Lifestyle
My eyes are different sizes and colors. Will I ever find a date who doesn’t flinch?
I’m sitting across from an orthodontist, sipping a lukewarm coffee and gliding through typical first-date banter about L.A. traffic. But as this Hinge experiment with his simp-y Harry Styles hair and $200 sweatpants tries to lock eyes with me, I’m still staring just past his shoulder at a fake eucalyptus plant. I am silently praying this passes for eye contact, because I know what’s coming when my gaze meets his. The flinch.
If this term isn’t in your immediate search history, the flinch is an inverse of the male gaze; a jaw-tightening, ball-shriveling squint usually directed at my face. It is a subtle move that says without question: We are not the same.
Because I’m blind, and he isn’t.
My brain crackles with anxiety. Now I’m thinking about all those nice folks with herpes and how they have medication to help keep everything under wraps for a while. Now, I’m longing to have herpes and a vast collection of Valtrex as I down my drink. I need to order another round. Do it — do it now. Before this man notes with absolute certainty that you do not have anything close to the deep brown eyes he thought he saw in your dating profile, before he excuses himself and that second drink never happens.
Dating, in theory, is fun. Meeting a stranger at a cafe covered in hipsters and Moroccan tile, sitting at a too-small table and pretending to be interested in the Americano-length version of someone else’s life, can be total fire. But if you’re me, dating mostly makes you want to haul it outta there like you were in an episode of “The Last of Us.”
Ayla Harrison developed the eye condition retinopathy of prematurity as a newborn.
My face is unfortunate. It is lopsided. My eyes are different sizes and colors. My right eye is lazy, shriveled and blind; it moves like an out-of-control marble circling a drain. My left eye suffers hemorrhages that can cause episodes of total blindness. The reason for my Picasso of a face is because of a retinal disease I snag after my mother goes into labor three months early. She looks that Medicaid doctor right in his very symmetrical face and says through grunts and gritted teeth: “My girl doesn’t like to wait.”
Doctors move me to an ICU and crank my oxygen levels to 100% to keep me stable. Later, a nurse with nicotine stains on her fingernails, tells my parents I have developed retinopathy of prematurity, an eye condition caused by all that one-hundo oxygen. The disease will open me up to a revolving door of vision issues for life.
Then there is rushing. More doctors. A surgeon barely salvages the sight in my left eye, but my right eye can’t be saved. They tell my parents I’ll be blind in that eye forever. A teeny tiny Cyclops. I weigh less than a pound. I am so small the surgeon can place my entire hand on his pinkie nail.
And for a moment, everyone is staring.
The first boy I love has a rat-tail. We’re both 8 years old. To win his affection, on a dare, I decide to eat a cockroach off the ground during recess. Kids point and lose their collective 8-year-old mind, but the attention makes me feel electric. Then he makes direct eye contact with me. I look down; my performance upended in an instant. He’s staring at me like someone asked him to find Waldo and he stops on my mismatched marble-y eyes. The baby fat in his jaw tightens. Then it happens. My first flinch.
I stop going to recess.
At dinner, I mention my eye contact problem to my mother. She nurses her third rum and Diet Coke and says: “Look boys in the eye like you want to steal their wallet.”
By the time I reach high school, I can’t address another person unless my eyes are glued to the floor.
In the teenage dating hierarchy, I am a hard pass. Boys in artfully shredded Abercrombie jeans flinch in a chain reaction of disgust as I pass them in the halls. Cheerleaders corner me and demand to know what is wrong with my eyes. The cheer captain shoves me into a locker. I latch onto her perfect French braids and pull down hard until my knuckles go white. Somewhere JV cheerleaders chant “Fight!” like it is a pep rally.
Harrison in a preschool photo.
(Ayla Harrison)
And for a moment, everyone is staring.
I walk home alone with a busted lip and decide teenagers in my small Southern town are just wolves in Adidas track pants.
