Diary Entry 0 by Rachel Lee
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@roskimag
Diary Entry 0 by Rachel Lee
Musicmusicmusi by Lauryn Jones
I am really particular about my music. Iâm one of those people you will not catch without either my AirPods or headphones, nodding my head or tapping to the beat of whatever song Iâve decided is the best backing track for the situation at hand. The amount of music I listen to in a day can almost seem absurd. From mumble rap to country music to original broadway cast recordings, I listen to it all. Because of this constant consumption of content, however, I find myself overwhelmed with choice when it comes to playing music for an utterly uninteresting task like getting ready in the morning, walking down the street to work, or taking a break in class. I used to find myself spending 20+ minutes frantically sifting through my recently played and liked songs, trying to find just the right track. It was in my desperate attempts to remedy this problem of wasting time that Top 10 was born. Top 10 is a weekly playlist curated by me of 10 songs (in no particular order) that I play when I donât know what to listen to. These tracks have no rules.Â
These are some of the types of tracks that tend to make it on the playlist--
A song I obsessed over in middle school that I completely forgot about until this very moment
A song thatâs been stuck in my head for the past few days
Something my friend told me I would âfuck with to the highest degreeâÂ
My favorite track from an anticipated album that just droppedÂ
A song with a verse I want to commit to memory
The cool part about Top 10âs is that I make the playlists public. This means my friends, family, enemies, stalkers, ex-partners, and any other cool people who like music and want to see what Iâm doing can check out my playlists and see what Iâm listening to this week. Even cooler, my friends have also started making their own Top 10âs. For example, one of my friends updates weekly like me, another one updates whenever they have time, and another one does 10 albums rather than songs (updated every month or so).Â
Honestly, itâs a really cool way to get into new music, get reintroduced to tracks you used to really like, or, at the very least, do something fun and creative with and for yourself every now and then. If you try it out, DM me on Instagram or Twitter (@suplauryn on both platforms) and Iâll give it a listen!Â
This Weekâs Top 10 (On Apple Music: @suplauryn & Spotify: @joneslauryn) --Â
Warm Enough by Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment feat. Noname and JCole
Drop the Game by Flume feat. Chet FakerÂ
SOMETHINGSIHATE by Malik Elijah
Thank You by Dido
Monster Mash by Bobby âBorisâ Pickett feat. The Crypt Kickers and Bobby Pickett
NEMO! by JPEGMAFIA
Self Love by MAVI
SWEETBABYRAE by stoop lee
Wish You Were Here by Pink FloydÂ
Thriller - Single Version by Michael Jackson
If heaven is a bureaucracy then I will kill a Congressperson by Rachel Lee
I knelt by the window out of which I took the screen.
Bugs can fly in now.
I blew out smokes and watched them drift out like ghosts into the black.
Breathing death. I sighed and watched the ghosts dissolve.
Thereâs no more no less water than there used to be. There are definitely more ghosts.
Most are happy, probably. The silent majority.
I thought about praying. I thought about God and how I compulsively commit the cardinal sin whenever I think seriously about the odds of my being accepted a spot in heaven.
Would He be that arbitrary? Does it matter if God is good?
The Old Testament God got deposed, I hear. Violent coup, except violence looks different since everyoneâs dead. Just hurt. Ghosts hold elections for God every 6 years. Last year they elected Whitney Houston. Sheâs doing an okay job.
My knees hurt.
I climbed onto the empty windowsill and spat out some tobacco, watched it hit the ground.
Donât think too much about that.
I know what Iâm waiting for and I know it wonât end the waiting but I savor the wait regardless.
For now this is everything. The universe is finite and also expanding. It wonât stop for a while. And then it will shrink. And then grow. Or maybe It will grow like a tree and drop fruit of smaller, more ephemeral universes seeding the ground for larger potential universes. Some universe animal species will eat most of the fruit, though.
Government-sanctioned coke in heaven, yeah. That sounds nice.
Dogs on the Grass by Maurielle McGarvey
The smell of ground meat and hydrangea oil. My face pressed into unvacuumed carpet. It is only recently that I moved to this corner room. The aches and pains of uprooting still linger.
