The Sunshine Blogger Awards

This ended up being a much longer article than expected!

This challenge was originally set by

Arpad Nagy

The idea is to answer eleven questions set by someone on Medium who is interested in knowing more about you. Then, think of some Medium writers you’re curious about and set your own questions to learn more about them.

I was nominated for this task by the Amazing

Sarah Scorze

Thank you Sarah.

1. What’s your favourite piece of writing advice?

Write the thing you are slightly scared to write.

But not just because it is raw, controversial, or emotionally exposing. Write it because it might matter.

The pieces I feel most compelled to write are usually the ones circling something that frustrates me, angers me. They are the things people talk around, misunderstand, flatten, politicise, or turn into a shouting match.

Especially as a trans woman, I often feel like we are discussed constantly but rarely listened to properly. We become a headline, a debate topic, a political football, a “polarising issue.” Meanwhile, the actual human being gets lost somewhere underneath the noise.

A lot of what is said about trans people is said by cis people, to other cis people, about us, but not always with us. And not always accurately. So sometimes I hope my writing can be a bridge between those worlds. Not a perfect bridge. Or a bridge that claims to have all the answers, but a bridge nonetheless. A way of saying: here is what this actually feels like from the inside.

That is why I think writing needs passion. Without it, the piece has no pulse. But passion on its own is not enough. It needs structure, evidence, restraint, and honesty. I know my own feelings can run ahead of me sometimes. I can feel the argument before I have fully built it. That is where good editing matters. Someone like James Finn, who understands both the emotion and the craft, can help sharpen a piece without letting it lose its heart, and he has helped me a lot with this over the past few months whilst still allowing me to have my own individual voice.

One book that has shaped how I think about writing is Will Storr’s The Science of Storytelling. It helped me understand that writing is not just about arranging thoughts beautifully. It is about psychology and how human beings make sense of the world through story.

Storr writes about the way our brains are constantly trying to impose order on chaos. We are drawn to change, conflict, surprise, status, flaws, desire, and the gap between how people see themselves and who they actually are. That applies to fiction, but I think it applies to essays and articles too.

A strong opening should not simply announce a topic. It should create tension. It should make the reader feel that something is at stake. It should raise a question they want answered, or present a contradiction they want resolved. Why does this matter? What is being misunderstood? What is the thing nobody is saying? What is the hidden human story underneath the argument?

That changed the way I approach articles. I try not to begin with information alone. I try to begin with a disturbance. A moment, a feeling, a contradiction, a question. Something that makes the reader lean forward slightly.

So my favourite writing advice would probably be this:

Write the thing that feels alive.

Write the thing that is lighting a fire underneath you, because chances are it may light a fire underneath other people too.

But do not just write about what everyone else is already talking about. Find your angle. Give your opinion. Look for the piece of the puzzle you feel others are missing.

Reflect. Interrogate. Pay attention to the topics, situations, frustrations, and questions that keep coming back to you in everyday life. If something is affecting you deeply, there is a good chance it is affecting other people too.

Give your point of view, but try to offer something more than reaction. Offer a perspective people may not have considered. Offer a truth that has been overlooked. Offer a solution, or at least a way of seeing the problem differently.

Because the aim is not just to be heard.

It is to be understood.

2. How do you go about writing an ending?

I like to end on a note of hope, but not necessarily with closure.

I think there is a difference between giving the reader somewhere to land and telling them exactly where to stand. Closure can be useful in certain stories, especially if the piece has been building towards a very specific answer or resolution. But most of the time, particularly in essays and articles, I am not trying to tell the reader: this is how it is, this is what you should think, goodnight and thank you.

That feels too final for me. Too assertive. I don’t want the reader to feel as if they’ve just attended a tutorial, or a box ticking exercise.

For me, an ending should do one of two things.

Sometimes, I want it to leave the reader with hope. Not false hope, or the sort of polished positivity that ignores the difficult parts, but something human. A sense that even if the subject is painful, frustrating, or unresolved, there is still movement. There is still possibility. There is still a reason to keep caring.

Other times, I want to lead the reader towards a point where they can form their own opinion. I can offer my experience, my argument, my evidence, my frustration, and my perspective, but I do not want to remove their agency. The best endings, to me, do not close the reader down. They open something up.

I like the idea that an article can guide someone without controlling them. It can say: here is what I have seen, here is what I have felt, here is what I think you may not have been told. Now sit with that. Turn it over. Decide what it means to you.

