based on slavery, among other egregious violations of human rights, it becomes less about the statement and what they released in “official correspondences”, and more about how it actually manifested.

15 Intention is great, but at the end of the day, how did that intention actually come off? Did the government actually set up infrastructure and institutions that recognized that all men [and women] were created equal? Or did these institutions only cater to white male landowners?

These institutions still exist today, but people who are not white, male, and/or straight will be told that they are not working hard enough and that is why they are not succeeding within the framework, or system, of the United States. That could be a valid criticism if the terms and conditions were created with them in mind. But they weren’t.

While expecting perfection and exact precision in language is a standard that is both unrealistic and unreasonable, it must be noted that marketing is not the only industry that engages in false advertising. Policy making and other enterprises that claim to cater to “everyone” need to ask themselves, “What do we mean by “everyone”?” and “Who actually is “everyone”?”. The first question yields a more precise answer regarding who the target audience is, and the space between the answers to both questions reveals the opportunity to potentially revisit some old beliefs and biases. Pleasing everybody is a nearly impossible task, but the problems of catering to everybody are thwarted when the imprecise and misleading claim of “for everyone” is avoided entirely.

16 Silly Little Honey Lavender Oat Milk Latte (with light ice) Today is a big day. This is the 100th Wordle I've played! (not to be mistaken for my 100th consecutive day of Wordles- I’ve slacked a little bit. Oops.)

Also I’m back in Michigan for the second weekend in a row because my sister is graduating.

We woke up this morning and went out for coffee. The original plan was Bigby Coffee. But we switched it up so we could go to a coffee shop unique to East Lansing, Michigan. We were in pursuit of the “local” experience, if you will. Considering it was finals week at this semestersystem school (which was novel to me, as someone who is only half way through spring quarter), it was apparently teacher and student appreciation week for Foster Coffee, which meant that, with an ID, teachers and students could get 25% and 15% off their beverages, respectively. My sister provided her email, and I provided my UCLA ID to the cashier and we secured our 15% off coffee order.

As we walked away, though, I looked down at my UCLA ID and thought out loud to my sister (it probably (definitely) sounded pretentious and needlessly cerebral for a coffee shop at 12pm on a Friday), “ID’s are kinda ridiculous, aren’t they? They’re just a colorful card that has numbers and letters on it stating that you belong to a certain institution.” While self- awareness of my pretentiousness didn’t stop me from starting my thought, the shame from that awareness did stop me from continuing.

However, I continued to think, “I just presented this ID from my California college to a cashier in the Midwest. I don’t know her story, and maybe she’s seen a lot of UCLA ID’s, but I could literally make a card that had a random barcode, a random string of numbers, my name, the name of a random (or made up) college, and a picture of me and some landmark at said college and she wouldn’t have known the difference. Or at least, if it were me, I wouldn’t have questioned it.”

The idea that IDs and documents like it can carry so much meaning (getting you a 15% discount at a coffee shop or crossing borders) is such a wild concept if you really think about it. Here I am in this silly little coffee shop, with my silly little credit card with money you can’t even see, paying for my silly little coffee, and presenting my silly little ID that somehow gives me the authority to ask for a silly little discount on my silly little honey lavender oat milk latte with light ice. It’s kinda laughable.

No more than 5 minutes later, I received a notification from my family’s Wordle group chat: a reminder that I too needed to do it. Today’s Wordle? Badge.

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18 How to take a picture for your new license* Inspired by “renew”

*or really, any ID If you actually want a nice picture: - Get a good skincare routine. I was never formally taught what makes a good skin care routine, but what I do and what I can tell you is this: cleanser, toner, moisturizer, and sunscreen/SPF. AT THE VERY LEAST, and in that order. I know there’s people who do exfoliators, serums, and other things that make me wonder if our skin care routines are what truly differentiate us from our neanderthal ancestors and if that is truly anything to celebrate. But yes. At the very least, cleanser, toner, moisturizer, and sunscreen. It’s done me wonders.

- Don’t argue with anyone the night before. Especially your dad. Your dad has a way of getting underneath your skin as his hard headed daughter that no one else has, and much to your dismay, your stubbornness and confidence in your beliefs, whatever your stance in the argument may be, will not be enough to stop you from crying. There is one thing you have to learn and it is this: you cannot change or fix other people. You can only appeal to logic and empathy, but at the end of the day, you cannot change others, and you cannot take on the responsibility of doing such.

- Drink water! Another important component of skincare but inner beauty = outer beauty.

And also hydration means wrinkles later instead of sooner! So more attractive license pictures and for longer.

To cheat the system (Chaperone recommended**): - Get drunk or high (Or cry. Cry alot!) before taking your picture. Any one you choose (or combine! You adventurous son of a bitch.) will yield an unbecoming picture that you will inevitably deny looks like you. I regret to inform you that it will, in fact, look like you, but at least you have a fun story about the time you were at the DMV drunk/high/both.