There are a pair of small windows that provide cold, intermittent light. The brightness bounces off cream walls, exposing the negative. Artificial heaps of stuff, of unread books, of dust. The weight of my own body feels all wrong. No surprise- but this is excessive. The angles of everything seem to have tilted downwards, expanding to fill larger frames of vision. The door hangs on a slant. Maybe the entire room is sloping away from me and I have yet to notice until now. I find myself not knowing what to do with my hands and feet. These limbs are hunched and disproportionate. My hairy belly drags on the floor.Â
With great effort, I raise myself to the mirror and am amazed. For all the perpetual transformations that life offers, here is a metamorphosis I did not expect. I turn in a circle. A pink tongue pants back, mocking. I try to squint, to blur the animal semblance spreading out across the glass. Eyes like bulbous periscopes. Breakable claws on smooth hands. Thereâs the old joke, about the narcissist and the dyslexic.Â
Am I a dog?Â
The clock beats a reminder, ticking and prodding at the dayâs responsibilities. His hand dangles from the bed. The fingers trail air, challenging a touch. This hand presents both a question and a solution. Do I wake him? Will he read through the illusion and recognize me? Unknown or beloved. Most likely neither. I sit on my haunches, considering his serious and measurable proximity. My position is...embarrassing. Maybe if I behave as I normally do, this waking dream will slip away to something more suited for my skin. I head along to university.Â
The hot morning surrounds me. This city, this same city with itâs slow and exhausting heat. I have not lived here for some time, but little has changed. I plod past flat and wide houses, all on the tip of an earthquake. Lottery tickets, enormous advertisements, calcified faces bone hardened into a constant expression of urgency. Meetings. Blue tooth.Â
 I canât tell if itâs amusing or sad to speak on behalf of this place and the people I encounter here. I turn a corner, sniffing out my way. Here is where I stop. Here is where I go. I walk with the calm and rapid motion of something human. Color returns to the day. The neighborâs pitbulls roll with ease behind their chain link fence.
Perhaps they can explain what is happening to me?Â
I try to stretch my canine face into an expression of approachable happiness. How do I speak? How do I act? This is all so unfamiliar.Â
 Heads swivel on powerful shoulders, a flicker of a gaze, and they sink back into their sandy lot. Pitbull wisdom puts me away into an empty and nonthreatening corner. They can innately sense that I am not one of them.Â
Still, I would rather be barked at than ignored. Amble on.
The neighborhood moves around me in a labyrinth. Hyacinths and corner stores. Striated roofs, stucco. I pass an elementary school. The children of the yard run crazy in blue satin and creased pants. Laughter against the edges of sunbathed earth, surrounded by another chain link fence. Pitbulls and children.Â
I am envious of these creatures. Not one thing, not another. They are honest and simple.Â
Smelling sweet sweat and a bad imitation of eucalyptus. Nauseous. All this nervous fatigue from extended public engagement. I feel so deeply inhuman, my echo recitations of people motions, of dog breath.Â
I know I cannot make it to my 10 am class.
I find my way beneath the branches of a pine tree. Long shadows make curtains from which I can hide behind. The ground beneath me is damp and flexible, low and dry. I am a master of all the dark places. Students keep passing. People walking hand in hand. I wonder if he is still resting.Â
I can hear the children playing, the dogs barking.
Turn in a circle. Settle, unreachable and fetal. What a capacity I have developed for becoming invisible. In this form. In any.Â
When I wake, I walk home. Still haired and fanged, now with indomitable sluggishness and dragging paws. Maybe this is the final fusion of the discomfort I have felt for so long, the rough routine of life in relation to others.Â
I am hoping he can help me make some sense of this transformation.Â
That man is still in my home, languidly stretched over my space like the master of the house. I cannot help but feel some kind of terrible joy at the sight, so much so that I shake all over. People shouldnât move like this. Not at the voice of another. From the center of the bed, he calls out my name. He summons me, like all the other times, as if I look no different. He takes that hand and pats me on the head. Gentle, between the ears. Manâs most ancient and powerful tool. For someone else this could be called comfort.Â
Sit, stay, stay awhile.Â
Dogs on the grass. Whimpering on the bed.Â
Eat out of my hand.Â
Slinking and slobbering.Â
Roll over.
