What Would E.T. Do?
A coming-of-age story for a boy, family, and civilization. A parable of wonder and crisis that taught me things my parents couldn’t.
Essays
151 posts
Corey Sobel, Strictly Speaking, Doesn’t Exist
While I lost my faith long ago, I have clearly retained this belief in, need for, existential variousness.
Syncopation
I need them to change the music to something harmless. Something by a blond pop star.
from Sex with a Brain Injury
It comes from the sky: a meteor, a falling object, a box. It comes out of nowhere, a car, a baseball, an opponent’s fist, a partner’s fist, an officer’s baton. . . .
Ghosts in the Mirror
My adoptive mother tells me I was precocious enough as a toddler to ask if I came from her belly. She says this was a sign I comprehended my adoption so early she never had to explain it to me.
Debtors to a Mercy We Never Begged For
No, home is not as simple as the heart-shaped sandwiches Ma placed into my lunch bag on Valentine’s Day or the way my father confessed to listening to me sing shower showtunes or washing a car beside my brother as the summer sun beat down.
Letter to My Mentee (October 26, 2023)
“This,” I say to my daughter, choking up, “is civilization. Not banking, not technology. Not weaponry that kills without a fight. This,” I go on, seeing her face pale, “is what it means to be civilized.”
The Mothership
Most of all, I hoped they’d see how well I turned out and regret ever sending me away.
The Beat Goes On
If the average lifespan is roughly 76 years, then that one muscle, the size of a fist, beats 2,796,192,000 times. It never quits, until it quits.
What She Kept
I hand-wrote my mother a letter entirely in hangul. It looked like a child wrote it, which was because a child wrote it.
A GenderPunk Love Letter
Every support system that is lacking is made up for by a mad rush of love-struck queers trying to hold each other up.