I once told a former boyfriend that I wasn’t in the mood to smile and that pirates don’t smile anyway. He then edited the Wikipedia page for pirates to say that pirates should smile. This says more about that relationship than I can ever explain.

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The sound of the car warming up in the winter fills me with the most unsettling mix of nostalgia and anxiety. It is reminiscent of family vacations and early morning school events and my dad leaving for work while the rest of us were still in bed.

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I have a note in my journal that simply reads: “Fred cells > incels,” which only makes sense in the extremely weird context of that night, when I had two decaf lattes at 9 p.m. and could feel every cell of my body vibrating. And all of the cells were named Fred.