Nothing unfolds. We transfigure, twist, take on the same shapes and same roles in new bodies.Â
Lay on your back.Â
Where do I go from here?
Finding Yourself in the Pigments, Making Yourself in the Colors
By Karla T.
âPainting really helped me learn to love myself.â
From charcoal and graphite drawings to portraits dripping in acrylic multicolor - junior Alexia Sambrano details their artistic journey over the past eight years, sharing how art has provided a canvas to chronicle their experiences of love, family, and identity.
Alexia Sambrano is a third year undergraduate student at USC studying neuroscience and cognitive science with a minor in LGBTQ studies. Their art is heavily focused on their identities as a queer, genderfluid person and as a first generation Mexican-American.Â
Much of Alexiaâs work deals with themes of how they are perceived by the world versus how they perceive themselves in regard to their gender and sexuality, body image, and mental health. They talk about painting â...things that have to do with my cultural upbringing as a Mexican American with immigrant parents. These are themes I try to incorporate into my art both unconsciously and also consciously.â One motif in their art is flowers, largely due to Alexiaâs fatherâs occupation as a florist. To Alexia, flowers are âa really big symbol for healing and growth.â Alexiaâs paintings are bright and pigmented due to their preference for acrylic paint, detailing that a large part of the choice to use acrylic over oil paints is its accessibility and ease of experimentation. Every aspect of Alexiaâs art has clear intentions that serve to make beautiful work flowing with personal meaning.
Alexia details the way they have progressed in their lives across the paintings they have made. In moments of pain, they created pieces such as Impending Doom and La Ansiedad. Here, they used the colors and the textures to honestly depict the vulnerability and emotion they felt in its making. As they grow older, their perception of what they paint also changes, being able to look back and see the paintings as moments in a longer life story. âPainting really helped me learn to love myself.âÂ
Alexia describes their latest painting Enter the Garden as a demonstration of their acceptance, pride, and confidence in their sexuality and self. This personal accomplishment has been much due to inspiration theyâve had from other Latinx creatives, who share the expectations that come with being a Latinx youth in American society. âI feel like there's a big pressure, especially in Latinx families to get into a career to get into a career where you will be making a lot of moneyâ. Alexia emphasizes that these expectations make it difficult for many Latine artists to tap into the full potential of their creativity. Though through another medium, Latinx musicians like Ambar Lucid, Kali Uchis, and Omar Apollo have had a huge impact on Alexiaâs own understanding of their âbeing and personhoodâ - despite cultural and societal pressures they have faced. As Alexia has tackled these same expectations - they find comfort in an artistic community that shares some of their same lived experiences and show pride in their upbringings.
In melting together these ideas about self-identity and personal growth, Alexia Sambranoâs Mal de Mil Ojos carries spiritual and cultural elements of the Mexican cultural concept of âmal de ojoâ, which is a symbol of the âevil eyeâ that is worn or artistically depicted to protect people from jealousy and malice. As time goes on, Alexia plans to continue to do commissioned work to help pay for school as well as working on multiple projects to improve their skills as an artist - always carrying this symbol of protection with them. Alexia Sambrano reminds us of how we both see ourselves and make ourselves in the art that we create - finding solace in the finished products and motivation in the works in progress.
You can find more of Alexiaâs work on their Instagram: @alexiasambranoart
The Art of Being Alone
By Phoebe Zheng
a journal entry from me to you
I Pinned You From Across the Zoom
By Tori Frank
When you have them pinned, thatâs how you know itâs real. The anonymous owners of @usc.missedconnections on Instagram discussed zoom romance and the seductive mystery of having an admirer behind the screen.
