Stanley Stott-Hall

I projected my desire to experience change onto a wilderness that is fundamentally not that disparate to my own.

Cry with your nose. Smile with your nose. Think with your nose. Smell is the most articulate language of emotion.

I was an only child with lesbian parents; my genetic father was somewhere out there. I’d reached a clear understanding, and shame subsided for acceptance.

Like a sculptor at a marble block, I’d expected the chips of those less close to gather at my feet, revealing a statue of “true” friends at the core.

I’m an only child with two lesbian mothers, but I attended a boys’ school for most of my life. From as early as I can remember, school was a male space and the home was a female space.

Upon reaching my bathroom on Thursday, I realized that the tube was now a wrinkled shell. The toothpaste was finished and I almost burst into tears.

Our local Berkeley alley is now “dodgy,” not sketchy; elevators are labeled as “lifts;” American friends use “bloody” and “bum” in place of ruder options.

There are two rules. A: Each housemate must invite one guest. B: No other housemate can have ever met (or even heard of) this guest.

For so long, I had looked inwards at America from the outside. Yet now that I’m across the border, it seems that I am still not “in” America.