Photo credit: Jillian Sabre
DANGEROUSLY PAINTED FACES:
THE HUMAN STORY OF MAKEUP
(2012-2013)
If there is one thing about my appearance that I cherish, it is my makeup. My mother, a staunch feminist with cropped hair and easily irritated skin, never wore or owned any makeup. She preached against it, never even letting me paint my nails, so perhaps it was the taboo nature of the object that fueled my fascination bordering on obsession...
NON-fiction
FIVE REASONS SOCIETY THINKS I'M FAT (2013-2014)
She was sitting in the mall with her "friends", the girls who act like they get along but really don’t. They were eating dinner. She had always been a bit overweight. It was a genetic trait passed down from her mother’s side of the family...
HURAKAN, HADRONS, AND THE REBIRTH OF WONDER (2014-2015)
Whether this, that, and the other sprang from the shell of a cosmic egg, the corpse of a dismembered giant, an endless oceanic hellscape, or just an otherworldly emptiness, dreaming up the origin of everything must have been the highlight of our earliest primordial block parties...
DASHIKIS AND WAR PAINT (2015-2016)
I watched as the greatest symbols and silhouettes of hope I’ve ever seen let glee drive them into a joyful madness. There were no politics, no malevolent motives, no need to build identity with the tattered remains of another; just movement, just dainty dances, just the need to enjoy the moment others...
METAL: THE SUB-GENRE MOTLEY (2017-2018)
I'm going to be honest here—as much as I love heavy metal, it is a confusing genre of music. While it's normal to expect some variation between different groups within the same musical genre, metal and its subsequent sub-genres turn that concept up to eleven.
FEMALE REPRESENTATION IN MUSICALS (2017-2018)
Musicals have always been an important part of my life. While most parents were introducing their children to such rock classics as Led Zeppelin and The Beatles, my parents opted to raise us on Miss Saigon and Les Misérables...
4:20 P.M. Ten Minutes to Close
Well, the lady finally left after screaming at me for nearly an hour, so I guess that’s a good thing. It’s weird how easily I've gotten used to people screaming at me. You wouldn’t think it’s something anyone can get used to, but after a while the words "you’re an asshole" lose their sting.
Growing up they told me that the moon was made of cheese and I thought Clifford was really that big and really that red. I wore black Mary Jane shoes and chunky colored headbands that when I see pictures of today, I can't help but roll my eyes...