Imagine Gossip Girl, but make it all horny college students deprived of casual touch. That is the drama of @usc.missedconnections. If you donât avidly stalk their account, you either have an unheard of self-confidence that doesnât require any external validation, you deleted your Instagram in a fit of quarantine frenzy, or you havenât heard of them yet, and youâre very curious about the previously stated analogy.
See the bio of the @usc.missedconnections page: âHave a message for the person whose zoom you always pin or saw from 6 ft away? Anonymously send your missed connection below!â Below sits the google form where all the virtual action happens: the flirts, the cat calls, the compliments, and the subtle roasts. It really is a good time, somewhat making up for the lack of classroom banter that would normally occur.
I sat down with the students who began the account, and we chatted about the new sensation that is dominating everyoneâs feed.
Tori: My roommates and I have been following your page pretty actively, as I think a lot of people have been recently.
@usc.missedconnections just surpassed 3000 followers in the few months since their origin on September 30th, 2020
T: Itâs definitely very entertaining, especially with Zoom making everything a little bit more boring and separated. Itâs been really fun to follow @usc.missedconnections and see whatâs the tea! To begin, how did you come up with the idea of creating this account?
Connector 1: I was between USC and another school out on the East coast. Some good friends that I went out and visited there showed me the [Instagram] page at that school, and I was like, âHey that's a cool idea, that looks like a lot of fun.â I texted _(Connector 2)_. I was like, âHey hereâs some dumb idea, weâll get 50 people, weâll get 2 responses a day. It will be kind of fun to just post them,â and we just grew from there.
T: So how many posts do you guys get a day now?
Connector 2: Itâs actually ticked up a lot in what, the past like 2 weeks-ish? For a long time we had a solid 100 just in the bank, and then we slowly [opened them], but it's been 200 plus starting just recently, which is weird. We started posting more frequently to catch up.
Connector 1: Yeah I presume we get about 30-ish on average a day.
Are you intrigued yet? About 30 lucky students across the online campus are being called out for some reason another, be it their sexy voice, their mustache, their wall decorations, or the way they eat their oranges. And on the flip side, about 30 people a day are shooting their anonymous shot through the account. With anonymity of course comes a certain audacity to get real freaky over the submission form. I wondered how freaky it could get.
T: Do you post all of the ones that come, or is there some sort of filtering process?
Connector 1: Weâve had a couple instances where people have been mentioned or certain organizations that have been mentioned have requested for us to take the post down, so weâve always just respected that if weâre ever asked to take the post down for whatever reason.
Connector 2: I periodically will go through, and Iâll be like, âThis oneâs weird, I don't think we need to post that,â and then I'll delete it.
_(connector 1)_ idk if you know that I do that, but umâŠ
Connector 1: Oh probably. I mean, Iâve deleted one before.
Connector 2: Yeah, when Iâm doing them sometimes Iâll be like âthis is a little weird how can we phrase this in a way that's not exactly⊠yeah.
T: Yeah, whatâs like the line? Because I think a lot of the time some of the things can be kind of⊠creepy⊠I mean the whole thing is likeâŠ
Connector 1:Â (cuts in, chuckling)Â Kinda creepyÂ
T: (agreeing) Kinda creepy, right!
There have been submissions such as:
âTo ____, Did you know if you rearrange the letters of Coronavirus you get âcarnivorousâ? Which makes sense because I want to spend the next 14 days of quarantine eating youâ
and
â____ in BUAD 497, my only motivation for coming to class is being able to pin your video and look at your beautiful face for two hoursâ
Connector 1: Itâs interesting, um, when we first started it, we talked, and the thing we were worried most about was like cyber bullying, and I personally haven't seen many posts. You get the offhand sarcastic comments, um, which are pretty funny sometimes, but I donât know if we... we don't really have a set filter. If we feel like somethingâs over the bar, then weâll kinda edit it out. Of course a lot of the time too if weâre iffy on something weâll text the other person and be like âhey what do you think of thisâ so, it's no distinct line, but our goal is never to make anyone uncomfortable.