Years happen. I leave my swampy hometown. Before I go, my childhood eye doctor warns me that I have the eyes of an 80-year-old. I ignore him because I am 22.
I avoid discussing my ROP with anyone, and instead, I diligently plaster my bangs to my forehead to hide my blind eye. It’s a trick I learn working as a waitress at a neon-tinged strip club in some blink-of-an-eye Florida town that pushes all-you-can-eat oysters and lap dances until 3 a.m. I mimic the dance moves of the strippers. Just like the girls swaying onstage in G-strings, I want to feel that burn-a-hole-in-your-pocket desire from men. A dancer, this oiled-up pole ballerina, tells me about a weekend trip she took to L.A. “Life there is like a buzzsaw knocked up a glitter bomb,” she says.
A month later, I move to Santa Monica. I slide into the rip current of L.A. men and let myself fall in love in the time it takes to change a channel. But the relationships either fade or split open like cantaloupe dropped on hot pavement. And then, on one random Wednesday, my left eye hemorrhages and fills with blood. And suddenly, I cannot see.
Again, more doctors — specialists this time. Their offices are in tall towers. And like in many niche areas of medicine, there are silence and bright lights and a lot of nodding. There are lasers and emergency surgeries. Eventually I can see again, but not without a lot of help from a perpetual weekly doctor appointment. I make friends with the 89-year-old nana-and-pop-pop set in the lobby. I am there so often my mother asks if this ophthalmologist gives out a rewards card like at Yogurtland.
My eyes bleed while I’m in the shower and during yoga. My sight snaps off like a light while I’m at the supermarket. My episodes of blindness go on for months — and still — my mother asks: “When are you going to meet someone? And can you send artisanal doughnuts through the mail?”
This only reminds me of what’s coming: the flinch.
I need a new plan. Or a therapist. Instead, I call my ophthalmologist, a woman I’ve seen so many times I probably fund a fraction of her vacation house.
In the exam room, my ophthalmologist decides to fit me with therapeutic contact lenses. She explains these fancy lenses will protect my diseased eye and — bonus — they will make my eyes appear to be the same color. She finishes her adjustments, offers me a mirror like I’m in a Marvel movie, and waits for applause. I study my blind eye, tucked in its new costume, and opt for a late-night Google question instead: What if I got another procedure done on my eyes?
I suggest more surgeries — cutting-edge surgeries to fix my bad eye and its marble-y wobbling. My doctor pops a trained, reassuring smile and fires off a lecture on the dangers of continuing to rip open my eyes on the regular. The only thing all of those surgeries will do is make my condition worse, she tells me.
Two weeks later, in a different medical tower, I’m meeting with my retinal specialist this time. I hit him with my question about correcting my mismatched eyes. The response is identical — a list of horrors. He pauses to add, “But you are a single woman now. So maybe think about it,” and moves to a new patient without another word.
Tears hit me in a wet burst as my doctor shouts to an 82-year-old in the next room: “How are you doing today?” The door closes behind him.
Harrison crosses 4th Street in Long Beach. She went on a date at a nearby Peruvian restaurant with a man who surprised her.
I call my mother between sobs. I manage to say, “I can’t wear this lens.” I stammer on about how the lens is just a fancy bandage; a device to hide the fact that my vision loss is a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off. And who’s going to love that? My mom patiently waits out my sobs. Finally she says, “What sight you have left could go before I finish this sentence, but no one needs to be OK with that except you.”
Then she asks me if I’ve seen Reese Witherspoon do that one dance on TikTok yet.
Weeks later, I go on a date with a man. I sit across from him at a too-small table at a Peruvian restaurant on 4th Street in Long Beach. His voice is a mix of Spanish slang and a SoCal surfer lilt. And I swear he never drops eye contact. Normally this would wreck me. But with my new lens, I feel an odd new confidence. So, I commit first-date seppuku and tell him about my lens and my vision loss. As I talk, my anxiety hijacks my thoughts, and I immediately regret opening my mouth. Because I’m waiting for the flinch — for that lightning-fast jolt of expected pain. And then I realize I am too busy future spiraling to notice that my date is ordering a second round of drinks.
