let me tell you about the time…
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Horrible People
My neighbor sucks. He’s the top dog of the HOA, a syndicate of retirees obsessed with my house. When he’s not gardening, he’s patrolling the sidewalks, studying the HOA handbook, or up my ass about it. My windows are wrong. My trees are wrong. My mailbox is stuffed with fines. Days after bringing home another
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Found & Lost
Church was family—made up of my closest friends, my hyungs and nunas, and of course, my actual family: my mom, my sister, and the Holy Father. You know, the one who art in heaven, hallowed be His name. The one who art on earth stayed home on Sundays. My dad rejected everything about church. To him, it was Korean School with way too many strings attached. But he was the father who took me fishing, rubbed my tummy when it hurt, and fed it fish when it grumbled. Those things have always felt more real to me than the invisible…
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My Villain Origin Story
I can only infer my parents loved each other once. Rather than warmth or anything wholesome, my parents’ marriage was characterized by submission to my dad’s oppressive authority. He was hard as flint but just as brittle—prone to mood swings and brooding anger. The rest of the family adopted strategies of avoidance or appeasement when my dad’s inscrutable gloom pressed upon us. Displays of affection were stereotypically rare in my family. I don’t remember a time I felt the same tenderness toward my parents as I did for halmeoni. I loved my dad in the sense I feared and obeyed…