California cheap isn’t Texas cheap: Geographic arbitrage from a local’s perspective
Originally published on Medium
I’m from Texas, the state other Americans move to for a cheaper life. I’m grateful to to them for teaching me that cheap is relative before I started traveling as an adult.
But before I was thankful, I was kinda annoyed at them. They were so excited about living in Texas on that HCOL area’s income. But California cheap isn’t Texas cheap.
But I like to understand people and I don’t like to stay annoyed. So I logically examined the situation: Times are tough where they’re from. Groceries cost more. Housing costs more. Then they get here and are so excited to stretch that dollar farther into splurge and treat-yourself territory.
I get it. Okay, now I’m happy for them. Seriously. That’s not sarcasm.
But the phrase “That’s so cheap!” about something that a local would think twice about buying, heard over and over again? It grates a budget-conscious soul’s ears. And now I think twice about saying it myself.
And lately, I hear or read this phrase repeatedly in connection to travel. Travelers talk about the “cheap” lodging, food, and entertainment options in countries where the cost of living is lower than their home area.
But cheap is relative. To reflect that idea, I decided to say “I can afford this” or “This is affordable” instead of “That’s so cheap”.
And that’s it.
No big epiphany, just a simple observation about the relativity of cheapness. Thanks for reading.
You don’t need makeup to leave the house: Why makeup isn’t the same as toothpaste
Originally published on Medium
I don’t care if you wear makeup.
But what pricks me is the saying you “ACTUALLY put on makeup today”. Such a common saying. It’s like saying makeup is as necessary as…
…Sorry, struggling to find a good comparison to another daily activity.
Oh, showering!
No, wait, skipping a daily shower can be good for the skin. Bad comparison.
Got it! Brushing your teeth. There we go.
Let’s start over.
What pricks me is the saying you “ACTUALLY put on makeup today”. Like makeup is as necessary as brushing your teeth. Like your bare face is the same as walking around with stinky breath.
I see that clean face. I see those groomed eyebrows and booger-free eyes. You have not neglected yourself. You have been taking care of yourself.
Please don’t equate makeup-free with unbrushed teeth.
Makeup is not the minimum of self-care. Clean teeth are.
I’m so grateful for this frizz: Why I always wanted frizzy hair
Originally published on Medium
I always wanted my hair to be able to frizz.
I often studied the hair labeled “good” by my mom and aunties for clues on how to improve my own hair. And I noticed that hair got frizzy on rainy days or when it wasn’t brushed. It formed cute baby hairs around the temples. It waved and fluttered in the breeze.
That was different from my hair. My hair lay flat on my head, limp, dull. Baby hairs were brushed into harsh lines around my temples. Not one strand moved in even the strongest breeze.
And there wasn’t any frizz. It was like doll hair.
I hated it.
I didn’t want doll hair. I wanted alive hair.
And based on this research, alive hair has frizz.
So I experimented with ways to achieve frizz.
Guess what? Rainy days plus lightly relaxed hair equals a cute frizz halo. How to achieve this look?
Wear your hair loose
Walk out into a light misting rain
Optional Skip around
Enjoy your frizz halo!
I chased that frizzy hair, that alive and real and moving hair. I chased it all the way to going natural.
The day my top bun had major frizz without me trying? I took a selfie.
The day a breeze blew my loose hair out of its carefully styled shape? I took a video.
My hair moved. It frizzed.
My hair was alive.
When age comes up in conversation: And what I want to say to the women speaking
Originally published on Medium
There’s something that happens when I speak with another woman over the age of 30. Almost every time, there’s a reference to age.
And it’s a subtle — and sometimes not-so-subtle — somewhat sad or negative comment about how old they are.
And I want to say “I’m not as young as you think I am.”
And I want to say “Your age is at a neutral or a positive, not a negative.”
And I want to say “I noticed you seem like a cool person, not your age.”
But I don’t.
I half-laugh and wait for this culturally-induced awkward moment to pass.
Because what I want to say wouldn’t come out right in the moment.
So I wrote it here instead.
