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September 22nd, 2025

the birds and the bees...to be perceived or not to be.

i get this feeling every year: the wanting to be known, and the wanting to know. it’s a small, hungry thing that surfaces in places that are supposed to be ordinary, like walking home, during a shift, or scrolling past someone who almost looks like an idea. i am not someone who craves relationships the way some people do, cycling from one to the next like it’s just the rhythm of their breathing. and if i’m honest, i’m good at being alone. too good, maybe. isolation doesn’t really frighten me but even solitude has its limits. sometimes i ache for someone to see me, and not just see me, but recognize the shifting parts i can’t always name out loud.

dating has always been strange for me. it’s awkward and beautiful in the same breath. it’s exciting and absolutely terrifying. a first date is a feeling unlike no other.

earlier this year i was dating a girl i really liked, we'll call her Li. we met on hinge (yea i know). let me explain: it was january & i had just got back from studying abroad in london, i was curious to see what the dating scene looked like. i was on hinge but i wasn’t really ON hinge. i was honestly just there to see who else was on there, but then one day i saw Li in my likes. we matched, we went on dates, we hung out, we got to know each other. it was great, really great honestly. then fast forward to the end of march, she texted me the day before april fools day. i was at work when her message popped up. the timing was impeccable because i was literally mid-sentence telling my friend i thought she was soft ghosting me after being radio silent all weekend. she wrote about uncertainty, about still figuring herself out, about not knowing what she wanted. and i understood, my friends say i was maybe a bit too understanding. but i’ve lived in that fog too, i’ve been in her shoes. then she added the thing i didn’t quite understand, she said, we could be friends, and maybe, if something romantic/sexual arises, we’d see where it led.

what i heard in that wasn’t possibility but contingency, “stay here while i decide.” and i hate that. i can’t be that for someone. i can’t be the body they rehearse tenderness on while keeping an eye out for another stage. i'm not sure if that's selfish or not, i don't think it is.

the harder part though, wasn’t even the rejection of it all. it was the shadow beneath it: that sense that what she wanted, what she almost wanted, wasn’t me exactly, it was a version of me that fit her idea of desire. i’ve felt this before, too many times actually. when i lean masc, i’m wanted. when i let myself be more femme, i’m invisible. it makes me wonder, am i being chosen for who i am, or for how i look arranged in someone else’s fantasy?

maybe Li wasn’t categorizing me like that. maybe it was just a coincidence that on our last date i happened to dress a lot more feminine than she’d ever seen me. could’ve been dumb luck. but i can’t ignore the pattern. not with her specifically, but with almost every person i’ve dated within the last 2 years.

i wear what makes me feel alive in my body, what reminds me i belong to myself first. and yet, in dating, it can feel like everyone else is busy curating me. like i’m an aesthetic they get to pin down for a season.

so when she texted me, it wasn’t just her uncertainty that stung. it was the reminder of a larger pattern i've noticed in my dating life: that i am too much and not enough at the same time. too “feminine” to be seen as strong, too “masculine” to be seen as tender. too in-between to be chosen for the fullness of it. (sorry, i just lol’d a little. this sounds like a ‘too black for the white kids and too white for the black kids’ sentence but i have to speak my #truth).

i know how to be alone. i even love it. but there’s a specific kind of loneliness that comes from realizing someone can’t imagine you outside the role they’ve already written for you. that’s the ache that lingers. that’s the one i haven’t yet figured out how to outgrow.

wrote this in my notes app a few days after it all happened and my brain was in a gender envy frenzy:

you only want a man
can i be him for you?
you like it when i wear the pants,
take control over you
am i enough for you?
i’ll play into the cards you’ve stacked
ace of spades, i’m the fool
i’ll take it, if you give the chance
i can be strong for you
i can be what you choose

September 13th, 2025

first post

i created this web to start a blog. that was it. that was the whole idea. as i’ve said in other corners of this site, i just wanted a place to write. a place where all of my non-academic work could live, where i didn’t have to worry about citations or structure or whether something sounded “professional enough.” just writing for the sake of writing, a place where i could be loose, messy, and unrestrained. but then i started wandering deeper into the indie web, and i realized i loved so many other aspects of it. the design, the interconnectedness, the smallness of it all. suddenly, this site didn’t feel like just a blog anymore. i wanted it to be something larger, something living, something that could grow alongside me. because of that, i put all this unnecessary pressure on what my “first post” should be. i convinced myself it had to be big--something grandiose and profound, something that would shake the ground under anyone who read it.