So when I write an ending, I am usually asking myself: have I left the reader with something useful? Have I given them a way forward, a new question, a different angle, or even just a little more compassion than they had when they arrived?

I do not want every ending to be a full stop.

Sometimes I want it to be a window.

3. Do you binge watch TV? If so, name your favourite and why.

Yes, although looking back at the shows I have binged over the years has made me realise I am probably much nerdier than I thought.

I studied writing comedy for television at university. My degree was mostly built around comedy writing, especially for TV, and yet I do not tend to binge watch much comedy. In fact, I often avoid it, which sounds strange when I am so passionate about making people laugh.

But once you have studied comedy, written it, and performed stand-up, you start dissecting it. You hear the setup. You spot the rhythm. You see where the laugh is supposed to land. There is that famous E.B. White line about analysing humour being like dissecting a frog. You may understand it better, but the frog does not survive the procedure.

Unless the writing is absolutely fantastic, I often find myself overanalysing comedy. I notice the setup and already start expecting the punchline. Comedy is a science of expectation. The laugh often comes from how much the punchline violates what the audience thought was coming. It is a magic trick, a switcheroo, a sleight of hand. I need a really great storyline or a strong enough personality to distract me from the mechanics of the writing, and that is not always easy to find.

So the shows I binge are often not pure comedy. I loved Game of Thrones, not only because it was fantastically written with incredible characters, but because I have realised I enjoy escapism and high fantasy far more than I probably admit. If there is somewhere I can escape that feels historical, thrilling, political, and full of fantastical creatures, that is my happy place.

I also loved The Boys, partly because it is so sharp as political satire. It takes superhero culture, celebrity, nationalism, media manipulation, corporate power, and political extremism, then fires the whole thing out of a cannon. At times, it feels less like escapism and more like a running commentary on modern America, particularly the Trump administration.

But if I had to pick one show I have loved binge watching, it would probably be Ted Lasso.

On the surface, it looks like it should be unbearable. The characters are caricatures, the dialogue is sometimes cheesy, and the American coach is almost unbearably upbeat. But actually, that is what makes the show so fantastic.

It is the clash of cultures. It is very smart in the way it remains an easy watch while quietly commenting on the difference between British and American attitudes. The football element is really only a vehicle for the story. It gives the viewer that return hit with every episode, but the real subject is not football. It is grief, shame, masculinity, feminism, friendship, panic attacks, fathers, forgiveness, and most of all, choosing kindness.

Ted comes in with this very American, positive, can-do attitude, and he is faced with a very British stiff upper lip. Do not share your feelings. Get on with it. Be suspicious of enthusiasm. Assume optimism is probably a symptom of something.

As a British person watching, you start off doing what everyone else in that changing room does. You roll your eyes at Ted. Because deep down we’re suspicious of American optimism, we often see it as dishonest, we see it as a product of waitresses who are only paid in tips, so are super nice solely to get paid. It’s transactional, no one wants to be the lonely guy who returns to the strip club every weekend because he naively thinks all the girls like him — rather than his money. As Brits we value brutal honesty “tell us how you really feel”. But by the end of each series Ted has turned you around. In a strange way, the show does not just change how you feel about him. It changes your outlook on real life a little. It nudges you towards positivity without making you feel like you have been trapped inside a motivational fridge magnet.

It really is a fantastic show.

There are other shows that give me that same warm glow. Detectorists is probably one of the gentlest and most beautifully observed British sitcoms ever made. It feels like a warm cup of tea on an autumn afternoon. Quiet, funny, melancholy, and deeply human.

When it comes to comedy, I am drawn to very specific comedy writing styles. I love comedy that is clever, dry, uncomfortable, and pushes boundaries. Armando Iannucci is one of the greatest comedy writers we have. The Thick of It is almost operatic in its swearing and political absurdity. I love Alan Partridge, because Steve Coogan manages to make him ridiculous, awful, vulnerable, and painfully recognisable all at once. I loved the British Office for similar reasons.

I’m drawn to the very British awkwardness in Alan Partridge, The Office, and The Thick of It. The characters are inflated caricatures, but we all know these people. We have met the manager who thinks he is inspirational but is actually unbearable. We have sat in rooms with people who use authority as a personality. We have watched egos trying to look important knowing full well, you’ve just watched them type google into the google search bar five minutes prior. It is supposed to be absurd, but that is why it feels so real.

