Writing – Page 2 – Ryan La Sala

How To Grow Up Gay and Outdo Your Competition: The Magic Flute

August 22, 2017May 9, 2015 by Ryan

Growing up, I was an absolute amalgam of every gay stereotype possible. If you’re a gay man, think of all the flamboyant hints that perjured you as a fairy princess before you knew better. If you are not a gay man, recall the distant memory of Rainbow Brite, and then light that on fire. That’s about as flaming as I was. Reviewing my younger self, it’s hard to believe that I didn’t have a literal Gay Agenda that told me, in graphic detail, exactly how to spite Catholicism. Mostly this meant I wore an increasing amount of scarfs, the more gossamer the better, but it also meant that I played the flute.

Kitty-Cornered

August 22, 2017April 25, 2015 by Ryan

I’ve been living in my current apartment for almost ten months, but only recently did I learn that the monstrous church kitty-corner to my front stoop is abandoned. I know what you’re thinking, and I agree: I, too, had no idea I was this interesting.

The Most Humane Way to Murder a Mouse

August 22, 2017October 12, 2014 by Ryan

A few years ago, Katie and I went to the Topsfield Fair with our friend Nick (an event that my mother would call, “a slice of life,” a description she reserves for things like bowling leagues and other congregations of people that are rather–how do I put this without sounding derisive?–enthusiastic about specific, odd things. For the people of the Topsfield Fair (and for the duration of our time spent roaming the different pens), this specific thing happened to be: farm animals. There’s much more to be said about out time at the Topsfield Fair, but it isn’t the focus of this story–it’s actually just the lead-in for the opening scene–and so I’m going to set down this string and polish off this parenthetical tangent and maybe finish this run-on sentence).

God Don’t Like Ugly

August 22, 2017October 4, 2014 by Ryan

“What?” I say. I take my headphones off.

“Looks like barbed wire,” he says to me. I don’t know his name. I don’t know anyone’s name on the SL5 bus to Downtown Crossing. Especially not on a Tuesday morning.

He’s pointing at my ring. “Oh,” I say. “I can see that.” My ring is an oxidized ring of silver made by Elise Moran, inspired by the branch of the weeping cherry tree. “It looks like…” says the man. “It looks like…”

Returning

August 22, 2017July 27, 2014 by Ryan

My life has been a lot of circles lately.

This–as in this act of typing up a post–is the most recent circle. The most recent return.

Today Jackson and I are hiding from the rain and writing. At least that’s what our headline for the day was. “JACKSON AND RYAN RETURN TO WRITING.” A more accurate headline would be: “JACKSON AND RYAN GET MANICURES AND THEN WATCH TWO EPISODES OF ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK AND THEN LISTEN TO LANA DEL REY AND BRAINSTORM WHERE THEY WILL ORDER FOOD FROM.”

Metaphori-Weekly! – People Are Like Pencils

February 17, 2018May 27, 2014 by Ryan

People Are Like Pencils

People are like pencils; honed and whole at first, with a core of potential words hidden beneath a sheath of laminate, a hard-gloss finish in any and every color. People are like pencils; sharpened to a lethal point in a moment of whirring tumult, a point that might prick blood in the half-thought of haste, a point that cuts across yawns of ambiguous blankness in precise, stringent lines that structure and rectify, cross-out and destroy. People are like pencils; their words might be erased, but not the actual imprints they etch on the surfaces they touch; when their sentences are gone, the ghosts of their sentiments are left behind as pocks and scars and smudges and particles of dust.

Classroom Culture, Authority, and Data’s Use in Defiant Youth

August 22, 2017May 12, 2014 by Ryan

This upcoming week I have an interview at this awesome company up in Providence, that uses design-thinking to innovate business modeling. At least that’s my interpretation of it. I’ve looked at a bunch of firms that do this sort of work but I’m incredibly drawn to this one in particular, and it’s because of their emphasis on social impact and transformative agency.

And–best of all–I’d be focusing on education!

Educating the Ignorant on the Majesty of Ursula, Sea Witch and Gay Icon

August 22, 2017April 11, 2014 by Ryan

Growing up, I thought Disney’s The Little Mermaid was about Ursula. I thought the movie, though oddly focused on that emaciated red-headed hoarder*, was actually a film about a business-savvy octopus lady’s dream of political conquest, and the unfair regulations she was forced to overcome. **

*(This isn’t thin shaming so much as it is a response to Ariel’s most famous frame, in which she is grotesquely disproportionate. This is compared to the rest of the movie, where the animators did not render her a bobble head).

Useless Magic

August 22, 2017March 11, 2014 by Ryan

So a while ago I was brainstorming useless magic powers with a friend (this has since turned into a discussion topic between multiple friends of mine, a trend of which is as simultaneously enchanting as it is distressing). I thought I’d make a list of my favorites here, you know, because I’m compulsive and delusional and think this will add value to the internet. Feel free to leave a suggestion or six!

Ryan vs. New York City: A Story of Trash, Bingo, and Self-Assuredness

August 22, 2017March 6, 2014 by Ryan

(No, I’m not in the photo. I’m taking the photo. Stop creepin’)

I spent the past few days in New York and I wasn’t in complete agony!

Now, before I go further, I want to reject the notion that I blindly despise NYC because I went to school in Boston. Honestly, I’m shocked you’d even go and make that assumption. It really makes me questions how comfortable I am talking with you. What other prejudices are you projecting onto me? You, my reader, are probably a very paranoid and miserable person.