I was so prolific during my writer’s block. From 2005-2011, I was up until 3 every night, gigantic laptop heating up my stomach while I clicked together my tormented blog posts. My favorite topic was (and still is) how frustrated I was that I couldn’t write anymore. I had written so many poems throughout college, and they were dope. I was getting famous for them. But at 23, I felt like time was ticking, the ability to identify as a phenom was slipping through my fingers, and soon I would be the prehistoric age of 25 which meant it would be way too late to lead the interesting life I wanted everyone in the world to pay attention to me living. Eventually, after a few years touring the country, I moved with my band iLL-Literacy to New York, and the drudgery of trying to survive in the most exciting city in the world got to me. Nothing was interesting about fighting through my first blizzard, or lugging laundry four blocks through Crown Heights or trying to record a hit song but instead spending the entire evening troubleshooting ProTools. My life wasn’t interesting enough to log anymore, so I stopped.
Now I’m 33, I’m a curator at the Smithsonian, and people keep telling me my life must be so interesting. Meanwhile, in the past 5 years which I thought were too uninteresting to write about, I moved to Harlem, met the love of my life in DC, spent a semester living in a forest and half a year in Beijing. In 2013 when I got this job, I thought to myself, This will be soooo interesting! Now’s DEFINITELY the time to start writing again! But, like most things in the universe, this job is way more exhilarating on an Instagram bio than it is in daily life. The reality is much more fraught with long staff meetings, moving emails from one folder to another and stressing out over people not signing forms on time.
It is just as mundane as toiling over a bug while coding the website that got me interested in contemporary art, or rerecording the 50th take on an adlib with the members of iLL-Lit whom I miss so much. As the great curator Kitty Scott once told me while crossing Japan on a rickety plane, life is basically a series of turning no’s into yes’es.
But fuck it, I’m going to start writing again. I’ve been throwing the word “storyteller” around too much not to. It does help that I have some things down the road that, even if they’re half as interesting in life as they sound on paper, will make for some excellent pixels. And when life is really a drag, when there’s absolutely nothing of significance to share – I’ll revisit my late nights in Oakland, amidst my fourth attempt at finding a Netflix movie that will bring some excitement into my hollow day, and find a story in that to retell. Sometimes these things just take time.
Some things coming up 🤗🤗🤗
This Sunday 10/16 I’m speaking at the Creative Time Summit with curator Kayleigh Bryant and artist Sheldon Scott
Then on Monday 10/24 I’m sharing my vision for the future of D.C.’s art scene at State of Art DC @ National Museum of Women in the Arts
Tues Nov 1: ILL-LITERACY REUNION!!!!!!!! Show @ UC Berkeley
On Nov 5 I’m going outdoor rockclimbing for the first time!!! Did you know that I climb rocks now? I’m doing it in West Virginia 4 days before the election. What could go wrong?
Nov 12-13: CTRL+ALT, a humongous culture lab in NYC about imagined futures that I’ve been curating for the past half year with my compadres at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center
Right after that, I head to Buenos Aires (first time in South America heyyyyyyyyy) for Chaos at the Museum
Straight from there I’m spending a few days in the Algarve, Portugal, because I need a mufuckin vacation. Also, custard tarts.
And because I am insane, I have begun a new pet project called Cartoons Curated. Each week I will select three cartoons to share in your inbox every Saturday morning. You know you want it.