If you liked this, you might like this next article
This anime character uses her power to look young 24/7: And I have questions
Originally published on Medium
I wouldn’t call myself an anime fan. I’m a fan of good stories and interesting plots which includes some animes, like Ranking of Kings. And, to my surprise, Naruto. I enjoyed it but had some thoughts on the character Tsunade that I didn’t see reflected in the critical internet comments (Reddit threads) I read about her.
Naruto is about kids training to be ninja and focuses on the boy Naruto, an outcast who wants his village to respect him. The character Tsunade is one of 3 powerful ninjas famous for their extraordinary abilities. The 3 ninja were classmates and teammates in training.
When we first meet Tsunade, the team has long been separated by their different goals. As a legendary ninja, Tsunade is extremely strong and a skilled healer thanks to her large reserves of chakra energy. She uses this immense power to maintain a “youthful appearance”.
Youthful? I wonder. So, like, an energy facial, just to make herself look more awake?
I’ve noticed that anime female characters are drawn either very young or very old. No in- between. I assume the animators struggle drawing women the way I struggle drawing hands and assumed the same about Tsunade’s character.
But I was wrong.
In one fight scene she uses up so much chakra energy that she can’t maintain her youthful appearance. She lies on the ground and we don’t see her body anymore but hear her voice offscreen as if her injuries are too disturbing to see. And then her hand appears, very wrinkled, like a Halloween witch costume. And I realize she’s not using a “chakra facial” but a 24/7 full-body transformation.
And I have many thoughts.
Okay, first.
Her appearance doesn’t make sense. Tsunade is about the same age as her teammates. One teammate is also in this fight scene, existing in his normal, middle-aged ninja body. He has wrinkles but nothing like the Halloween hand we glimpsed. Did Tsunade lead such a hard life that her body shriveled in on itself like Voldemort? No explanation is given for why she’s so wrinkled and he isn’t.
Another related thought.
Why does he get to be on camera as himself and she doesn’t? Her wrinkles don’t need to be censored.
My next thought is a question.
After Tsunade recovers her energy, she resumes her altered appearance 24/7 again, even during grueling fights where every bit of chakra matters. At one point, she continuously heals a whole village during an invasion and doesn’t drop her altered appearance until the near end. She’s incredibly powerful.
So how much stronger could she be if she channeled all that power to fighting? Not to her appearance but to her body’s physical abilities?
What else could she do if she freed up that energy for things besides maintaining that “youthful appearance”?
I can’t stop wondering.
And I could make this question bigger, apply it to us all. How much can we do when we aren’t expending our resources to look a certain way?
But I won’t.
I’ll let you wonder about that.
You can also wonder about how annoying it is to watch Netflix with me because I repeatedly express thoughts like this in real time.
Overthinking is trying to solve the wrong problem: How I (kind of) stopped overthinking everything
Originally published on Medium
Hi, I’m Aneisha and I’m an overthinker.
My husband watched me type this sentence then nodded and said “Yep, that’s very true” which ruins my next claim that I’m a reformed overthinker.
Okay, truth? I’m not as bad an overthinker as I used to be.
So how did I go from a chronic overthinker to a part-time one?
How I stopped (mostly) overthinking
I realized my overthinking focused on problems with no resolution.
My brain would think over a problem, sure it would eventually find the answer if it kept clicking to the next page in the mental Google search. And when it found nothing, it returned to the first page to restart. It didn’t make any changes, just kept restarting over and over.
And then my math tutoring experience inspired me.
As a math tutor, I saw that the students who were able to verbalize or write down the actual problem hidden in a difficult word problem were halfway to the solution.
But it’s not easy identifying the actual problem. The quicker students tried several different times before they figured out the real problem. Once they did, though, they could work step-by-step to find the solution.
I applied this to my overthinking problem. Maybe overthinking was a complicated word problem I didn’t understand yet. So instead of trying to solve the same problem over and over, I could try a different one?
And that worked.
An example of changing the problem
For example, I commonly overthink about why I have a hard time walking over to someone to say hello.
