Blame the algorithms all you want, but you can’t deny that social media often excels at delivering on-point—and sometimes painfully accurate—content straight to the palm of your hand. I found myself cringing the other morning on my post-snooze-button cruise through my Instagram feed at the results of a Q&A on someone’s story. The question? “What does being Southern mean to you?” An answer: “Being both incredibly proud and deeply ashamed of where you’re from.”
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Dear readers, may I present to you, a rather incomplete, but no less impressive list of various things that happened when I finally decided to stop hating myself:
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I once worked in a restaurant where the customer had to be greeted within seconds of approaching the bar—or else our manager would rush over and drop a menu, smiling almost aggressively as if to make up for my supposed negligence of their presence. Later, I would be reprimanded for not tending to their needs immediately. My manager would raise an eyebrow. Immediately.
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I’m back in the San Gabriel Valley to have dinner with a good friend. Ivy—she’s just moved back from two years teaching English in Korea, and she’s living temporarily in our hometown of Arcadia while contemplating her next move. I live only about 30 miles away on the Westside of LA, but my parents have moved away from the area, and now I rarely make it back. It’s a chance to get my hair cut by an Asian lady, stock up at the Chinese grocery store, and see what’s changed.
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Fran and Emma (2016) by Kate Mitchell
I sat with my back against a hundred-year-old grave marker, eighteen years old, the promise of liberty as a soon-to-be-college-student pumping adrenaline through my veins. Michael kept close. He knew the graveyard creeped me out a little. It was February and a few degrees below freezing—the perfect excuse to sit side-by-side, knees touching. Funny how quickly intimacy can blossom between strangers.
You may have noticed that things have been a bit quiet on the Dinner Party front as of late. I promise there’s a good reason for the online silence—we’ve been tinkering away at a special print edition to commemorate our fifth anniversary!
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Dearest readers, I must admit that I felt some major fatigue during this last leg of watching the final eleven Oscar-nominated films and remaining two shorts categories. As with the last batch, I dreaded having to watch some of these films, for reasons outlined below. But, I finished—and found myself pleasantly surprised by a handful of nominees. Read on for Volume Three.
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