A no-fuss, intuitive way to take stock and map your priorities — Everyone! It’s almost the end of the year. It’s nearing that time when we arbitrarily decide we’re going to turn over a new leaf; start a new great habit. But so many of us embark on this process without once considering our baseline — where we’re starting from. I want…

Sometimes, we say things that are hurtful. Here’s what to say instead. — “That’s just crazy.” “How lame.” “I got gypped.” You may not know it yet, but these common idioms can be deeply hurtful for folks who suffer from mental health issues; folks who are disabled, and people of Romani descent, respectively. And yet, these phrases are common parlance in English. (We’ve…

“Meeting someone where they are” isn’t just a buzzphrase — Courtney and I have delivered diversity and inclusion workshops together to organizations ranging from higher education institutions to major video-game studios. I know a lot about Courtney. We text at least four days a week, about everything from dogs to whatever our lives are throwing at us. …

I know better now — You can listen to the Soundcloud recording of this post here. I sometimes think of myself as a failed experiment. My parents hoped I’d be valedictorian of everything, but my college GPA was a dismal 3.2, and I’m convinced I only ended up in AP Calculus because of a clerical…

While packing for a weekend away in a new-to-me location, I left behind my sketchbook. I wanted to see how I’d do if I only had my agenda to draw in or take notes with. I use a Hobonichi Techo with Tomoe River paper, which holds up a little…

A minor disaster; a major revelation — My neighbors’ gigantic cedar tree had to be cut down after nearly uprooting itself onto their house during a windstorm last week. Last week’s Santa Anas, a Southern California phenomenon, were the strongest we’d had since I remember. They got up to 70 miles per hour, and when we awakened…

I remembered something! And now my notes make more sense. — Yesterday I wrote about a scrap of paper I scribbled all over while I was in the ER for a bike accident two and a half years ago. There was a huge chunk of it that didn’t make much sense. You can read that here: Notes from an Emergency Room Deciphering some old after-accident thoughtshumanparts.medium.com Memory is a funny thing…

Deciphering some old after-accident thoughts — In July of 2019, both tires on my road bike blew as I was riding. I put my foot down (wrong move); my bike kicked me off, and I landed on the back of my head. I was on a busy road, so I tried to get up, but I’d…

Now, the challenge is to never forget the lessons I learned — In CanIPlayThat.com’s “Inclusion for Creatives” workshops, my colleague Courtney Craven and I include a break-time exercise that’s designed to get folks to interrogate their environment. Pick a demographic marker you don’t currently occupy, we say. Imagine you’re Muslim, or Black, if you’re Christian, or Asian, for instance. …