T: Yeah, I think generally it's been pretty positive, a lot of affirming things. Even sometimes not romantic, like just positive comments which is pretty cool, and it's good to see that that's been going on.Â
Aw so sweet, fellow Trojans getting along so well. But this is a juicy topic. Playing the role as the reporter, I had to get the inside scoop.
T: Do you ever get messages about yourself?
Connector 1: Iâve had 2
Connecter 2: Yeah heâs had 2, I havenât had any and Iâm mad about it. I want one
Connector 1: I gave you one
Connector 2: You gave me one but I knew it was from you so it didnât mean anything.
T: So youâre not only the owners of the account. Youâre sort of participating in the game as well.
Connector 1: Oh, itâs always a blast when like youâre reading through and you know the person who it's getting written about and youâre just waiting. Yeah, thatâs like my favorite part of it, and also the guessing games sometimes are a lot of fun too.
Connector 2: For a long time people were scared to tag people that it was about in the comments, but now thereâs no hesitation. People will just tag everyone, which I think is really fun.
Its also fun that we donât give the full last name because then its kinda funny when you get a really generic âSam Bâ or âLucy Jâ and 6 different Lucyâs get tagged and half the time we know who it really is because we saw the last name and then edited it out.
T: Why donât you include the full name?
Connector 2: I think itâs more fun. (shyly shrugs) Itâs about keeping the mystery, you know? Who could it possibly be about?Â
Connector 1: We do get a lot of requests though because of that, where people are like, âHey, is this me? Can you tell me who sent this in?â and we're like âI don't know.â
Connector 2: Yeah people DM us every day asking for things, and also sometimes people don't understand that we have a forum in our bio and they send it in thru DM, their missed connections, which sort of ruins the anonymity and its sort of embarrassing for them bc we have to be like, âplease submit it in our bio,â and they have to be like âoh god now they knowâ
T: Itâs almost like a masquerade.Â
Again, I am imagining Jenny Humphrey wearing her golden mask at the Constance Billard School for Girls Masquerade Ball, prancing around Nate Archibald without him having the faintest idea of who he will be kissing. Maybe this is a little different, but the spirit is there!
T: Looking through your posts of course, a lot of them are, âOh, I have your screen pinned, I watch you all the time in classâ Do you guys do that? Do you think that that's like, Zoom behavior now, or is that still cringe?
Connector 2: Idk if Iâd pin for a whole class, but Iâve been known to take a look, and based on all the things weâve gotten sent it I guess people do. If youâre in a lecture thats boring, fair enough. I can't fault you for that. Itâs so weird right now, so who knows?
Connector 1: I think it's really fun also, like, people get really creative too. A lot of them are really general but we just posted one today that had a Kanye reference. We get poetry sometimes. I love the poets. Itâs a lot of fun for us and I think other people get to read the more fun posts then, like âhey I saw youâ, when saying âhey I saw youâ does make it, I guess, easier to match, but itâs less exciting for everybody else
T: To match... going off of that, have you heard of any success stores?
Connector 2: I have not but I desperately want to know. I think if people get married we legally have to officiate the wedding. Weâll go public to officiate the wedding. Weâll break anonymity for that.
T: Do a little daft punk moment
Connector 1: Yeah exactly. The [ones] behind the mask.
T: Do you think you want to continue it next year or post COVID in general?
Connector 1: Yeah, I mean I want to.
They talked about potential future: color schemes, contemplating a purple theme or the classic USC colors. I can tell that the account is only growing from here. Itâs not like there is any shortage of desperate college students!
T: Thatâs exciting. Iâm excited to see where the account goes!
Connector 1: Us too
T: Iâm also looking forward to hopefully getting a post about myself. I have not yet. I know you guys are hiding it
Connector 1: Oh yeah, well with the 200 post back log Iâm sure itâll come out soon...