Crying is not as much of a fun story, but at least you know that you’re not as ugly as your license will try to claim.

- This works in a couple ways: - (1) If you ever need to present your ID when you are worse for wear (e.g. you’re trying to get into a club but you’ve already pre-gamed a little too hard or any other circumstance where your ID and faking/ imitating sobriety is involved), voilà! Your ID has your “everyday” face on it. And if anyone wants to say, “This is what you usually look like?”, well, the asshole is clear in that situation.

- That being said, drink responsibly! While I support fun, I do not endorse drunk driving or any other version of endangering others!

- (2) You have a great “before” picture, for whatever the “after” may be. Maybe having a reminder of it may not be the best idea for you, personally, but having that “before” picture yields a very illuminating conversation when people show their true colors about how they felt about your looks before your transformation.

Or maybe you’re wearing something that was fashionable for the time and now you can get a good laugh. Maybe this is just a personal note for me, but before I

19 am a sensitive snowflake who would prefer to not know the unsavory part of peoples’ thoughts, I am one nosy ass bitch. I want to know all the details. Get me my whiteboard. We’re gonna timeline this. I got my notebook on the side for extra notes, and a pad of sticky notes for the facts that we won’t get until later but we’ll have to fit into the notebook somehow. Keep talking about how your mom’s ex-boyfriend’s ex is a bitch but now dating your dad. And how your cousin gave you the inside scoop on the drama in her girlfriend’s family. I want to know it all.

Give me the map of the drama, then give me your thoughts. I eavesdrop. I don’t do anything with the information, rest assured, but I am curious. They say curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. I am said cat. If an unflattering ID picture yields conversation where I can learn what people really think, sign me the fuck up. **Chaperone required only if drugs are involved, but if you’ve cried so much that you would need emotional support, call your homies up! We’re not suffering in silence in 2022, bitches, bros, and non-binary hoes! Get the support you need!

Author’s note: The Wordle that inspired this piece was “renew”, and my first thought was my experience renewing my driver’s license picture when I turned 21. The original intention of this piece was to be a satirical take on steps to renewing your license. However, upon completion of this piece, I definitely see it as a not- very- successful experiment in humor, satire, and form.

While I know that this is far from the best thing that I have written, I still wanted to include it in this anthology for a few reasons. Firstly, as an exercise in confronting my perfectionist tendencies. I often hold myself to the impossible standard of perfection in what I write and how I write, which often leads me to not write at all, or not share what I write. For someone who wants to be a writer, I understand how ironic this is and how it really only creates a hindrance in my ability not only to grow, but to fulfill that goal. Secondly, I wanted to share this piece more or less publicly (as public as a capstone project could be) as proof (to myself) of my effort, and as a reminder to myself that, in Yoda’s words, “Do or do not, there is no try.” While this piece may be a flop in many regards, I am hoping that it will serve as a step towards potentially doing something that is more successful (humor, satire, or form- wise) in the future.

20 Having Kids: a (mostly) irreversible (and entirely irresponsible) decision Inspired by “stove”

I don’t know if you have a ranking of different types of stoves, but here’s mine: 1. Gas stove: This is what I grew up with. You can see the flame, and you can make it go as big or as little as you want pretty immediately. Good for making s’mores, too. Easy, fairly beginner friendly, and it works wonders when your power goes out as long as you have a lighter.

2. Wood burning stove: personally, I have never used one, but I like bonfires, which is basically the wood burning part without the stove. Right? Also the aesthetic (and smell) is very nice.

3. Electric stoves: Fairly easy to clean (I think?) but also how are you supposed to know how hot it is? Like yes the dials will tell you, but still… how? You’re telling me that I’m just going to have to trust what the dial says and trust that, even though I can’t really see a physical representation of the heat (i.e. the size or color of the flames like on a gas stove), that my food will cook and not burn? Don’t like it. Don’t like it one bit.

If my opinion on electric stoves tells you anything, it may tell you this: I don’t trust many people or things. This is something that I’ve been working on. While doing some mediocre selfpsychoanalyzing is something I don’t seek to do, I will say this: I am a firm believer that, at the end of the day, there is nobody you can truly trust to have your best interest in mind besides you.

Not even your parents, not even your significant other, and not even any person whom you hold in high regard. I am a triplet, and I will be the first person to tell you that I’d trust my triplet siblings with my life and most decisions that matter. But I will also be the first to disclaim that statement and say that at the end of the day, I can only truly trust myself.

