“I see very few people who look like me, and very few people see me back.” — Even though I grew up in New Jersey, I only went down the shore once during my youth. And I barely remember it. I went with my friends, after our senior prom. The theme was “Forever Young” — named after the Alphaville song about living under the threat of nuclear…

My body is not a wonderland, not in a pandemic I look at my damp, naked body in the mirror and rub some of the eczema cream I’d just purchased from Rite-Aid between two palms. Thick and goopy. Hmmm. “So, that’s how it is,” I say to my reflection. “You’re…

The bathroom door is the foot of the bed. No, you heard me correctly, it’s not at the foot of the bed, it is the foot of the bed. So we must leave these bathroom doors open while we sleep, while we shower, while we use the toilet. We are…

My father went in for a “simple” heart surgery on a Monday. Nothing to worry about. The same heart surgery Bill Clinton once got, from the same surgeon who performed it. But on Tuesday, something went wrong and he was in the ICU. On Thursday, my brother said, “Come home…

Being part of this virtual world was its own love language. — We are two people and a dog, and we live in a two-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles. Which is more than fine. But in June 2020, it was not. That summer, the office where my husband Abe spends all day editing two TV shows was overheating from the direct sunshine…

I binged probably once a week for most of my late-twenties. — In 2009, I created a personal food blog/podcast called “The Actor’s Diet.” Whenever I told people, they’d automatically snicker. “So what exactly is the actor’s diet — cigarettes and coffee?” And then I would tell them about my history with eating disorders. And then they would quickly change the subject. …

“Oh wow. She looks like one of those Japanese dolls.” — That’s one of my first memories, gazing up at my mother’s friends who ooh-ed and ahhh-ed over my perfect, silky black hair. They were all white. “Say thank you,” my mother instructed, and I immediately obliged, even though we were Taiwanese. I was only a kid, but I knew this…

I’m on one end of the couch, the usual side (the one facing the window where I can stretch my legs out and watch TV if I turn my head to the right) and my Jack Russell, Julius, is on the other. As always, he is sleeping. Paws crossed. Before…