interdisciplinary artist, author, and researcher exploring synesthesia, perception, and neurodivergence
I woke this morning to find a message from the editors at Ad Anima, the literary journal published by the medical school at UC Irvine. They shared a link to my personal essay “Mirror,” which appears in volume 2, issue 1. Ad Anima is hosted by eScholarship, the open source academic platform created by the…
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I hallucinate. These forced perceptions come to me only at night and are, at times, terrifying. Sometimes, right as I fall to sleep, I open my eyes and see large objects that look like multilegged mutant starfish. They dangle in the air above my head shimmering and swirling, their bodies crazed like pottery. They appear…
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My partner and I like to play the Spelling Bee game in the New York Times. We have a strategy; I try to solve the pangrams while he picks away at the other words on the list. It’s typical for us to learn an unfamiliar word every few puzzles, often from the field of ornithology.…
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It’s been a few years since I’ve had an ocular migraine, but the flashing lights and zigzag crenellations paid a visit this past Saturday. I was helping my friend Julia with a gorgeous headband she’s creating based on an ancient Assyrian headdress when the first flickers appeared in the periphery of my left eye. I…
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One of the people I love most in this world celebrates a milestone birthday today. Her name is Lisa, and although we live a continent apart, she is in my heart and on my mind every single day. Lisa is funny, kind, and just kooky enough to join me in odd adventures, like spontaneous chocolate…
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Any visitor to a museum or gallery expects to see a familiar placard. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH, or another iteration of keep your hands to yourself is often posted next to an exhibit or on a nearby wall. This reminder that contact with the art is forbidden frustrates those of us who want a multisensory…
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I am a natural redhead, part of the less than 2% of the global population that is inherently ginger. Genetic testing has confirmed I carry the melanocortin 1 genetic variant, otherwise known as MC1R. This means I lack the receptors to pick up a biochemical signal to create eumelanin, the brown form of skin and…
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I love the word quiescent, meaning “being at rest; inactive or motionless”. I fell in love with the word the first time I read it on a box of Popsicles, the treat that is quiescently frozen. I imagined the brightly colored twinpops, dormant as winter flowers, resting peacefully in their box under the spell of…
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