As the world descends further and further into incomprehensible chaos, I find myself looking through my bookshelf in my childhood bedroom. Alongside classics bought in a panic like What Color is Your Parachute? and far too many true crime books sit my old favorite reads from throughout my childhood — and all of them are YA.

I still love YA (short for young adult) books. The older I get, the more I find myself drawn to books aimed at adolescents. I think it has something to do with the conflicts. You crack open a YA book and the issue is either something like “my mom doesn’t like my boyfriend” or “Help! I’m being chased by a Minotaur!” …

If you asked me in April who Tom Nook was and why he needed bells from me, I would’ve suspected that you were having a stroke. If you asked me the same question now, I would tell you that Tom Nook is a raccoon to whom I owe money.

I’ve been really annoying this summer about Animal Crossing. You know, the game where you move to a remote island and build it from the ground up for you and your island neighbors — who just so happen to all be animals — while paying back an enormous debt to raccoon landlord Tom Nook? Yeah, that one. …

I have 14 tattoos. I’ve stopped counting for my own sake, but for the record, and to establish a bit of expertise here, I thought I’d let you know.

They range from pieces that I put years of thought and meaning into, to pieces that I got on the way home from a long shift because I decided that my love for coffee was so great that I needed to immortalize it on my body for the rest of my life and the skin behind my ear was woefully empty (no regrets).

We used to play this game in elementary school gym class called “stuck in the mud.” It was like a game of tag, but if you were tagged, you had to stop running and stand in place — stuck in the mud. In order to get unstuck, someone had to crawl between your legs, and only then were you free to run around again.

That is how I feel at the moment.

Stuck. And there’s nothing I can do about it but stand around and wait.

Today I graduated from college. I turned in my last online final, which means that I officially completed my bachelor’s degree in journalism and media studies. This is an accomplishment that I have been planning for and working toward since I was an awkward, brace-faced high schooler. …

Let me say this right off the bat: I am one of the lucky ones when it comes to COVID-19. I am a healthy 21-year-old who does not need to worry about contracting the virus and having significant health issues, I don’t live with any immunocompromised family who I have to worry about, and I am not an essential worker breaking my back during long shifts saving everyone else (who are all heroes, by the way).

However, I am a graduating college student who just had her life turned upside down — as we all did. My days — which used to be packed with back-to-back classes, long shifts in the office, and excessive job-searching — are now filled with online classes, TV, and trying out all the couches in my parents’ house. …

By Evi Arthur

I cried the first time I had to leave my dorm room.

Moving to Chicago my freshman year felt like a dream.

Daydreaming of my future life in a big city had gotten me through high school. In my head, I’d lived in L.A., New York, Chicago, Boston — all the biggies. But the closer I got to graduating, the further away that life in the big city felt.

Family members told me that all the places I wanted to go were too far and too expensive and too hard to get to. Friends told me that I should look at state schools instead. Guidance counselors suggested I lower my standards. …

I used to hop off the school bus and sprint to my house, a book clutched tightly in my clammy, little hand. I would plop myself down on the couch and read until my mom would call me into the kitchen for dinner — what typically felt like just minutes later.

I read after dinner and before school and while walking in the halls between classes and at sleepovers. …

I’ve never been a person who wears heels. I’m far too clumsy to try and walk around on my tiptoes all day and just never really saw the appeal of wearing uncomfortable shoes when I could just be wearing sneakers.

Really, I wore high-top black converse to the one dance I attended in high school.

However, I recently went to an event where I wanted to feel like I was the one in charge. …