This perspective is a really strange one. At least a strange one for me to have, at least. For someone who can often be (and used to be 100% of the time) very self- loathing, trusting myself is a fairly novel concept. It’s kinda funny though. I only truly trust one person in this world– me– but it’s also someone whom I hate 99% of the time. It’s an irony and and truly cognitively dissonant. I have no explanation for it, besides the analogy of, “Only I can have something bad to say about myself. Only I can say that I’m loud, annoying, selectively confrontational, and anxious. Nobody else can say that.” The self awareness I have about myself can only be expressed by me. Is this censorship? Probably. Is it a measure to protect my feelings and my feelings only? Most definitely. Is it healthy? Debatable.

Trust truly is a one of a kind thing. With it, so much is possible. Community. Relationships.

Accomplishing goals. Dividing and distributing responsibilities. Without it, or once it’s broken; nothing.

Trust, in all of its forms, is the bridge that connects us as people. Some of these bridges are much older and stronger and carry the weight of personal, life- changing responsibilities: money, caretaking, meeting basic needs, emotional support, etc. Others are not as strong but still carry the weight of professional or acquaintance- level responsibilities: getting tasks done for a group

21 project, meeting a deadline for work, carpooling and being on time, or fulfilling the Venmo request when someone covered the entire dinner bill.

In my not very scientifically verified opinion, our most fundamental understanding of trust comes from our relationship with our parents. They were the ones who made the (mostly) irreversible (and entirely irresponsible) decision to bring us into this world. Some of us have the blessing of a great relationship with our parents, and some of us have the back- breaking burden of an impeccable sense of humor. A not so great relationship with our parents is the price we pay.

Growing up, my parents put an emphasis on trust– more specifically, their hatred of lying, and their staunch belief in a few things: 1. If you lie to someone, you will break the trust they had in you.

2. Omitting the truth is still lying.

3. Once trust is broken, it is incredibly difficult to rebuild.

While I do make an effort to explore gray areas and reinforce the idea that nothing is black and white, I agree with these two things very strongly. Now, would I say that all lies are bad? No. Omitting truth and white lies are still lies, but I definitely agree that there are times and places for it. But is it still lying? Absolutely. And if someone to whom you omit the truth or tell a white lie wants to call you out for lying, or wants to say that your lie broke their trust, they would be entirely within their right. Granted, is lying about how bad a bad haircut actually is as bad as, say, cheating on a partner? Objectively, that’s not a hard call, but I believe most people are reasonable.

All my point is, is that we operate in gray areas every day, and by doing so, we take risks. We take these risks while hoping– trusting– people to see where we’re coming from and trusting them to understand what we mean. Whenever you tell a joke– I like how comedian Hasan Minhaj put it– you’re trusting that your audience can differentiate between satire and sincerity.

Context is everything, and that is what gives us the flexibility to be in gray areas without boxing everything into “right” or “wrong.”

Assessing the context is what makes it easier to interpret what is actually malicious, but at the end of the day, none of us can read anybody else’s mind, and all we have to work with is the information we have at hand and trust, defined as the “firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.” Trust is what allows us to be vulnerable with people, but it is also what we fall back on when we make mistakes. When we make mistakes or go out on a limb, we trust that another person believes that we are well- intentioned.

We only have the words spoken, the actions acted, the things we’ve heard, our biases that stem from our experiences, and trust. And some things are easy to recover from- bad jokes, white lies, small omissions of truth. Others are not.

22 One thing that really pisses me off is my generation’s (or the present world’s) gross misuse of the word “gaslighting.”

The term comes from the 1944 film, Gaslight, which features Paula, an opera singer who moves in with her husband, Gregory, after a whirlwind romance. (Major spoiler alert) Paula is unaware of two things: 1) that Gregory is the man who murdered her aunt, and 2) Gregory’s real name is Sergis. And so starts the manipulation. Gregory starts to isolate his wife from the outside world, claiming that it’s good for her anxiety surrounding the trauma of her aunt’s death when she was a teenager. He’s incredibly possessive and controlling, and accuses her of being a kleptomaniac, even stooping so low as to plant “stolen” possessions of his in her things and making a big show of “discovering” that she had stolen them. One of the more subtle points of manipulation, though, is when Paula notices that the gaslight is dimming for no apparent reason. Gregory insists that it is just her imagination, while concealing the fact that it had been him changing the brightness of the light. Gregory’s goal is this: convince Paula that she’s going mad, get her institutionalized, gain power of attorney as her husband, and get rich.

While the ending is outside the scope of this essay, I will quell your fears, dear reader, that, even though Paula was really questioning her perception of reality and her sanity, Gregory’s plan did not eventually succeed.

The term gaslighting is defined as to “manipulate (someone) into questioning their own sanity.”

The important part- the part that gets forgotten- is “questioning their own sanity.”

If someone lies to you and you know they’re lying, that’s not gaslighting. That’s them being an asshole, for sure, but it’s still only lying. Because you know it’s a lie. You know the truth. And you aren’t questioning whether or not you are accurately perceiving reality for what it truly is. You aren’t questioning your sanity. Maybe you’re questioning the liar’s sanity or morality, but the point is, you know what is true, what is not, and you aren’t being made to believe otherwise.