I am too busy to notice that our date is still going.
It goes until ice melts into the dark amber whiskey in our sweaty cocktail glasses. It goes until it is the soft yellow of morning sunlight. It goes until he holds my hand on a crowded street, and I know it’s my turn to look him in the eye. At a crosswalk, I turn my head and stare at this man.
And for a solid three seconds, I have an overwhelming urge to steal his wallet. I smile. Somewhere, my mother is right.
Then he asks, “Can I kiss you?” I nod. He leans in and kisses me right on my diseased little eyes, right in the middle of that crowded street.
And for a moment, everyone is staring.
The author is a playwright and screenwriter based in L.A. She’s on Instagram: @outinthestacks
A young environmental activist becomes a beaver and integrates into a forest community in Pixar’s Hoppers.
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Disney/Pixar
We’re long past the days when the Pixar brand was a reliable indicator of quality, when every other year or so would bring a new masterwork on the level of The Incredibles, Ratatouille and WALL-E. In recent years, the Disney-owned animation studio has succumbed to sequelitis; I didn’t much care for Inside Out 2 or the Toy Story spinoff Lightyear, and even ostensible originals like Soul and Elemental have felt like high-concept disappointments.
So it’s a relief as well as a pleasure to recommend Pixar’s wildly entertaining new movie, Hoppers, without reservation. Directed by Daniel Chong from a script by Jesse Andrews, this eco-themed sci-fi farce may not be vintage or all-time-great Pixar. But its unhinged comic delirium is by far the liveliest thing to emerge from the company in years.
The movie stars Piper Curda as the voice of Mabel Tanaka, a plucky 19-year-old college misfit and environmental activist who lives in the woodsy suburban town of Beaverton. Mabel is more of an animal lover than a people person. She inherited a love of nature from her late grandmother, and she wants nothing more than to protect her favorite place, a forest glade.
The town’s popular mayor, Jerry — amusingly voiced by Jon Hamm — is trying to ram a highway through the area. But to Mabel’s alarm, the busy beavers who made the glade a haven for local wildlife have inexplicably vanished, and they seem to have taken all the other forest critters with them.
While investigating this disturbing situation, Mabel stumbles on a high-tech experiment that’s being conducted by her biology professor, Dr. Sam, voiced by Kathy Najimy. Dr. Sam calls the program Hoppers, because it allows a single human mind to enter, or “hop,” into the body of a robot animal, which can then pass itself off as an actual animal and communicate with real creatures in the wild.
Against Dr. Sam’s wishes, Mabel hops into the robot beaver and makes her way deep into the forest, where she hopes to convince a real beaver to return to the glade — and bring all the other animals back with it.
What Mabel discovers in the forest, though, is not at all what she expected. She encounters a community that includes birds, bunnies, racoons, a very grumpy bear and, of course, other beavers, including the friendly, somewhat naïve beaver king, George, endearingly voiced by Bobby Moynihan. (The movie takes the idea of the animal kingdom quite literally; the enormous vocal ensemble includes the late Isiah Whitlock Jr. as a royal goose, and Meryl Streep as the most imperious monarch butterfly imaginable.)
Mabel Tanaka (voiced by Piper Curda) is a plucky 19-year-old college misfit and environmental activist.
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Disney/Pixar
George has no idea that Mabel isn’t a real beaver, and he quickly takes a liking to her, even though her efforts to learn why the animals left the glade have a way of getting her and everyone into hot water.
None of this may sound too odd, especially coming just a few months after Zootopia 2. But Hoppers is just getting started; the movie gets funnier, stranger, and more surreal as it goes along. The mind-bending, body-swapping premise has obvious shades of Avatar, which Andrews’ script knowingly shouts out early on.
