I never had many Asian friends growing up, and I guess being from AZ that’s not surprising at all. It’s funny dealing with other Asian people now (mostly Asian guys) who are shocked about it and then assume I curated all my mostly white and mostly nerdy or IT friends. It’s proximity and whoever was around that had like interests, but whatever. I’m beyond grateful for the wonderful ladies (and a couple of their SO’s who are along for the ride) this weekend in Portland. We’re all Asian American women who identify with goth culture and all have a similar lacking in childhood Asian friends that we never really noticed were missing while simultaneously noticing they weren’t present, and we all eventually found each other and introduced us to each other. There are five of us running around this weekend and another three who are in other states that we’d love to see the next time we coordinate something. We went out to a goth night last night, went to a fancy afternoon tea today, then to a punk Hawaiian place for dinner, and have more shenanigans tomorrow. There are still some unresolved issues going on in my personal life but having this support, and having distractions has stopped the stress from eating me alive. I’ve been dealing with some unusual heartburn the last two nights though and probably need to be a little more careful with what I’m eating. Earlier I woke up from a nap feeling like I was having an allergic reaction to something and had no idea what was going on so I had to take an antihistamine and a hot shower. Stress is awful.