Gaslighting is a repetitive behavior. You don’t start questioning your reality after one lie (typically… I don’t want to make too many blanket statements because I don’t know all of the possible lies that could do that.). This is not me saying that people who get gaslit have some sort of weak resolve- I am here as someone who was gaslit for a good part of their lives, and I can say for certain that the way that “gaslighting” has become a synonym for assholery is just getting more and more tiring. To say someone gaslit you is a big statement to make, and I don’t think people realize the gravity of it: what it means to really question your reality; to look at your life and the way you perceive it and genuinely think to yourself, “Am I the crazy one?”

Two months before my 18th birthday and three months before I was to go away to college, my parents revealed to me and my triplet siblings that we had been conceived via egg donor. That

23 revelation unraveled a long, long narrative of what I had understood to be truths of my life. A lot of things started to make more sense.

For one, the weird looks I would get from people when I told them that I was fully Filipino made a lot more sense. Cultural nuance and sample size aside, growing up, I always thought it was strange that people would look at me weirdly. I was very confident in my Filipino heritage, but I would look at myself in the mirror and affirm that yes, this is what a full Filipino looks like. I would look at myself in the mirror and see the combination of my mother and father’s features.

(I’d like to add that my obsession with being “full blooded” is no longer and I have written a lot more exploring the problem with quantifying culture and associating looks with lived experience, but that is outside the scope of this essay.) I looked at the people who looked at me weird, and wrote them off as being stupid or incredibly ignorant. When my parents revealed to me that the person who contributed to half of my DNA was white, I felt like a liar. I felt like an asshole. Of course I looked like a “mutt.” I was one. Yes, it didn’t necessarily excuse the weird looks I got or the cultural invalidation I experienced (and continue to experience), but it felt like when you make the mistake of going up to fight someone, and then half way through, you realize you weren’t given all of the information and you are, in fact, the asshole in the situation.

Secondly, my sister’s punnett squares assignment from high school. My triplet brother, sister, and I all went to different high schools, and my sister took a genetics class at hers. The assignment was to fill out punnett squares using your parents’ traits to figure out what combinations possibly gave you your traits. For instance, curly hair is a dominant trait.

Combined with someone who has straight hair (a recessive trait), their children should have wavy hair. My mom has curly hair and my dad has straight hair. Even if my mom had wavy hair, according to punnett squares (which, to be fair, have their limitations), there would be a 50/50 shot as to whether or not their children had straight or wavy hair. My triplet siblings and I all have stick- straight hair. When my sister brought up this quandary with my mother- why the punnett squares weren’t matching up, my mom just told her that there must be something wrong with my sister’s work. That she might just be a special case. My mom knew exactly why the math wasn’t math-ing, and she instead made my sister question her intellect and told her to just fudge with the punnett squares until they were right so she could get a good grade.

Thirdly, my mother’s favoritism of our older sister and the red hair in my brother’s beard weren’t just unexplainable idiosyncrasies anymore.

The amount of times that I had been told that something was “in my blood” as justification for why I should do something or be good at something made that same blood boil. The mental anguish I had experienced- beating myself up for not fulfilling a familial, blood- based legacy had been baseless. I felt like I was in a nature versus nurture experiment, and there were people watching and analyzing my every move, waiting until I was 18 to reveal the truth.

These things, among other stories concerning my parents and their dedication to the story they told us for almost 18 years, thrust me into an existential crisis of a lifetime. I remembered watching The Truman Show in my 8th grade class, and all I could think as I felt my brain

24 chemistry changing was that I had never sympathized with a movie character more than I was currently sympathizing with Jim Carrey’s Truman Burbank.

I was looking at everything I had ever been told in my life, and I was overtaken by a debilitating paranoia that I was hopelessly unaware of the reality I was actually living. That everyone around me knew something I didn’t and were refusing to tell me all the ways that I was actually inaccurately perceiving myself and the world around me. I didn’t trust myself or anything I saw or believed in. I felt like the foundation of my identity and beliefs had been completely demolished, and it took me a while to realize that such distrust in myself was actually ridiculously unfounded. I had done the best I could with the information that I was presented with, and now, I just had new information. Granted, it was life altering information that I credit with radicalizing me, but that’s beside the point.

When I asked my parents why they had hid the information from us for so long, they gave me a few different answers ranging from “We didn’t want to negatively affect your high school experience”, to “You weren’t mature enough”, to “We were going to tell you all when you were 10, but we just got so busy.” None of these answers ever satisfied me. Regardless, I felt that there was no explanation that could repair my broken sense of trust. It was that experience that, while incredibly isolating, also forced me in a position to really take on responsibility for who I was as a person. Self- sufficiency was the name of the game when I felt like I couldn’t trust the people around me.

