Cuteness Cha-Cha-Cha

90s nostalgia for Korean diaspora kids, a meditation on asexuality and YA, and wanting what is wholesome, what is chaste, and what is pure

안녕, 친구들, 오렌많이야. Hello, my friends, it’s been a while.

I know it’s forever and a half since I last sent out a newsletter, but it’s mostly because I don’t have much to say. Or rather, I have way too much to say, and finding ways to distill that down into a digestible bit of news to put in your inboxes is way more effort than my ADHD brain can handle. (But I can also write a 3000 word essay on Korean dramas because I am large and contain many multitudes.)

We’re now at December, but it’s hard to believe that’s true, considering how much of our lives (no matter how much we pretend otherwise) has been eaten up by this pandemic. As far as recounting goes, 2021 has been rather eventful. I suffered the devastating loss of my 할머니. I moved from Pennsylvania back to North Carolina. I eloped. I earned my black belt in taekwondo. I turned in a draft of the first Guardians of Dawn book that I did not hate. I got assessed for ADHD and received confirmation that my squirrel brain is, in fact, neurodiver…