There are also references to classic horror films like The Birds and Jaws, and for good reason. Hoppers asks the question: What would happen if animals were fully aware of what humans have done to the planet — and suddenly in a position to do something about it? In the final stretch, the film almost becomes a body-snatcher movie, with a level of creepiness that may scare the youngest in the audience, though my 9-year-old laughed far more than she screamed.
I laughed a lot, too; Hoppers is full of funny throwaway lines and oddball non-sequiturs that I expect I’ll hear a hundred more times when it finally makes its way into our streaming rotation. The movie occasionally flirts with darkness, but even Pixar’s daring can only go so far, and its environmental advocacy ultimately lands on an unobjectionable message about how humans and animals can coexist.
That may sound conventional, but it’s borne out beautifully by Mabel and George’s unlikely friendship, which happily continues even after Mabel is no longer a beaver. There’s something fitting about that: for Pixar, Hoppers is nothing short of a return to form.
Jordan Chiles is always in motion.
The decorated gymnast and two-time Olympian recently competed in the latest season of “Dancing With the Stars,” finishing in third place alongside her partner Ezra Sosa. She’s an ambassador for brands including Nike and Hero Cosmetics. In August, she launched a mentorship program called SHERO Athlete Collective for young athletes.
And in the midst of all of that, she’s finishing up her senior year at UCLA.
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
“I’m happy, but I’m also sad,” the 24-year-old says about her final year as a Bruin, adding, “It’s pretty cool to know that my dream school has become my legacy.”
Chiles is also in the thick of a legal battle to reclaim the bronze medal she won, then was stripped of, at the 2024 Paris Olympics. In January, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court granted her an appeal to reexamine the matter. “I’m going to stand for what is right,” she says. “I am doing the things to make sure no other athlete has to go through what I had to go through.”
With the Olympics arriving in Los Angeles in 2028, the question of whether Chiles will participate is top of mind for many fans. Her response?
“Right now, it’s just me and my college career,” she says, flashing a bright smile. “I think right now just being able to be a part of UCLA for my last season and then seeing from there on, from April until the next year, we’ll see what happens.”
Chiles trains every day except Wednesdays and Saturdays, but on her perfect Sunday, she’d skip the gym to hang out with her dogs, take a trip to the mall and binge-watch her favorite shows.
9 a.m.: Gospel music to start the day
I feel like waking up at 9 a.m. is the perfect time because it gives you enough time in the day to do whatever, but also you didn’t wake up too early. The first thing I’d probably do aside from washing my face and brushing my teeth, is put on gospel music or listen to anything that can put my mind at ease. If I don’t have practice, then that’s typically what I’m doing, cleaning my house and starting to rejuvenate my body differently. I’d take my dogs out. I have an Aussie doodle, a teacup poodle and a maltipoo. Their names are Versace, Chanel and Dolce Gabbana. Very bougie dogs.
9:30 a.m.: Breakfast with a side of “Chicago Fire”
I’d cook for myself. I like typical scrambled eggs, bacon, avocado toast and sometimes a bagel. To get in some fruit, I’d drink some apple juice to make it feel like, “OK, this was a great, healthy breakfast.” Then I’d most likely sit on my couch and start binge-watching something. This is where lazy Jordan comes in. Like I got up, I did this, I ate, so now it’s time to relax. I’ve recently been watching all of the Chicago [shows] like “Chicago Fire,” “Chicago PD” and “Chicago Med.” I also recently started rewatching “Pretty Little Liars.”
12:30 p.m. Shop for athleisure and other goodies
This is typically when Jordan feels like she needs to go shopping. I’d put my dogs up and go to the mall. I deserve to go shop. I deserve to go splurge. I like going to the Topanga mall. I really, really like Jamba Juice and there’s one in the Topanga mall. I used to know the secret menu by heart before they started putting it on the actual menu. My go-to is the White Gummi smoothie.