I found a new sense of empowerment in the aftermath. My triplet siblings left for college one month before I did, and while we gave each other support, they, too, were wrestling with their own demons and striving to make something for themselves at their colleges. It took me three months to gain a semblance of an appetite, and it took years before I could get the quality of sleep that I used to have, but when I moved 2,000 miles away to college still feeling like I was sinking, I forced myself to swim. I simply had no other option. I would find a way to breathe even when I felt like I was drowning.

I realized that even though I felt like I was struggling to hold onto a foundation that no longer existed, I was still here. Amidst the rubble of a life I couldn’t recognize as mine, I was still standing. Sure, I was struggling to breathe and my posture wasn’t great, but I was still here. And I realized that I couldn’t trust anybody else to pull myself out of it. There were definitely people that helped along the way, but I knew that, at the end of the day, I was the only one who I could trust to redefine my identity and understanding of the world, ever-changing as they are.

I didn’t know much, but I knew that I had to get to a place of stability. A place where I knew that, no matter what came my way, I could trust myself to come out on the other side in one piece. A place where new information wouldn’t threaten the integrity of the structure that was my life. I grew a sense of humility that I hadn’t had before, and grew a novel commitment to introspection. I resolved myself to get to a place where I could trust that I would make the best decision I could. Trust that I would keep myself together. Trust that I would adapt. Trust that I was not defined by my mistakes. Trust that I had the ability to correct them. Trust that failures now meant growth later.

25

And 4 years later, I can say that I do.

26 Stuck Keysss Inspired by “trash”

So here I sit, in the middle of the Detroit airport at 6:09 in the morning, waiting for my father to pick me up, and attempting to write something on this Chromebook loan from the UCLA library while my laptop is in for repairs. The keyboard sticks, which, if that doesn’t mean anything to you, means that when I try to write my name, instead of “Natalie Albaran”, I get “Naaataaalaaie AAalbaaaraanaa.” I don’t know if my laptop’s obsession with the letter A has anything to do with my younger self’s obsession with getting A’s, but I gotta admire its dedication.

My only prompt is today’s Wordle, which I completed as I waited to deplane. Today’s wordlewhich is trash. Literally. “Trash.”

For aesthetics’ sake, I considered getting coffee. But for finances’ sake, I decided against it.

Unfortunate, considering that it would’ve completed the aesthetic of sitting at an empty table in the airport, feet propped up on an ottoman (my suitcase), sipping coffee at 6 in the morning as people bound for various destinations bustle around. Some are meandering to their gate, and others are walking as fast as is socially acceptable. Others disregard any semblance of social acceptability and sprint, and others disregard such social standards with their un-socked feet.

I’ve never understood why someone would go to the airport in sandals without socks.

Rawdogging the filth of the airport (Most airports are very aesthetically pleasing and “clean”, but really. Think about it. How clean do you really trust airports to be?) A rather meta opening to an essay, but that’s what gets the gears turning, I guess.

Trash is technically a verb and a noun. Its adjective form is technically “trashy”. But I think it’s a Gen Z invention of using “trash” as an adjective (or at least, outside the dictionary definition usage) as well.

“How was your day?”

“My day was trash.”

Translation: “I had a bad day that felt like a series of unfortunate events” “How’s your apartment doing?”

“Well, aside from my trash roommate, it’s going pretty ok.”

Possible Translation: “Well, aside from the fact that my roommate is as unpleasant as she is disrespectful and impolite, it’s going pretty ok. ” All of this to say that if something is “trash”, it could be a reference to a lack of cleanliness, but it could also be a reference to something or someone for which one has general distaste. I also think it demonstrates my generation’s tendency for hyperbole, but that’s in my non-linguist opinion.

Speaking of things that are trash, I will say that not having a functional keyboard for over a year is an annoyance that I think I will only truly recognize when I get my working laptop back and realize how much easier my life could’ve been for my last two years of college. I know that’s kind

27 of getting ahead of myself, but even on this Chromebook, which has a completely different user experience than a MacBook, I’ve been ten times more productive because I’m not editing spelling mistakes that aren’t mine. Where I can truly trace my frustrations back, though, is January 3, 2021.

Actually, now that I think about it, there were several trash occurrences in my life around that time. For one, my laptop screen broke the night before the new academic quarter started. And, of course, everything was online at that time, and I was in Michigan, so I was already physically disconnected from my California- based college. Now, I was virtually disconnected. I still have no explanation for why my laptop broke. But nonetheless, after calling customer service several times and trying to see if it was a software problem, it was unfortunately looking like a hardware problem, which required that I take it into an Apple store.