Fiona Appleâs Beautiful Disarray
By Lily Riccio
I first discovered Fiona Apple about 2 years ago when I heard her 1996 hit song, Criminal. On the surface, her music seemed to be filled with overwhelming rage as her deep voice competed with idiosyncratic ballads, but after listening to her for some time, I began to appreciate her extraordinary view of the world. Amidst a snarl of prose carried by her baritone vocals, Apple delivers sensitive observations through symphonies of eccentric sound. These observations are uniquely self-aware and retrospective, ranging from insecurity and heartbreak to rage and eventual self-acceptance. Each line suggests intent, placed carefully among multilayers of noiseâ a rush of piano keys, a clang of an unidentifiable drum, or an unexpected choral interlude. This experimentation creates a collection of beautifully disheveled songs which are each unforgettable in their own right. To me, her unparalleled lyrical writing is best introduced through the following 4 songs:
EVERY SINGLE NIGHT (2012): In her characteristically poetic way, Apple tackles the overwhelming nature of anxiety. She illustrates this through sound, beginning with a delicate melody and then rising into a swell of desperate shouts.
WEREWOLF (2012): Perhaps Fiona Apple at her finest, âWerewolfâ speaks of an all-consuming relationship, ultimately built on denial and repressed rage.
WALTZ, BETTER THAN FINE (2005): Through an uncharacteristic melody of playful piano chords, Apple muses on being content with doing absolutely nothing.
FETCH THE BOLT CUTTERS (2020): Heightened by a symphony of clanging, Apple celebrates breaking free from a self-made prison. This latest track resembles closure, serving as an antithesis from her previous songs.
The Good, the Drag, and the Ugly
By Ambika Nuggihalli
âWhy donât you start by telling me how you got into drag?âÂ
âThis is a weird story. Lots and twists and turns. Not really. I was born in Chicago proper, specifically in what is essentially the West Hollywood of Chicago. Itâs called Boystown,â Ren begins.Â
Iâm interviewing Ren Ye, a junior at USC. Ren grew up in one of the largest midwestern LGBTQ communities during the legalization of same-sex marriage and the commercialization of LGBTQ identity.
âI lived in an apartment on top of the queerest Target in Chicago,â they tell me.
âThere are queer Targets?â I ask.
âWell, itâs âcause itâs right next to Boystown! Itâs the only Target near there. By default thereâs always just a rainbow section.â Renâs apartment above Chicagoâs Queerest Target was a different story. âMy parents are pretty homophobic, which is ironic, because they chose to live half a block away from dyke central. I donât know what they were trying to instill in their kids,â they joke.
Ren didnât let their parents stop them from growing up alongside 30-year-old drag queens and sneaking out with their best friend Henry.Â
âI would do my makeup with Henry in the room and then immediately have to scrub it off. Or if we were going out and meeting our friends half a block away, weâd have to take our makeup in our backpacks, say, âWeâre going to a cafe to study,â go to Target, and do our makeup downstairs. It was honestly really fun. Somehow I think of it as a teenage movie where we had to sneak away from the parents. Itâs a queer thing to dramatize things into almost a theater play experience.âÂ
âItâs the inner theater kid in you,â I offer. Thereâs a long silence before Ren, ever the drama queen, utters back just one word:
âDie.âÂ
We laugh to ourselves. Suddenly, we remember this is supposed to be an interview. Ren looks sheepish. I say,
âYou mentioned the commercialization of gay people and drag. Talk to me about that.âÂ
âThis is my can. Iâm opening it up. There are worms in there.â Ren makes a noise to show me just how many worms. It sounds like a lot of them. âI identify as a⊠I donât even know what the right word for it is. But the for-now, kind of problematic term for it is âAFAB queenâ (assigned female at birth queen) or âBio queenâ (biologically female queen). I like to consider myself just a drag queen, but a lot of gay men and people from the outside looking in like to categorize what drag is,â Ren explains. âThereâs been another resurgence of categorizing people within queer spaces in the hopes that there will be some marketable identity out of it. That sounds very theoretical. Do you know what I mean?â
âI understand.âÂ
âBitches like, keep trying to monetize us! Like, hop off my dick,â Ren rephrases. âDrag is an art form created by queer people to express something that wasnât in the binary,â they lament. âNow that itâs in the binary, what do we have?â
âDo you find there are also divisions in drag as a person of color?â I ask.