Before, I would think: Why can’t I just get up and say hi? Just go now. Okay, now. Okay, let’s do it, step by step. Just stand up! Darn. Too much time has passed, now it feels weird. I never found an answer to why sometimes I could do it and sometimes I couldn’t.
And then I changed the problem. Instead of seeing the problem as Why can’t I walk over to say hi? now it’s Do I want to go over and say hi? Simpler, right?
Sometimes the answer is no, I don’t want to. So I let myself not go and it’s not a problem anymore.
Sometimes the answer is yes so I can keep digging to find the answer. Why can’t I go say hi? Do I want to go now or later? If later, do I want to say hi one-on-one or with other people? And eventually I figure out the problem is (for example) I always see this person with my sisters but my sisters aren’t here right now. So how do I say hi alone? And that’s a simpler problem to solve than the more critical Why can’t I say hi problem.
I still overthink, though.
The difference? I indulge in overthinking now. I ruminate over an unsolvable problem, clicking through obscure mental Google search pages curious about what I’ll find.
A recent overthink? A fellow passenger introduced herself to me on the plane. It was a first for me and I had a nice time overthinking my feelings about it. Was it nice? Should I also do this? How common is it?
How I learned to accommodate my sensory needs at mealtimes: Tips from an autistic “picky eater”
Originally published on Medium
I’ve never thought of myself as a picky eater; there was always a reason to refuse a certain food. It was either too squishy or too bland, too cold or the wrong color or smell. All these reasons made perfect sense and were problems that could be fixed, right?
Apparently not.
I, the undiagnosed autistic, was the problem that needed to be fixed. The proposed solution? Force me to sit at the table until I ate the cold Ravioli or black eye peas on my plate. Well, I was (and still am) stubborn. I sat there until the adults realized I wasn’t going to eat more than the small bite I had choked down. And yet, I worried about getting my daily serving of fruits and vegetables. My interest in the human body and health inspired me to want to eat more “healthy foods” but…I didn’t.
Compare my childhood diet of fast food and sweets to my current diet of mostly produce and whole foods, and my favorite food being a tie between Mexican and Thai. Is that surprising from a “picky eater”?
It surprised a great uncle at a recent graduation celebration. I had commented how much I had in common with a cousin’s very particular food preferences, then the conversation veered into favorite foods and I mentioned that I loved Thai food. I felt the surprised energy from my great uncle. I could guess the question: How does a picky eater like such “unusual” foods? I want to share my full answer in case it helps someone else become more comfortable with their food and sensory preferences.
The simple answer
I work with my sensory needs, not against them.
The problem defined
Understand this: I love food. I love to eat.
What my childhood self didn’t know yet was why I hated cheese and milk and ate my cereal dry, why I ate my mashed potatoes with corn, and why I only ate my mom’s crunchy spaghetti because any other spaghetti made me want to throw up. I didn’t understand yet that certain textures made food more palatable for me and the typical American diet did not prioritize those textures (unless you count my favorite snack: chips).
My childhood self couldn’t explain that I disliked most fruits because they tasted like water to my sugar-addicted taste buds (especially when eaten out of season). I didn’t know that good fruit could be crunchy, my favorite texture. My young self couldn’t explain that I disliked most vegetables because they were usually canned or overcooked. I didn’t know vegetables could be crunchy, savory, sour and delicious. All I knew was hard green beans and mushy carrots and too-fluffy boxed mashed potatoes.
Change your food perspective
Once I could go shopping and buy my own ingredients, I cooked the meals I liked. My go-to meal was canned black beans with canned tomatoes and white rice, the perfect combination of flavor and texture.
The biggest change? I made Mexican friends and they changed my social and food life.
The first time I ate a freshly cut avocado imprinted on my mind. My sisters and I were at a friend’s house on a hot summer day. She was hungry and decided to make herself a snack so she got an avocado and sliced it open, seasoning the fruit with a bit of salt. She offered us some. Hesitant, I tasted a little and wow, it actually tasted good! Later, I learned to see fruit as dessert, to see vegetables as part of a meal, not just unpleasant medicines we must consume. And the spices! My sensory-seeking tastebuds wanted more.
