we all have these—the thoughts that won’t leave our brain. the things we spend a lot of time thinking about. half-baked musings that can keep us up at night or fill the blank pages of journals and blogposts. the conversations we have without ourselves about what matters to us and what we believe of the world.

and i’m still looking for the words to say the things i mean. someday, i might find them. for now, they exist as inklings of the connective synapses that map and connect these thoughts together:

  • lifestyle genres: an ode to our constant coming of age
  • cultural artifacts: the stories we keep coming back to
  • national geography: places and what they mean to a people
  • compositional interaces: fault lines between the real and unreal

these are the things i’ve spent my whole life trying to put into words


lifestyle genres

an ode to our constant coming of age

life in the dreamhouse

barbie roberts ran so gwenyth paltrow could run. barbie’s cultural influence in the states and beyond, how a blue-eyed, blonde-haired teenager captures the aspirational fantasies of young girls until society teaches them to reject those ideals and bury the dreamhouse beyind them.

love letters to limerence

why 99% of the romcoms i’ve seen are about infatuation and why that’s still so addicting. it’s the same old stories about meet cutes and first crush and homecoming dances and first dates and why is it always about the first?

sixteen going on seventeen

all i’ve literally ever wanted was for a movie to pay homage to the realities of a teenagers who followed the rules: the teens teens who went to school, did their requisite extracurriculars, came home, and did homework until 3am. all i want is to see them do homework on that decade of roller-coaster emotions.

cultural artifacts

the stories we keep coming back to

national geography

places and what they mean to a people

new york i love you, but you’re bringing me down

who is new york, why do we have a torturous love affair with this city, and the people who live here: the rich elite who sparkle in their park ave penthouses and the working class bootstrappers who cling to the hope of gold still in the concrete streets

california here we come

americana filtered through the lens of retro western glamour. the vision of an empty diner off the highway and how the sun, road, and gauzy allure of the 101 captures our wildest imagination of manifest destiny; the west as the place we manifest ourselves

compositional interfaces

fault lines between the real and unreal

the power of description

the ability to put something into words is a superpower. the capacity to articulate what something means, how it matters to you, and the impliciation it might have for others is astounding. i’m blown away each time i see someone else do it and i can see myself in between the lines. things that are ineffable—and then no longer.



💖 title from this lyric in the pursuit of the ineffable.