Otaku Journalist in 2025
Just a recent photo from my camera roll. Over the past week or so, I’ve been quietly restoring Otaku Journalist. Sometime in the past five years of security updates and…
No Villains
Sunrise in Potrero H, February 2015. When the Uber driver arrived at the worst Airbnb I’ve ever stayed in, he told me to double-check that I had the right address.…
My Year as a Girl Boss
Me in 2013 It was 2013 and I’d just arrived at the largest suburban house I’d ever been inside. I was at a stranger’s place for a two-day writing workshop,…
6 lessons from my 36th year
Today is my 37th birthday. I know I’m supposed to be ashamed of getting up there in years, “never ask a woman her age” and all that, but I’m thrilled…
Rewriting Painful Memories in ‘My New Boss Is Goofy’
There’s a memory from 15 years ago that still haunts me. When I was in college, I ate the rest of my roommate’s homemade pie. At the time, I didn’t…
Reclaiming my fandom self, two kids later
This Lego set was my first time building a model since Bryan was born. I was catching up on Ya Boy Kongming! when the first contraction hit. It was May…
‘Frieren’ Brings Us Face To Face With Mortality
The first thing we learn about the titular character of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is that she isn’t human. Frieren is an elven mage with a greatly elongated lifespan; her…
Motherhood changed how I write about anime
This will be my third Mother’s Day as a mom. This time last year, I was still recovering in the hospital after giving birth. (It had been an easy birth,…
How I’ve been spending my 2023
This January I read the life-changing book Atomic Habits, which challenges you to improve your life by reminding you that your habits, the tasks and routines you repeat every day,…
What I’ll do instead of watching the fall anime season
Last week, in a burst of emotion, I wrote my first blog post in a year. In hindsight, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to boycott the fall season…