i thought, “this first post has to be the hook, the thing that keeps people coming back.” so i drafted and redrafted. four different essays, all circling around topics that feel central to who i am and how i see the world. but none of them felt good enough. they were polished, sure, but they also felt like i was trying too hard. and that’s not what i wanted. i don’t want to perform here. i don’t want to put on a mask and create some heightened version of myself just to impress people--especially people i don’t even know. i want this space to feel like me, not like the stage version of me.

the truth is, there might not be anyone reading this at all. maybe this site will exist in silence, floating out here in the web with no eyes on it but mine. and if that’s the case, then who am i really writing for? the answer has to be: myself. it has to be me. i need to write because i want to, because i need to, not because i’m hoping for someone else’s reaction.

a professor of mine, in one of my intro to creative writing courses, once gave advice that was so plain it almost felt meaningless at the time. they said: “just write.” that’s it. two words. and i brushed it off at first, but the more i sit with it, the more i understand how much weight those words hold. just write. no overthinking. no waiting for the perfect idea. no pressure to perform. just put words down. pen to paper, fingers to keys, whatever it takes.

so that’s what i’m doing here. no research, no citations, no carefully crafted thesis. just me, working my way through one long, wandering train of thought. and maybe that’s exactly the right way to begin.

and while i do hope people read my blog, and maybe even find something in it worth returning to, i can’t let that be the reason i write. i write first and foremost for myself, and if anyone else happens to listen in, that will just be a quiet bonus.

with warmth,
andi

December 13th, 2024

something new, something strange, i call it procrastination plague.

i have a problem… i’m plagued by the procrastination bug. it’s real, and i’m living proof. when i have too much to do and plenty of time to do it, i never actually start or finish the things i need to. it’s this endless loop i get caught in. and when i’m stuck in it, my instinct is to run, not from my work exactly, but out into the world. to wander, to explore, to pretend i’m busy in other ways. on this particular day, my wandering turned into a top secret spy mission at the natural history museum in london. my partner in crime: kaylee. we can’t disclose who or what we were spying on (classified information) but we did have another agent planted inside the building, handling business of her own.

this mission ended up being the perfect way to waste a day. both of us are women in stem--kaylee with biology, me with environmental studies--so the museum was basically our playground. we nerded out the whole time, trading facts and excitement, and it felt like a safe little bubble of joy. there’s a statue of charles darwin perched at the top of the steps into the gems and birds floor. we couldn’t see his face clearly at first (blind baddies), but once we got closer and read his name, it clicked at the same exact moment for both of us. our voices mirrored each other in cadence and tone, saying “charles darwin” like we’d rehearsed it. it cracked us up, it probably doesn’t read as funny now, but in the moment it was pretty funny.

we spent lotsssssss of time in every exhibit we stepped into, from creepy crawlers (which kaylee loved more than i did, too many legs for my taste) to the ladybugs (which i was obsessed with). and we didn’t just linger at the exhibits, we also made a point to stop in practically every gift shop the museum had to offer. me and kaylee share a deep love for trinkets, so we obviously got lost among the pins, postcards, and shiny little objects almost as much as we did among the fossils and specimens. we stopped in about 3 of the gift shops, each were very different so that was sort our justification as to why we haddd to make time to stop in them all. at onepoint we were huddled around different themed rubix cubes. i don't know how to solve one but kaylee does #shescool, so we stood there for a few minutes as she showed me how to solve it.

i don’t remember how much time we spent there, but i think we stayed until they closed. the natural history museum is huge, in order to fully take in everything they have you have to go two days in a row. the first floor alone is this cavernous space with smaller exhibits tucked into the walls. right at the entrance, you’re greeted by a massive whale skeleton suspended above, impossible to fully capture in a photo (i tried). my favorite part of the entire exhibit (2nd to fossilized trees) was the taxidermy section. if i could be a taxidermy animal, i’d pick a bird, everyone loved the bird section they were #popular.

eventually, kaylee and i wrapped up our mission. we left the museum and headed to the five guys down the road, where we met up with our fellow agent roselyn. she had been on the inside the whole time, tending to her own top secret mission. over fries and burgers, she debriefed us, sharing how it all went.

looking back, i think about how much i’d love to work in preservation if i could. not just the exhibits, but the care behind them. i’m fascinated by the way old things, bones, stones, creatures, & more are given new life in museums, admired in ways they couldn’t be in the in the outside world. if money and practicality weren’t always in the way, i think i’d choose that path without hesitation.

with warmth,
andi