I love streetwear, so if there’s sneaker stores around, I’d check that out. I sometimes end up in an Apple Store, don’t ask me how or why. It just always ends up like that. If I need to get athleisure wear, I always go to Nike. You can never have too many Nike Pros. If I need to get my eyebrows threaded or my nails done, I can do everything at the mall while I’m shopping.
4 p.m.: Time for homework
I’m heading back home so I can beat traffic and let my dogs out. I’d probably sit on my couch, scrolling on Pinterest, trying to figure out what I’m going to eat. Then I’d start doing my homework. Since I am still in college, I’d start whatever I need to do for that week. I try to stay as organized as best as I can because it is hard being a businesswoman and still being a college student. I’d probably do homework for about 2 ½ hours.
7 p.m.: Domino’s pizza and more binge-watching
I’d turn whatever show I’m watching back on, then I’d either cook or sometimes I’ll order in. It honestly depends on what Sunday it is. If it’s football Sunday, you know I have the wings and the typical Sunday vibes. But if it’s not, I might make tacos or Alfredo, or order off Uber Eats. I know this is probably crazy but I really, really, really, really love Domino’s. I am a pizza person. My Domino’s order is a small pepperoni, pineapple, olives and sausage slice … hand tossed, cheesed up, and then I will get a side of garlic knots and a side of buffalo wings with ranch.
If it’s not Domino’s, then I either will do Shake Shack or Wendy’s. I know it’s probably crazy and you’re like “Jordan, you’re an athlete,” but sometimes a girl just has to go in that direction. I like teriyaki food and hibachi places, so I’d either order from a place called Blazed N Glazed or Teriyaki Madness, or this place on campus called Hibachi Papi.
9 p.m. Video games before bed
I have an Xbox and a PlayStation, so sometimes I will go into my game room and just literally sit in my chair and play “Call of Duty” or “Halo.” Other than that, I have no night rituals. I will just make sure my dogs are fed. I always pray before I go to bed and my skincare is legit all Medicube, but I always make sure to do a face mask every other day before I go to bed.
10:30 p.m.: Prepare for an early practice
Since I probably have to wake up the next morning for an early practice, I feel like 10:30 p.m. is a good time to go to sleep. Unless I’m doing something with my friends and we don’t get back until like 11:30 p.m., but other than that, I’m in my bed or at least on my couch just relaxing.
Delroy Lindo is nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actor for his role in Sinners.
Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP
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Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP
Over the course of his decades-long career on stage and in Hollywood, Sinners actor Delroy Lindo has experienced firsthand what he calls the “disappointments, the vicissitudes of the industry.”
On Feb. 22, at the BAFTA awards in London, Lindo and Sinners co-star Michael B. Jordan were the first presenters of the evening when a man with Tourette syndrome shouted a racial slur.
Initially, Lindo says, he questioned if he had heard correctly. Then, he says, he adjusted his glasses and read the teleprompter: “I processed in the way that I process, in a nanosecond. Mike did similarly, and we went on and did our jobs.”
Lindo describes the BAFTA incident as “something that started out negatively becoming a positive.” A week after the BAFTAs, he appeared with Sinners director Ryan Coogler at the NAACP awards.
“The fact that I could stand there in a room predominantly of our people … and feel safe, feel loved, feel supported,” he says. “I just wanted to officially, formally say thank you to our people and to all of the people who have supported us as a result of that event, that incident.”
Sinners is a haunting vampire thriller about twins (both played by Jordan) who open a juke joint in 1930s Mississippi. The film has been nominated for a record 16 Academy Awards, including best actor for Jordan and best supporting actor for Lindo, who plays a blues musician named Delta Slim.
This is Lindo’s first Oscar nomination; five years ago, many felt his performance in the Spike Lee film Da 5 Bloods deserved recognition from the Academy. When that didn’t happen, Lindo admits he was disappointed, but he had no choice but to move on.
