HappiMess

When I first tried to meditate, I—like most people—found it really goddamn hard. To this day, it’s still difficult: Who are these magic meditative people who can make their mind go shh, who aren’t whisked away by every thought like a mental ski lift? To at… Read More »Imagination Land: The Coastline: Part 1

This week, let’s revisit the origins of HappiMess. Each piece paved the way to this very post! It’s history in the making, people, so grant your peepers the pleasure of getting their sweet fill of this virtual gallery featuring artwork from the Pre-HappiMess Era (i.e., 1987… Read More »The Humble Beginnings of HappiMess -OR- The Little Kid Art Gallery: Part 2

This post continues exploring my childhood masterpiece, Bird and Kitty (or whatever it was actually called). When we last left off, the series of short stories penned by my elementary-school self was intensifying in emotional depth, as demonstrated in the mean-girlsy plot of the following… Read More »The Adventures of Bird and Kitty: Part 2

It Begins with Diary Lust When I was in first grade, Annie—the nine-year-old deity next door—gave me a diary she never used anymore. It had a dirt-smudged, plastic cover stippled with little geometric designs and red, blue, and yellow flowers. The lock was broken and… Read More »The Adventures of Bird and Kitty: Part 1

I’ve been keeping a journal for so long that it kind of freaks me out: for the most part, two-thirds of my life have been documented. I still have the journal that started it all: a black-and-white speckled composition book that my mom covered in… Read More »My Third-Grade Diary (1993)

In my senior yearbook, my graduating class and I didn’t get a nice chunk of blank space to say whatever we wanted beside our gorgeous head shots. Instead, all the upperclassmen had their photos in the front of the book accompanied by their names, and… Read More »Upperclassmen Say the Darndest Sh*t, Part 1