My food education continued with Vietnamese and Thai food charming my tastebuds. Rice just happens to be my other favorite food and I was ecstatic to discover rice noodles.
Figure out your sensory preferences
The different foods and cultures introduced a new way to view food. The most important step, though, was figuring out my sensory preferences. That meant paying attention to the foods I disliked and noting their common unpleasant characteristics. Is the texture a problem? The flavor? The color/presentation? The smell? Or maybe the food itself is fine but something affected it, like the storage method.
After this analysis, I know how to alter a meal to my liking. For example, in elementary school, I liked sandwiches but the bread became disgustingly soggy by lunch time. Packing the meat and vegetables separate from the bread and assembling the sandwich at lunch solved this issue.
Is there a food you want to eat but normally dislike? Analyze its sensory profile and experiment with altering those characteristics to create a more palatable dish. Can you add or subtract something? Another simple example: Adding corn to mashed potatoes adds texture to a usually too-smooth side dish.
Looking back, I’m impressed that an 8 year-old me figured out little tricks like adding corn to potatoes without fully understanding my sensory needs (or how the industrial production of food affects its quality). If I was older and educated, you could’ve called me a foodie, maybe even a connoisseur.
Definitely not a picky eater.
From one quiet black girl to another: You’re not alone
Originally published on Medium
When I see another quiet black girl, I’m surprised at first. Usually, I’m the only one in a room. After that, I think:
Welcome!
I’m just like you!
(Well not exactly like you, of course. But similar.)
Was your upbringing like mine?
Loud aunties connected by blood or culture talking over your low voice then commenting on how much you didn’t say?
And what’s wrong with quiet anyway!?
Is your personality like mine?
So many thoughts in your head sometimes
you miss the outside activity and don’t react
and people misjudge your silence for defiance?
Are you a chameleon too?
The only one brown person or one of a few?
Your silence makes you blend in easier somehow
But they still want more
More noise
As if quiet and capable are mutually exclusive.
Hey, quiet black girl.
I don’t have to hear you to see you.
I’m just like other girls: A girl doesn’t need to be the only “cool girl” in the room to matter
Originally published on Medium
I used to be “not like other girls.”
“I’m not a girly girl,” I’d think. “I’m a tomboy.” (This was a term learned from my mom, a self-proclaimed tomboy when younger.) And I had evidence.
My sisters and I didn’t act like other sisters I saw. We didn’t steal each others’ clothes and return them messed up and act like that was normal (which sounded horrible). Instead, we negotiated a trade that included terms on the date and condition of the returned items. I preferred hanging out with guys and felt like I didn’t quite fit in with girls like the other girls around me did. I felt more comfortable in jeans than a skirt and didn’t want to spend hours on makeup.
But I was okay with that. Different was cool. All the YA novels I spent hours reading had prepped me for this situation. I was obviously destined for a big future, something possibly dystopian and dangerous but ultimately rewarding. After all, only cool girls were different so I didn’t worry.
But eventually, after what felt like the millionth “I’m not like other girls” plot device, logic kicked in.
If many of us girls are not like other girls….. then who are these other girls? If we all identify with the girl who isn’t like other girls, then…. Do those “other girls” even exist?
Way later, I learned about autism and found out many of my traits are shared with other autistic girls. I wasn’t sure how to feel about my personal traits being so common that I saw them reflected again and again in videos and blog posts.
I wasn’t that different after all.
What a strange feeling.
I wasn’t unique? I was just like some girls?
It took some time to adjust to being typically atypical. Once I adjusted, I wondered again about the “other girls”.
Who are they? Just “girly girls”? But, like, isn’t everything a girl does girly so technically every girl is a girly girl and not that different? And maybe the “other girls” actually want to be different too and possibly a YA dystopian heroine? (Just joking about this but it really seems to be a stock character trait in the genre)
Do they want to be “not like other girls”? Do they want to be just themselves and not lumped into a stereotypical category?
Because you can, you know.
You don’t need a neurodivergent brain to do it. We’re not actually limited to just one cool girl in the metaphorical room.
Let’s all be cool regular girls together.