“I have never taken my marbles and gone home,” he says. “And I want to claim that I will not do that now. I will continue working.”
Interview highlights
On his preparation to play Delta Slim
Various people have mentioned … [that] my presence reminds them of an uncle or their grandfather, somebody that they knew from their families, and that is a huge compliment, but more importantly than being a compliment, it’s an affirmation for the work. My preparation for this started with Ryan sending me two books, Blues People, by Amiri Baraka — who was [known as] LeRoi Jones when he wrote the book — and Deep Blues, by Robert Palmer.
Lindo, shown above in his role as Delta Slim, says director Ryan Coogler “created a sacred space for all of us” on the Sinners set.
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Warner Bros. Pictures
In reading those books and then referencing those books, continuing to reference those throughout production, I was given an entrée into the worlds, the lifestyles of these musicians. There’s a certain kind of itinerant quality that they moved around a lot. The constant for them is their music, so that there is this deep-seated connection to the music.
On being Oscar-nominated for the first time — and thinking about other Black actors, including Halle Berry and Lou Gossett Jr., who had trouble getting work after their wins
I will not view it as a curse, because I am claiming the victory in this process, no matter what happens. … In terms of this moment, I absolutely am claiming, as much as I can, the joy of this moment. I’m not saying I don’t have trepidation, I do. It’s the reason I was not listening to the broadcast this year when the nominations were announced. I did not want to set myself up. But I’m … attempting as much as I can to fortify myself and know in my heart that I will continue working as an actor. I absolutely will.
On being “othered” as a child because of his race
Because my mom was studying to be a nurse they would not allow her to have an infant child with her on campus, so as a result of that, I was sent to live with a white family in a white working class area of London. … I was loved, I was cared for, but as a result of living with this family in this all-white neighborhood, I went to an all-white elementary or primary school. And I was literally the only Black child in an all-white school.
So one afternoon, after school had ended, I was playing with one of my playmates … And at a certain point in our game, a car pulls up, and this kid that I was playing with goes over to the car and has a very short conversation with whomever was in the car, which I now know was his parent, his father. He comes back and he … says, “I can’t play with you.” And that was the end of the game.
On the experience of writing his forthcoming memoir
It’s been healing, actually. I’m not denying that it has opened me up. I’ve been compelled to scrutinize myself. I’m using that word very advisedly, “scrutinized.” It’s a scrutiny, it’s an examination of oneself. But in my case, because a very, very, very significant part of what I’m writing has to do with re-examining my relationship with my mom. And so my mom is a protagonist in my memoir. I’m told by my editor and by my publisher that one of the attractions to what I’m writing is that it is not a classic “celebrity memoir.” I am examining history. I’m examining culture. I’m looking at certain passages of history through the lens of the “Windrush” experience [of Caribbean immigrants who came to the UK after World War II].
On getting a masters degree to help him write his mother’s story
My mom deserved it. My mom is deserving. And not only is my mom deserving, by extension, all the people of the Windrush generation are deserving. Stories about Windrush are not part of the global cultural lexicon commensurate with its impact. The people of Windrush changed the definition of what it means to be British. There are all these Black and brown people, theretofore members of what used to be called the British Commonwealth. And they were invited by the British government to come to England, the United Kingdom, to help rebuild the United Kingdom in the aftermath of the destruction of World War II. My mom was part of that movement. They helped rebuild construction, construction industry, transportation industry, critically, the health industry, the NHS, the National Health Service. My mom is a nurse.
The reason that I went into NYU was because my original intention was to write a screenplay about my mom. I wanted to write a screenplay about my mom because I looked around and I thought: Where are the feature films that have as protagonist a Caribbean female, a Black female, where are they? … I wanted to address that, I wanted to correct that, what I see as being an imbalance.
Ann Marie Baldonado and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
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