Electrolicious

A few weeks ago, I was at a cocktail party where it was drunkenly revealed that all of us in the room were second generation. For those of you just joining us here in 21st century America, first generation immigrants are the ones who do the immigrating. Second generation immigrants are the children of those [...]

Forgot about this essay I wrote almost three years ago. It’s a study in slightly bad writing and disillusionment.
Let’s face the truth: at its worst, the beloved rave scene is nothing more than a bunch of kids on drugs dancing along crooked paths of self discovery/delusion in huge rotting warehouses. Then there’s some guy who [...]

I was about to turn 21 when I met inspiration.
The night we met, he asked me what I did.
I said I was a student.
He asked me, no, what did I really do.
I told him I was a writer, which was the first time I’d introduced myself as such or comprehended that I was anything of [...]

I have a long history with what most people call “eye masks” but that which I refer to as “sleepy blinders.”
For some unknown reason, I am exceptionally sensitive to light while sleeping. Maybe my eyelids are thin, or I’m just neurotic in my sleep or something, but whatever the reason, if there’s light, there’s usually [...]

Next week I’m attending GoTT, the Gathering of the Tribes conference. This is the fourth year of the conference, and will be my third year attending (some of you may remember my stories from 2001).
Back when I wrote for Lotus, I used to joke that rave years are like dog years — things evolve so [...]

Summer of 1992, my two best friends and I liked to pass our late nights by driving around Bainbridge Island, then a sub-rural community beginning its transformation into its current upper-middle class suburban state. Like bored teenagers driving around hometowns everywhere, we were looking for trouble…but in our case it was plastic trouble.
We were looking [...]

In an effort to distract myself from the black cloud hanging over my head (you know: that black cloud that smells of war, diplomatic melt-down, and impending death), here is a story that includes drugs, children on crutches, a russian, a dutch woman, and me being nearly naked and having my mouth wide open (although [...]

I have a birthmark.

My boyfriend’s father gave him crack for Christmas.
Ok, ok: not actual crack (which we know from Whitney Houston is “whack”). But close enough: a bag of coffee, complete with its “fresh from the head shop” paraphernalia: a grinder and a French press. Oh, and a fantastic kettle, which I will use for my own non-coffee [...]

Fall of 1995, I moved into a four+ bedroom house in the Maple Leaf neighborhood of Seattle. I moved in with four female roommates: two UW buddies, and two young women we’d found via room postings on college bulletin boards. One was an 18 year old from the Tri-Cities, the other was a deadhead from [...]