I learned very early that there was no good way to tell my mom anything negative about any food item she put before me because she always took it as a failure to provide instead of a culinary error. To this day, at age 52, I STILL don’t tell my

English is my first language and the only one I share with my mom.  Aside from my ability to greet people, thank people, swear at people and order food I don’t speak Vietnamese.  ​English is not my mother’s first language.  Sometimes it’s questionable if it’s her second.   Mom: “Have you heard of

Every person with a sibling will tell you they know the other child is their parent’s favorite.  They’ll have an endless list of examples where the other was allegedly favored, but no proof.  Unlike me. I was actually told my brother was the favorite. I am the product of a

I love black coffee.  Not straight black coffee. Black with sugar. A good bit of sugar.  Enough sugar to power through the acrid sharpness of that first sip with a cloying sweetness.  My mother used to make iced coffee in the summertime when I was a child and I’d greedily

I’ve spent the last 44 days in a Lenten isolation of sorts.  I gave up social media.  I spent the time trying to figure out where the time goes.  Turns out I still have no idea. But I learned a lot about planning.  The plan was to trade all the

For the first time in my life, I truly feel the cold.  I feel a cold more visceral than “bone-chilling,” but I feel that too.  I feel it on my skin and in my skin and under my skin.  I feel it in my gut and hanging from my earlobes

The unfortunate thing is, I can’t just sit here and think about writing.  I actually have to do it.  Yet here I am staring at everything and anything; intentionally falling down rabbit holes in an exceptional display of procrastination and avoidance.  So far today in my effort to not write