Quick note about the Apple Stores that showed up in my search: there were a few Apple Stores in Michigan and only a few more registered dealers in Michigan: but all of them were booked for the next week. There were 4 Apple stores in my vicinity (I use that term generously) that had any availability within the coming week, but the first available appointment was the following day, Monday, in OHIO. (Toledo, which is objectively more accessible than Cincinnati from my Southeast Michigan positionality, but still). The next available appointment in Michigan that didn’t require a 5 hour drive was for Tuesday, January 5 at 6:05pm. A two hour, 81 mile drive, but doable. I called up my sister and my cousin, both who were still on break from their respective schools: my sister, so I could crash at her place, and my cousin because I needed a car.

When you make an appointment with an Apple store, or at least, in my experience, they call ahead the day before to confirm and also to get a pulse on what the situation is. I got my call when I was sitting on the toilet. Naturally, I answered. I was not about to jeopardize my spot in line. Especially during a pandemic when going in- store, while anxiety inducing, was often an anxiety that was bearable because the alternative was not going in store and therefore not getting help. I talked to a very polite man who asked me about my [computer’s] issues, and I told him. I told him about my screen, but then I also added what I had added to my initial complaint: that I had several keys that were sticking. He told me my laptop would likely be gone for a week (much to my dismay), but as long as the damage wasn’t found to be my fault, the repairs would be free (much to my delight).

The following day, my cousin dropped me off at the dentist for my semi-annual check up while she took care of some car- related errands. Replacing the windshield wipers, I think. After my appointment, we picked up some Starbucks (driving beverages, if you will), and I hopped in the driver’s seat to embark on our 2 hour long journey to East Lansing.

Before long, we were pulling into East Lansing’s Ding Tea for our second round of beverages (and also to get some for my sister and her roommate), with plans to stop by Meijer very quickly to cook some Filipino chicken adobo for them as well. Whether I liked it or not, my laptop was out of commission, and while I had this feeling that I was falling behind on everything, I wasn’t

28 about to address those feelings and do anything about it. I was in a different city and hanging out with my sister and my cousin. Fun was inevitable and unstoppable.

After delivering the boba to their proper recipients and making my sister’s kitchen smell of soy sauce and vinegar, I took a quick nap then woke up 20 minutes before my Apple Store Appointment and rounded up my sister and cousin to accompany me. As we walked outside to get in the car, I noticed a piece of paper underneath the newly replaced windshield wipers; a ticket. In case you ever had the question of whether or not there is a “wrong way” to park on a residential street, let me give you an answer: in Michigan, apparently, this is a $32 offense.

Putting that out of my mind, we drove up to the Apple store and I made my way in while my sister and cousin went shopping. For what, I don’t really know, but neither are the type to pass that opportunity up. When I was able to meet with an employee, the man I spoke to seemed to think that the screen was the most pressing issue- which, I mean, wasn’t incorrect- but it made me anxious that it didn't seem that he was taking my keyboard issue seriously. He made the promise, though, that he would see what he could do to improve the condition of my keyboard.

While I had apprehensively accepted that I would be in for a laptop- less week, I was not aware that I would have to bid adieu to the stickers on my laptop. The employee gave me a moment to take off the stickers that I could, so I stood in that Apple store, trying to preserve a semblance of dignity, but failing miserably, as I scratched off as many stickers as I could. I had not expected to have my emotional investment in these stickers challenged- I didn’t even realize such an emotional investment existed. So as I scratched off stickers pertaining to BTS, some dance competitions I’d been in, and Harry Potter, I felt the same anxiety that you feel when you’re at a cashier and even though you know they’re not gonna berate you for taking to long, you feel like you’re taking forever to get put your change in your wallet, and then you wallet in your purse, and then gathering all of the bags to go. In a panic to quell that anxiety, I looked up at the Apple store representative and said “I think I’m good now,” though I have doubts about how convincing my tone actually was.

So, with about 5 half- stickers barely sticking onto my laptop case (that I had to take off my laptop), I left the Apple Store laptop-less and soon-to-be-$32-poorer. I’d definitely seen better days.

The rest of the night, thankfully, ended without further incident.

The next morning, I was still laptop-less and, again, while I could’ve done something to fix that problem, I opted to think to myself, “It’s still only week 1 of the quarter and fuck it. I’ll catch up on work later.” So instead of tending to any pressing obligations, my sister, cousin, and I continued our movie marathon from the night before and watched Now You See Me. Personally, I don’t really remember the plot of the movie- just that Dave Franco was there and so was Daniel Radcliffe. Or maybe it was the Now You See Me 2. As you’ll see, there were more pressing matters that took up my brain waves that day.

29 As I lazed around and alternated my attention between Tik Tok and my sister’s projector, suddenly I got a text from my mom in my family group chat: “Turn on the news right now”. I initially ignored the text- not because it was personal, just because, well, the 24- hour news cycle and the overuse of “unprecedented times” was a headache I didn't feel like reigniting.