And then there is Chris Morris. Brass Eye was a fantastic show. It pushed satire into places most television would never dare go. The fake drug “Cake” episode, where celebrities and politicians were tricked into campaigning against a made-up drug, is still one of the sharpest examples of media panic and public gullibility I can think of. The notorious paedophile special was shocking, controversial, and deeply uncomfortable, but that was the point. Morris was not making comfortable comedy. He was exposing the way media hysteria can become absurd, cruel, and dangerously stupid.

From a film perspective, I would also highly recommend Chris Morris’s Four Lions. It is one of those films that should not work on paper, but somehow manages to be absurd, bleak, hilarious, and politically sharp all at once.

I think what I really enjoy is binging good writing.

Sometimes that is political satire.

Sometimes it is two men in a field with metal detectors.

4. What do you find yourself talking about with strangers?

Usually something far too deep, far too quickly.

I am not great at gentle, mundane small talk. I try to be polite and helpful, partly because I do not want to overshare or be too open too quickly. I know not every stranger wants to be emotionally abducted in the queue at Tesco.

But if a conversation does need to happen, I often find myself drifting towards things I actually find interesting. If I cannot do that, I tend to run out of words. I stumble and mumble my way through an incredibly awkward exchange about an incredibly mundane topic.

In my head, I always think I would love to bump into someone like me. Someone who would happily skip past the weather and talk about grief, comedy, dinosaurs, childhood, identity, strange facts, bad bosses, the universe, or why people become completely different versions of themselves at work.

But I also have to remember that this can be a lot for other people. What feels exciting and honest to me might feel overwhelming to someone else, especially if I am a stranger and they were only trying to buy a meal deal in peace.

The funny thing is, I am actually a very shy and nervous person. I think I sometimes come across as confident because I feel the need to fill the silence. It is nerves, mostly. Silence opens up and I panic, so I start talking. Then, once I start, I find it difficult to stop.

So yes, I can end up talking to strangers about things that are probably far too intense for the setting.

But underneath that is usually not arrogance or overconfidence.

It is a shy person trying very hard to make the moment feel less awkward, and accidentally turning a two-minute conversation into a small documentary.

5. What pisses you off when shopping?

Shopping is a mixed bag for me.

Before my transition, I hated shopping. I used to think I was just indecisive, or awkward, or difficult to dress. I would stare at men’s clothes and feel completely uninspired. Jeans. T-shirt. Slightly different jeans. Slightly different T-shirt. A shirt if everyone was feeling adventurous.

But looking back, I think a lot of that was dysphoria disguised as indecision. The block was not that I could not find anything I liked. It was that the clothes were not for me.

After I transitioned, shopping suddenly felt like a treasure trove. Choice. Colour. Shape. Texture. Dresses, skirts, boots, jewellery, coats, blouses, jumpsuits, ridiculous sleeves, impractical bags, the whole dangerous carnival. It was as though the world opened its doors and said: come in, shop till you drop.

My bank balance did not agree, but my heart was definitely happy.

That does not mean shopping is easy now. It brings up a lot. Dysphoria does not politely wait outside the changing room holding your handbag. It follows you in, stands under the fluorescent lighting, and starts offering commentary.

And then there is Primark.

I hate walking towards the changing rooms and seeing those huge signs that say, “These fitting rooms are for Women only.” Whatever the intention behind them, as a trans woman they land like a small slap in the face, they were created as a backlash towards trans women and staff are advised to steer trans women towards the unisex changing rooms. It is already hard enough trying clothes on when you are dealing with dysphoria, body shape, sizing, lighting, mirrors, and the general emotional violence of curtain-based cubicles. I do not need a ten-foot reminder that my right to exist comfortably in women’s spaces is apparently still up for public debate.

For me, it feels like one step away from the phrase “biological sex,” which is often thrown around as though intersex people don’t exist.

I try not to let it ruin shopping for me, but I would be lying if I said I did not feel it. Even when I carry on, even when I use the changing room, even when nothing happens, the sign still does something. It makes a normal activity feel slightly loaded.

And then, of course, there are changing rooms themselves.

Why are they lit like a crime scene? Why does every mirror seem designed to make you confront every insecurity you have had since childhood? I know I sometimes feel like I look like a potato in every item of clothing, but I also know this is not just a trans thing. I have been shopping with cis women who have ended the day furious, upset, or completely defeated by the way clothes sit on their bodies.

