All Stories
Friends
My friend Tom's house has been playing the same three CDs on repeat for three months now – The Cranberries, Coldplay, and The Strokes. Every time we hang out, he makes small talk by pointing at me from across the room, mouth set in a stern expression, singing "Ode to My Family" as loud as he possibly can.
Tech Fails
My fingers danced across the keyboard like an overambitious pianist as I tried to debug the code for the virtual reality game, but all I managed to create was a digital facsimile of my own awkward expressions, which then proceeded to stare back at me menacingly on 27 identical screens.
Family
As I rummage through grandma's old recipe book, my fingers catch on a yellowed receipt with my name scribbled in messy handwriting. The date is 1992; I must've been eight years old.
Drinking & Parties
My friend Dave is getting remarried, and he invited me to his bachelor party in a dive on the outskirts of town that I'm pretty sure used to be a Chinese restaurant. I got there at 9 PM, an hour before the designated time for "optional pre-drink festivities," and had the whole bar to myself, a scenario that only occurred to me later would be extremely awkward.
School
As I stood at the front of the auditorium, staring out at rows of expectant faces, my voice wobbled precariously, threatening to betray me. It was supposed to be a simple presentation on the history of our school, but my stomach betrayed my best intentions by doing a slow, nauseating loop-the-loop.
Misunderstandings
The fluorescent lights in the break room are like tiny pinpricks to my eyes. Last week, during one of my daily coffee ritual visits, I tried to impress my coworker Emma by ordering our drinks in a smooth, coffee-shop kind of voice - I mean, not smooth, but I tried.
Oversharing
Sometimes after 2 am on a Tuesday my stomach starts talking in a voice that's almost a perfect imitation of a particularly grating aunt – you know, the one that means well but will drone on for 17 minutes about last month's water bill. At that point I get this gnawing urge, usually driven by some fleeting regret or misplaced insecurity, to pick up my phone and rattle off an update that is 97% mundane and 3% slightly cringeworthy details – for instance, I spent Sunday watching 4.5 hours of Korean variety shows with 1 cat and 0 productive tasks – only to immediately regret having hit send because 9.7 times out of 10 the next day it all feels like a desperate attempt to validate or at least appear somewhat present in this virtual echo chamber we've constructed for validation.
Oversharing
My mom somehow stumbled upon my browsing history from when I was 13 and decided to bring it up over lunch at a diner - the smell of greasy eggs and stale coffee still transports me back to the awkward afternoon of discovering she knew about all those Justinian forum posts and how 'caramel macchiato' was really a euphemism for something more...inexperienced.
Food & Dining
I watched my fingers tremble as I cracked a egg into the blender - the sound was too loud, it startled my housemate, a cat who was eating a bagel at the kitchen table.
Work
As I fumbled with the stapler, my boss's gaze landed firmly on me. "You know, it's not rocket science," he muttered, which only made me more convinced it was in fact an advanced aerospace procedure, beyond my capabilities.
Tech Fails
The faint glow of the computer screen casts an uneasy light on my face as I fumble beneath the keyboard to retrieve the dust-covered instruction manual for my failed attempt at building a robot last Christmas. I swear I followed the diagrams, but the mechanical bird now lies inert amidst cardboard shreds and the discarded remains of a half-defrosted pizza.
Work
My hands have taken on the consistency of overwashed washcloths by the time I'm done folding yesterday's batch of sweat-scented t-shirts for Uncle Joe's Discount Laundry. It's been three years since I quit community college, telling myself that real life experience trumps textbooks, like some sort of twisted life hack.
Friends
The summer I tried to make friends at an indie rock camp. I insisted I was a bassist, demonstrated by awkwardly thumping an out-of-tune rubber chicken, much to the dismay of everyone except one bewildered girl with a fondness for my band's lyrics scrawled on a worn notebook cover.
Food & Dining
My aunt's infamous seven-layer lasagna sits before me, the aroma of dried parsley and congealed ricotta wafting up like a challenge. I'm 10 years old again, attempting to impress her with exaggerated Italian flair during holiday gatherings.
Awkward
Freshly shaved, my smooth face catches the fluorescent glare as I stand in front of my fridge, frozen in indecision. I've been eating leftovers for three days straight, yet still manage to stare blankly at the remnants of last Tuesday's pizza, wondering if it's too soon to rewrap it in the original box.
Work
The fluorescent lights above me hum like a swarm of restless bees, making my skin itch. I've been stuck in this cubicle since 8, trying to finish quarterly financial reports on time.
Public Places
As I stood by the vending machine, the gentle hum filling the cramped airport terminal was somehow amplified in my ears until it sounded like the reverberation of a thousand whispers, my eyes kept drifting towards the woman flossing behind me. She had an oddly precise method to her gum-removal, pausing every few seconds to survey the surrounding area like she was a covert operation.
Misunderstandings
As I stood there, frozen in the dimly lit airport coffee shop, I watched her attempt to pour a packet of what looked like ketchup into my lukewarm coffee. Her eyes were set on the prize – a uniform, steaming cup of what she no doubt envisioned as 'Americano-flavoured syrupy goo'.
Food & Dining
I've been practicing the ancient art of sushi-making, mainly through watching YouTube tutorials while eating stale ramen, which isn't exactly the most reliable way to master the technique. Anyway, my cat, an unimpressed observer, lay under my kitchen table, periodically batting at bits of fish that slipped onto the floor.
Holidays & Events
The smell of stale eggnog clung to me like an uncle's bad cologne. My family's holiday party is a vortex of forced merriment, and I'm stuck at the periphery, feeling like a worn-out sweater.
School
Mornings are when the universe decides I'd like to relive every awkward memory from childhood. This particular Tuesday, it was the time I managed to simultaneously spill oatmeal, trip on my own feet, and knock over a water bottle in exactly two seconds – a feat of coordinated clumsiness I'm convinced only occurs on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Strangers
My grandmother's funeral brought with it this stranger sitting across from me at the reception, his eyes fixed intensely on the plate of cold chicken nuggets in front of him. Every now and then he'd take a small, tentative bite before returning his gaze to me.