ArcaMax

There are a few things that show your age. Wrinkles. Misused slang. Ankle socks, it turns out. No matter how well you think you might be aging, there are things trapped in time that may hold a special place for you but aren't things that age well. No, we're not talking about the government yet; I'm talking about old movie trailers.

I tried ...Read more

Ah, writer's block -- the invisible brick wall that every writer inevitably faceplants into. As a millennial, I've waded through all the unprecedented events, but trying to parse them to share weekly is hard. The cursor is tapping its little pixelated foot, impatiently waiting for me to birth a sentence worthy of the digital page. I've never ...Read more

I've settled down to write at my kitchen table with my son playing on his computer across from me. I catch his eyes, and his cheeks squish as he smiles, probably still charmed by me being the Block Mom yesterday when I fed him and a few stray kids that haunt our street popsicles, then soup. My daughter was at a pool party, so an impromptu ...Read more

I'm someone who watches horror movies from behind fingers in front of her eyes or a forearm shielding me from what I'm imagining as the worst of it. This is how I watched the first 10 minutes of the Biden and Trump debate.

As a millennial, I've grown accustomed to the feeling of a horror show and the lingering disappointment it creates. From ...Read more

There is now a regular in the parking lot of my local grocery store who asks to clean my windshield. Unfortunately, I rarely carry cash, so I request that he ask me again another time. I try to look him in the eye, but sometimes he won't meet mine.

There's been a shift locally, with more people eager to do small jobs to earn a dollar or two. ...Read more

At 5:30 a.m., it was still dark when we -- five cops, two city council members, and one city manager -- took off from City Hall on bikes. Within a few minutes, the sun started creeping over the mountains, showing us the muted colors of the old adobes in the nearby neighborhood.

We pulled up next to three people sitting outside a house. The ...Read more

I've thought more about what Jesus would do in the last five months than I have since those bracelets were all the rage in the late '90s.

Heading to an event this week, I realized I was going to be awkwardly early instead of fashionably late, so I took a detour to an area where homeless encampments had frustrated residents and restaurants ...Read more

I've taken to repeating a modified phrase from Aslan in C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia." Usually, it's just in my mind, but sometimes, it slips under my breath. "Do not cite the deep magic to me, witch; I was there when it was written," I'll mutter. "Of course, I know what a butterfly hair clip is."

I suppose turnabout is fair play, and the ...Read more

The call came early in the morning from his mother. The matriarch of my husband's family, their nearly 100-year-old grandmother, had passed away.

Unbeknownst to me, funeral events happen quickly in their culture; the wake was scheduled for that evening, and the church service and burial would follow the next day, only a day after she died at ...Read more

As I was being charged by name with genocide and cowardice by the protesters yelling in council chambers, I thought about my great-grandfather. His crime had been speaking out and warning about cowardice.

The Nazi officers had wanted to kill someone in front of him. He told the officer with the gun not to be a coward, that if the officer wanted...Read more

I can't remember how I got suckered into going to Girls State. I didn't run for student council and was certainly not a high school activist. I was an editor for the yearbook, part of the supercomputing club, and watched too much anime.

Girls State was a well-meant attempt by one of my teachers to develop a fire I didn't see in myself. This is ...Read more