No Niche Nelly
When you have nothing to do during the day, you can avoid feeling like a bum by going to a coffee shop. Maybe you’re unemployed; maybe you work nights; maybe you’re a student on winter break. Leaving your house, for any reason, can save you from feeling as though you’ve wasted a day. Wasting a […]
I am a very tired person. In 2016, when I was a sophomore in college, my primary care physician told me I was iron deficient. A few months afterward, I wrote a song called “Iron,” of which the chorus was: Summer check-up during which I came to learn / That my body’s messed up because […]
My conversations are either had with my friends over text, my parents over dinner, or myself over lined paper. In my spare time, I go to the library—mostly to create some semblance of productivity, convincing myself that sitting in a room highly saturated with words will give me a purpose. It is often the most […]
I’m currently reading a book by David Brooks called The Road to Character. To me, reading has always felt like an exercise, akin to push-ups or—on the most challenging days—burpees. For those of you who don’t know (and you should feel lucky you don’t), the burpee combines the conditioning of your core, your legs, your […]
When meeting someone for the first time, I’ll often ask their name and immediately tune out, hopping back on my train of thought heading straight for the clouds. I utter the words “Sorry, remind me your name” too frequently. It’s easy to ask questions, but sometimes I forget these questions have answers and that these […]
I. When I graduated college, I felt nothing. Okay, perhaps I felt a lot, but unpacking every fleeting rush of dread or even pride would require Ritalin and absolute silence. Yes, I am a writer, therefore I should welcome psychoanalysis, maybe even more so because I majored in psychology in addition to English. But, in […]
After learning about the Transcendentalists in the eleventh grade, I thought all writers were supposed to be decorated scholars, like Thoreau and Emerson, who went to Ivy League universities (or maybe they didn’t… I don’t actually know). I have followed a mildly impressive educational path: I attended Skidmore College, which is not an Ivy, but […]
When you have a crush on a small college campus, you develop a kink—in your neck. Your head swivels left and right, up and down (depending on the height of your crush). Eventually your body adapts and allows your head to rotate 360 degrees. This happens, of course, because an ugly part of you insists […]
My peers said studying abroad would “change my life”—that I just had to do it. This pissed me off. Who are they to say what I need to do with these crucial years of my youth? I need to pass my classes. I need to graduate. I need to find a therapist. My TJ Maxx […]
I used to be a teenage crybaby. Okay, I still cry a lot, like when an old person or dog is struggling in any minor way. In my freshman year of highschool, however, I cried about boys. In my English class, we read Romeo and Juliet, a play of star-crossed lovers, or at least that’s […]