That part, unfortunately, seems to be universal.

Women’s sizing is chaos. I can be a size 18 on top and a size 14 below, and somehow both items will still find a way to insult me personally. Men’s sizing manages to be relatively straightforward. Waist. Leg. Done. Women’s sizing, meanwhile, feels like someone fed numbers into a bingo machine and attached them to fabric at random.

And do not even get me started on the pockets.

Actually, get me started.

Why can men carry a phone, keys, wallet, snacks, charger, emotional baggage, and possibly a small tent in their pockets, while women are given one decorative slit that can hold half a lip balm and a secret?

So yes, shopping frustrates me. It can make me self-conscious, angry, dysphoric, confused, and financially reckless.

But even with all of that, I am still thankful I get to shop as a woman now.

Because underneath the sizing disasters, the bad lighting, the lack of pockets, and the occasional corporate sign that makes me want to walk directly into the sea, there is still joy in it.

There is still choice.

There is still the feeling of finally reaching for clothes that feel like mine.

6. What did you dream of being when you were seven?

An actress.

Always an actress.

I do not think this was ever a passing childhood phase for me. Some children want to be astronauts, vets, pop stars, or professional biscuit testers. I wanted to act. I wanted to step into stories. I wanted to become other people, feel other lives, and make an audience feel something back.

And for a point in my life, I did it.

I acted in films. I performed on stage. I even got to drive a car in a James Bond film, which is one of those ridiculous sentences that sounds like something you would invent after two glasses of wine to make your life seem more glamorous than it is.

But then life did what life often does. Bills arrived. Responsibilities arrived. The need for a grown-up job arrived, wearing sensible shoes and carrying a clipboard. So acting became something I had done, rather than the thing I was doing.

But I do not think that dream has gone anywhere.

When I was younger, I think I wanted to be internationally recognised. I wanted the big roles, the big stages, the sense that my life had expanded beyond the ordinary. As I have got older, though, that has changed slightly. I still crave the acting. I still crave the work. I still want access to meaty, complicated, incredible roles. But I am far less interested in fame for fame’s sake.

I have become much more protective of my private space, which is probably part of the reason I write under a pen name. I like the idea of being recognised for the work, but not necessarily recognised while trying to buy milk, have a bad hair day, or live a private life without someone metaphorically rummaging through my bins.

I want the roles. I want the craft. I want the chance to disappear into a character and come back with something truthful.

I am just less keen on sharing every minute of my personal life with the public, if you get my drift.

So yes, when I was seven, I wanted to be an actress.

And honestly, I still do.

7. How do you manage road rage?

The best way I have found to deal with road rage is to remember that most people would not behave like that if they were standing next to you in the street.

There is something about being inside a car that changes people. The doors are locked. The windows are up. They feel protected, sealed off, anonymous. That sense of safety seems to give people permission to become ruder, louder, and more aggressive than they would ever be face to face.

So I try to remind myself that what I am seeing is not necessarily the full, real version of that person. It is the start of the keyboard warrior version of them. The car gives them just enough distance to act bigger than they probably feel.

Whether that confidence, insecurity, and sense of safety reveals the real them is a different question. Maybe it does. Maybe the car simply gives people a little emotional mask to hide behind. But either way, I try to see it as a product of circumstance and environment rather than a personal attack on me.

That does not mean I never get frustrated. I absolutely do. I can mutter, swear, and briefly become the world’s least qualified traffic judge. But remembering that I would not necessarily act like that in the street helps me stay calmer.

I also remind myself that the safety and isolation of the car works both ways. If someone is shouting, beeping, gesturing, or losing their mind over something incredibly trivial, I do not actually have to engage with it. I do not have to answer them. I do not have to explain myself. I do not even have to acknowledge that they exist.

There is a small win in giving someone’s anger absolutely nothing to land on.

Sometimes not reacting is more powerful than shouting back. If I do not make eye contact, if I just keep driving, if I refuse to be dragged into their little roadside theatre, the whole thing collapses. And if I am feeling particularly petty, there is something quietly satisfying about giving them one blank look and then carrying on with my life as if they are a noisy lamp post.

In reality, though, I just try to get from A to B without letting somebody else’s bad mood climb into the passenger seat.

8. If money wasn’t an issue, what would you do?

I would write.

I would act.

And if money truly was not an issue, I would build a film studio.

