HappiMess

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

I inherited my grandfather’s wooden spice rack with the latticed doors and the stoppered glass bottles inside. Instead of dried herbs, I filled them with poignant trinkets, added a label, and created what a friend once called “potions.” Some of them included: Cessation (a dried rose)… Read More »The Potions

During college, I worked as a desk assistant in the dorm (specifically, my dorm, which meant I could stagger down to the desk in the morning in pajamas without ever seeing the light of day or feeling the touch of weather on my skin). Although, work may… Read More »The Smelly, Colorful Alphabet