It wasn’t until a couple more texts saying things along the lines of “omg”, “holy shit that’s crazy”, and “what the fuck” started streaming in to all of us individually did we pause the movie and ask my sister how to get the news up on her projector. Like most people of the Tik Tok/ Social Media generation, cable news was not an option (one- because watching it was nauseating and twowho has cable nowadays?), so we went to YouTube to try to find a livestream. The YouTube discover page did not disappoint. There were several live streams available for our viewing pleasure. All I remember seeing was the thumbnail of what appeared to be a dystopian depiction of the United States Capitol. My sister, cousin, and I sat in that room, staring, mouths agape, at the projection on my sister’s ceiling of angry insurrectionists storming the Capitol, and suddenly, my laptop’s issues were not issues.

Needless to say, I got my laptop back a few days later and the keyboard, while broken, was not nearly as concerning as the fact that my father’s “Trump | Pence” flag was still waving in front of his house.

When my cousin and I returned from my sister’s house to my aunt’s house (where my father was to pick me up), homeowner’s associations came up. Something about my aunt needing to get approval to paint her house a certain color. I, for one, wholeheartedly believe that homeowners associations shouldn’t be regulating the color of the neighborhood’s houses. You bought that damn house, so you get to say what happens to it! Sounds pretty cut and dry to me. Nonetheless, my aunt described some of their benefits to me and at best, you could say that I was halfconvinced.

My father came by to pick me up and caught the tail end of the conversation, and that was that.

When we got back to his house, though, he walked towards his office, but before he left earshot, he said, “speaking of homeowner’s associations”, and looked at the counter, where there was a letter. He walked away and I walked to the kitchen counter, where the unfolded letter read, “Purchasing a home in a community association offers many advantages to the homeowner, but at the same time imposes some restrictions. These restrictions are not meant as an inconvenience or invasion of your freedom, but rather as a means of maintaining harmony in your community. [...] Political signs may be placed on an owner’s property no more than sixty (60 days) prior to an election. All such political signs must be removed within twenty four (24) hours after an election. As the election was in November 2020, the political signs must be removed. Therefore, we kindly ask that you remove the signs immediately.”

As if to make sure that my dad and his girlfriend could not deny that they, in fact, had a sign on their property, there were two private- investigator- esque pictures of the flag printed on the bottom of the letter.

30

I was dying with laughter. Of course, my laughter was silent, but for someone who had trash-talked homeowner’s associations no more than 45 minutes prior to reading this letter, I was thoroughly entertained. I almost marched into the front yard myself to dispose of the flag. I was shocked that this homeowner’s association would have such a rule (especially because it was representing a demographic of what you’d expect from a gated community in suburban Michigan), but I was more shocked at how quickly this PR move had materialized. The letter was dated and delivered on January 7. So, taking both of those shockers into consideration, I felt even more strongly that people on both sides of the political aisle could recognize the absolute abomination that January 6 was.

My intention is not to use words that are overused or inaccurate, but living in America and trying to make sense of the political landscape is very gaslighting- adjacent. When you get gaslit, that means that you have trouble trusting whether or not your perception of the world is actually reflective of reality. I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch to say that many people second guess their perception of American politics- trying to make sense of your own political views and decipher whether or not you’re being accurate in your perception of the political climate and current events is incredibly difficult.

What is the news showing? Can I make my opinions solely based on that? What news sources can be trusted? Why do some news sources show certain things and not others? What is it that I don’t know? What information am I missing to inform my opinions? What information would change those opinions? Why is it that when I state my belief in something, there is always somebody else refuting it? While my intention is not to deny the value of different perspectives and constructive discussion, it really baffles me that some things that I would define as nonnegotiables can truly be so negotiable to other people. It’s not that I expect other people to take on the same perspectives as I do- I wouldn’t grow as a person if I didn’t encounter differing opinions- but is the value of certain things- for example, an elementary schooler’s life– truly something that can be negotiated? Furthermore, it truly is incredulous that it feels like, for as much as the American public can disagree, on things that we do seem to agree, the government that seemingly represents us does nothing.

“The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary was a devastating tragedy that should never happen again.”

I believe that this statement is not controversial. It is 15 words that I would think (or rather, really, truly, hope) that the American public, all 330 million of us, can agree on.

But the way that school shootings, among other things, have become talking points up for negotiation is very gaslight-y. The shooting happened 10 years ago this December. The students who were murdered should be learning how to drive by now. They should be experiencing teen angst and the ups and downs of pre- adulthood. The fact that the conversation around guns (“control”, “safety”, or “rights”- however you want to frame it- I really don’t care to engage in the politics of wording when human lives are the true center of this conversation) has not moved forward (or at least, it has not felt like it, speaking as 21 year old who was only 5-6 years older

31 than student victims) could make someone think, “Damn, is it really so unreasonable- is it really so much to ask- for safety surrounding things that were designed to kill?”