Not a small, polite little studio with one room, a coffee machine, and a ring light pretending to be infrastructure. I mean a proper Warner Bros scale film studio. Sound stages, sets, writers’ rooms, rehearsal spaces, editing suites, costume departments, the whole thing.

But alongside it, I would build a school for young, underprivileged performers who cannot simply waltz into RADA because they have the money, connections, or family background to make that world feel accessible.

Think Professor X’s school for the X-Men, but for performers.

Actors, singers, dancers, writers, comedians. Young people who are passionate about the craft. They would not have to arrive fully polished or obviously brilliant. They would not need to already know how to audition, network, self-tape, speak the language, or walk into a room as though they belong there. They would just need passion, curiosity, and the willingness to learn.

I would want it to be a kind place. A confidence-building place. Somewhere for people who may have had a rough start in life and need more than training. They need safety. Encouragement. Discipline without cruelty. Ambition without snobbery. Somewhere that says: your background does not decide whether you are allowed to dream big.

Then I would use the studio to create opportunities for them. Sitcoms, films, TV series, theatre, comedy, drama. I would build something almost like a Netflix for real people, driven by raw talent rather than the same familiar names circulating through the same familiar doors.

Because the performance industry talks a lot about talent, but it is still deeply shaped by access. Who you know. Who your parents know. Who can afford to train. Who can afford to work for free. Who can move to London. Who has an uncle who directs, a mum who acts, or a family friend who can get them into the right room.

There is so much undiscovered, untapped talent that never gets seen. Not because it is not good enough, but because it never gets close enough to the gate.

If money was not an issue, I would build a gate of my own.

Then I would hold it open.

9. In what ways are you turning into your parents?

I am becoming more anxious than I would like to admit.

My mum was extremely anxious for most of her life, and I used to find that difficult. Part of me felt like it had been handed down, almost like a generational curse. One I have spent a lot of time trying to break.

Her worries often became my worries. The constant checking in, the phone calls, the texts, the little rituals of concern. At times it could feel overbearing, even controlling, because her fear did not always stay inside her. Sometimes it arrived at my door and asked me to carry it too.

But my mum died a few days ago, and writing this part is making me really emotional, as now I miss those anxious rituals more than I can really explain.

I miss the calls. I miss the messages. I miss the way she would worry over things that, at the time, I probably rolled my eyes at. And writing this makes me realise something that grief has a brutal way of revealing: those worries were love. Not perfect love. Not always easy love. But love all the same.

She wanted the best for me so much that it sometimes came out as fear. She wanted me to be safe. To have a nice life. To avoid pain. To be protected from everything she was scared might hurt me.

And I hope I never lose that part of her.

I hope I keep the part that cares deeply. The part that checks in. The part that wants to protect the people I love. But I also hope I can keep learning how to fight my anxious thoughts without handing them over to other people to carry.

My dad was different. He was the person making everybody laugh. He liked going to the pub, socialising, being around people, making the room lighter just by being in it. The thing people always seemed to say about him was that he never had an enemy in the world. He was one of the kindest and funniest men they knew.

I hope I have taken that from him too.

The kindness. The humour. The instinct to make people laugh, even when life is heavy. My writing is often serious, because I tend to write about the things that sit under the surface. But I like to think I save some of the lighter comedy for the real world.

So maybe I am turning into both of them.

My mum’s fierce, anxious love.

My dad’s warmth and humour.

And hopefully, somewhere in the middle, a version of myself who can carry the best parts forward without passing on too much of the fear.

10. Can you remember the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

A lot of the best advice I have tried to live by came from one song: Baz Luhrmann’s Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen).

[embed]

It had a big impact on me growing up, and what I find interesting is that as I move through different stages of life, different parts of it become relevant. Advice has a strange way of waiting for you. You can hear something at fifteen and think you understand it, then hear it again at thirty-nine and realise it has been quietly following you the whole time.

Another piece of advice that has helped me, especially with my mental health, comes from a Buddhist idea: the past and the future do not really exist in the way our minds pretend they do.

The past has happened. It can teach us, shape us, and leave marks on us, but we cannot go back and alter it. If my mind spends too long there, it often finds regret. I should have done this. Why did that happen? Why did that person treat me that way? Why has my life gone like this?

That is where depressive thoughts can start to feed.

The future is similar. It has not happened yet. It may never happen. But when my mind spends too long there, it starts building whole disaster films out of possibilities. What if this happens? What if that goes wrong? What if I cannot cope?