âStorytime! My stage name is Lil Baby Bokchoy, and that came from my drag mom back in the day being piss drunk coming up to me like, âYour name,â and I was like, âWhat?â and she was like, âLittle. Baby. Bok. Choy.â and I was like, âWhat??â And she was like, âThatâs your name now!â and I like it. I think itâs a cute name.âÂ
Ren exchanges a smile for a grimace. âBut once, I had a straight man come up to me and ask me, âWhatâs your name?â and I was like, âLil Baby Bokchoy,â and he was like, âI would like to eat you up, like⊠I love Chinese food.ââÂ
What was cute and familial when spoken by a fellow Asian drag queen became fetishizing, even degrading in that manâs mouth. âI was so mad. I was so mad,â Ren frowns.Â
They continue, âBeing Asian within drag, itâs hard. If you come from a first-generation or very traditional background, most Asian practices donât necessarily (a) support queer culture or (b) the arts. And itâs harder for people of color to get their own spots. Luckily, thereâs also performance spots that specifically target the API community. Thereâs Miss Shu Mai--â âYes! I follow her on Instagram!â I interrupt impolitely. Ren doesnât seem to mind. âYES! I want her to be my drag mom so bad,âÂ
âExplain to me the whole drag mom thing.â
âDrag parents arenât necessarily the age of your mom or your dad or anything like that. My drag mom, sheâs 21. Iâm 20. When I met her, I was 15 and she was 16. Sheâs a trans woman, she was kicked out of her house at a younger age. It wasnât that sad of a story. She got up on her feet, sheâs doing amazing things right now.
âShe saw the struggle I was in and was like, let me help you. So I stayed with her for a while. Sheâs amazing. She used to do drag. She doesnât really do drag anymore. A lot of trans women have problems with drag because of the categorizations within it now. It used to not be like this. Itâs only within these last couple years trans people have had visceral responses to the drag community. It used to be a lot to do with race, but now it has a lot to do with gender. Iâm not saying it has a lot to do with RuPaulâs Drag Race, buuuuuuuuuut⊠Yeah.â
Iâm about to delve into the image of drag created by media like RuPaulâs Drag Race; an image that overwhelmingly depicts white cisgender gay men at the expense of other identities--especially transgender women of color--when Ren sees someone familiar in the cafe, Claire.
âI call Claire one of my sisters,â Ren says. âI hang out with her outside of drag. She helps me style my wigs because I donât know how to style my wigs for SHIT,â
âYour wigs?âÂ
âWigs. I have three wigs in the back of my closest. Fire hazard. Three of them clumped in a corner.â
âThat hurts me, as someone whoâŠâ my voice drops and I look around the cafe, hoping no one else I know is in here. âI used to do cosplay,â I cough. Any effort I made to keep the rest of Cafe 84 from knowing about my middle school hobby is wasted as Ren practically screams,Â
âYOU DID COSPLAY??â They jump out of their seat. âYou never told me!!â âBecause I don't do it anymore,â I choke, cheeks pink.
âSo youâre a weeb.â
âNot anymore! Ex. Rehabilitated.âÂ
âYouâre a weeb!â
âNo I am not! I havenât seen an anime in 5 years!â
âThe fact that you know and youâve counted how long itâs been means that you have a problem. Itâs like when cigarette smokers are really into how long theyâve been off for because they keep thinking every day how long itâs been.â It is around now I realize I will be walking out at the end of this interview without any semblance of my dignity.Â
âThe point is. I know the wig struggle,â I assert weakly. I am grateful that Ren takes pity on me and lets me change the subject.
âI hate that in order to get volume...â they start, but halfway through, we finish the sentence in unison:Â
â...you have to tease the wig!âÂ
âAnd it kills the wig! It kills it!â I feel my scalp tingle.Â
âThe glue has killed the wig. Everything has killed the wig. The last thing it has to kill is me,â they say, before slumping back into their chair with a smile. In my mind, I paint one last picture of an electric green wig strangling Ren in their sleep. It wouldnât be the worst thing they have had to put up with in drag, not by a long shot.