People talk about infringement on freedoms, but if the United States’ devastating schoolshooting track record has any meaning, it is that something has to change. Virtually nothing has, and it’s been 23 years since Columbine.

Yes, the United States prides itself on freedom, but there are many, many countries that boast a similar level of freedom that don’t have the same track record. Why is it that the United States is the only place where this happens? Gun control is consistently criticized for its infringement on personal freedoms, but is it really a matter of freedom? Or is that just a buzzword used by politicians to ensure that their gun lobbies continue to line their pockets with money? I believe that most people are reasonable. We want life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We want to be healthy. We want to be safe. We want to be happy and make a world for our children and communities that is better than the one we came into. Add whatever it is you want for yourself on this list, but politics aside, I truly believe that this is what we, as humans, want. We view different methods as acceptable means to achieve these things, but again, politics aside, I believe these things are our common ground.

But when politics is framed solely around how much citizens on different sides of the aisle are stepping on each other’s necks (which, to be fair, is a valid feeling to have and in conversations/ circumstances where politics/ harmful ideologies motivates violence and harm (verbal, physical, or otherwise), anger, vengeance, resentment, and exasperation, among other things are justifiable (dare I say, reasonable)), politics becomes exactly that: politics. These conversations about real issues become conversations about power and the means people will employ to keep it. I’m not a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and I don’t think I’m saying anything new, but it really comes back to losing humanity. When we discuss things like abortion, guns, and healthcare, it isn’t about those explicit issues. It’s about money, power, and corruption. I’m not a political analyst, and I know there is a lot that I have to learn and read, but I know hypocrisy when I see it. I know intentional inaction and weaponized incompetence when I see it. When a person in a position of power shrugs their shoulders and says that there’s nothing that they can do, I really do wonder why and what they are doing there in the first place.

But when I hear my age and seeming inexperience used to justify ignoring or invalidating my opinion, it’s incredibly infuriating. What standards do I have to meet in age, experience, demographic, etc. to be taken seriously? A large criticism of cancel culture is the idea that cancel culture ignores the possibility that people change, and it excludes the leniency to let people’s opinions and actions change and mold. Will the beliefs I have as a 21 year old change (or at the very least, grow different nuances)? Absolutely. I hope so. But also, my experience as a 20something in 2022 is vastly different from a 20-something’s in 1950. It’s vastly different from a 20- something’s experience in 1776.

So am I really being “too progressive” or is it that I’m providing a perspective that politicians just don’t want to listen to? Am I being unreasonable, or is what I believe just a basic standard for human dignity? Am I being irrational, or am I doing the best with the information that I have

32 and responding to changes in a world and society that no one ever anticipated? Am I uneducated, or am I an (almost) UCLA degree- holder that is making decisions and forming perspectives informed by a 4 year- college education? (Disclaimer: I am not claiming to know everything that I need to know- I am painfully aware that there is so much I do not know. But it is ironic that the same people who put an emphasis on getting a college education are the same who say “You’re a college student! What do you know?” or, my favorite, “College changed you”– always said with distaste.)

Am I crazy or does it actually make sense that people should not be paying crazy prices just to make sure that they have enough insulin? That children shouldn’t be going to school with the anxiety that they will not be able to go home? That people should be able to enjoy concerts without fearing for their safety? That the only person who should be concerned about a person’s uterus is the person with the uterus? I get called a crazy liberal when what I want is considered “conservative” by other countries’ standards? Is it really about these questions or is it about the ways that addressing these issues would affect certain economic advantages and benefits to people who have an exorbitant amount of money to begin with?

The idea that an insurrection could happen and virtually nothing could come of it (i.e. Trump was acquitted of his second impeachment) suggests that the insurrection wasn’t as big of a deal that a rational person might appear to find it. People still defend what they did and find little wrong with what they did. And these same people get plenty of coverage and the sheer amount of such coverage gives the implication that they deserve the time and coverage they get- that they have some level of legitimacy. I am one to defend the freedom of speech, but at the same time, why are we giving crazy people so much time of day? In any other country, if that shit happened, the American government (and some of its public) would’ve grown some audacity to call it a “failed state” among a slew of other antiquated and xenophobic terms including “third world” and “uncivilized”. The United States is no better in terms of political unrest than the countries it seeks to assert dominance over and the fact that the insurrection has been normalized to some degree is sickening.

I truly believe that nothing is beyond repair, but some things need to change. While I love a good tangent, when conversations surrounding the stability of our nation and the safety of its constituents lose steam due to a 23 year (or longer) tangent surrounding political personalities and power struggles, we lose sight of what we were talking about in the first place. Our vision gets obstructed by pointed fingers and turned heads, when in reality those fingers need to lower, and those heads need to return to the matter at hand. Everything else has no place in these discussions. They belong in the trash.