disclosure: this household has consumed copious amounts of Chinese take-out – pandemic or not. with two fantastic Chinese restaurants on our block, it’s hard to resist. Chinese food is comforting, and this last year has seen an exponential increase in need for comfort.

dozens of sweet-and-sour chicken, steamed dumpling, Mongolian beef, and veggie orders later we’ve simultaneously increased our fortune cookie consumption. naturally, i’ve collected the fortunes once dispensed from their snappy cookie shells and saved them in a little box on our kitchen counter. a lot of them are corny, on par with Snapple cap facts and Laffy Taffy jokes. others are egregiously ill suited for the medium (identified below), and several deliveries felt fated – truly fortunate.

for months they’ve sat in their little box on the counter, with a few exceptions that have been pinned and pasted around the apartment. can’t continue to keep them to myself, because with great cookie fortunes comes great responsibility.

*easier said than done, but well stated.*

wow, where to begin… this fortune cookie advice column is punching above its weight here. perhaps these topics require more nuance than a narrow strip of paper jammed inside a cookie can handle?

got it. procrastination is double homicide; unless opportunities are curiosity, which cannot be killed.

i’ve been sitting on these fortunes for a while, true; but it would be tone-deaf not to address the racism, misogyny, and violence that the Asian-Americna community has faced, especially this last year as fueled by 45’s racist framing of COVID-19.

it has been upsetting to see community elders attacked and in fear of their safety; and the shooting in Atlanta last week where a racist coward targeted Asian women and murdered 8 people is a heartbreaking tragedy. can journalists and news outlets stop humanizing mass murderers? please?

i was nervousy writing about this here, but i know from experience that silence is more harmful. i stand in full support of and as an accomplice to the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities and will lend my voice in any way possible to amplify demands for justice.