That is where anxiety often lives.

The only place I can actually do anything is the present. This second. This breath. This moment. That does not mean the past does not matter, or that the future should never be planned for. It just means my mind is usually calmer when it comes back to the only place where I have any real control.

The more I live in the present, the calmer I feel. The more connected I feel. The more I can respond to what is actually happening, rather than fighting ghosts from the past or imaginary disasters from the future.

Another piece of advice I was given when I was younger was that there is a reason we have two ears and one mouth: we should listen twice as much as we speak.

I do not take that to mean children should be seen and not heard, or that people should make themselves small. I take it to mean that listening is an active thing. Real listening is not waiting politely for your turn to talk. It is taking someone in. It is noticing what they are saying, what they are not saying, and what they might be feeling underneath it.

That is something you learn in acting too. A poor actor listens for the cue to say their line. A good actor listens and reacts. In acting, you do not just act. You react.

I think life is the same. We should listen and react. Not perform listening. Not stand there loading our next sentence while someone else is still speaking. Actually listen.

I do not always get this right. I have ADHD, and sometimes my thoughts arrive all at once like they have kicked the door open. I can interrupt. I can rush ahead. I can get excited and forget to leave enough space. But I am learning.

And finally, there is a quote attributed to Elvis Presley that I really like: “To judge a man by his weakest link or deed is like judging the power of the ocean by one wave.”

I think that is worth remembering. People are not one mistake. They are not one bad moment. They are not one clumsy sentence, one failure, one ugly reaction, or one day when they did not manage to be their best self.

Of course, that does not mean people should never be accountable. Some waves do real damage. But if we judged everyone only by their worst moment, none of us would survive the verdict.

So maybe the best advice I have been given is not one single sentence.

It is a collection of reminders.

Stay present.

Listen properly.

Do not reduce people to one action nobody is perfect.

And when in doubt, wear sunscreen.

11. Do you prefer small talk or big talk?

Big talk. Always.

Small talk makes me feel physically uncomfortable. I do not know whether that is connected to neurodivergence, masking, or just my personality in general, but I would rather avoid a social situation completely than have to talk about the weather for ten minutes.

And if I do have to do it, I am terrible at it.

This is one of the reasons I find workplaces difficult. As someone who has spent parts of my life masking, I have developed a very good knack for spotting other people wearing masks too. It is like a superpower I did not ask for. X-ray glasses, but instead of seeing through walls, I can see through forced professionalism, polite scripts, and dead-eyed corporate enthusiasm.

In workplaces, you often meet people wearing their work mask. I find it difficult not to say: this is not you, surely? Surely you do not speak like this at home. Surely you do not walk into your kitchen and say to your partner, “Hey, I was just wondering if we could maybe touch base around five o’clock for a quick powwow. I had some great blue-sky thinking, went to the supermarket, and found a great deal on sausage, eggs, and beans. It was low-hanging fruit I just couldn’t turn down, but here I’m constantly thinking outside the box. Let me know your thoughts.”

I find the whole thing exhausting. Not because people are bad, but because so much of it feels fake. A language built for hiding inside.

I was on a land inspection with my boss the other day, and I thought I would test the water. We were talking about the different layers of soil, so I said, “Did you know sharks are not only older than trees, they are also older than the rings of Saturn? And when life evolved out of the water, dolphins and whales became land creatures before eventually evolving back into the sea.”

This was met with absolute silence.

I hate that.

Not because everyone has to care about sharks, trees, Saturn, or evolutionary plot twists. But because I live for people who will happily wander down those strange little conversational alleyways with me. People who hear something odd and say, “Wait, what?” rather than blinking once and returning to incredibly boring work talk.

Small talk feels like standing in a hallway where nobody is allowed to open any doors.

Big talk is where people become real.

It does not always have to be serious. Big talk can be silly, strange, nerdy, emotional, philosophical, inappropriate, hilarious, or completely useless in any practical sense. But it has to be alive. It has to have curiosity in it.

I would rather talk about grief, identity, ambition, death, comedy, sharks, childhood, class, gender, love, dinosaurs, regret, the universe, or why everyone in an office suddenly starts speaking like a hostage note written by LinkedIn.

That is where I feel connected.

That is where I stop performing.

And if this whole article proves anything, it is probably that I am not built for light conversation. I was handed eleven questions and somehow turned them into War and Peace.

Which, frankly, sounds about right.

I’d like to nominate Rachel Addison