Personal Essays
August 21, 2010
ESSAY: Tales of a reformed anti-ager
Age used to scare me like nobody’s business. I considered growing old and decrepit terrifying. Looks fade, skin sags, bones creak and the mind wanders.
August 15, 2010
ESSAY: The death of a best friend
(Web Exclusive) I had my 17th birthday party after our high school’s winter Courtwarming dance in December of 2005. Courtwarming is essentially a winter version of Homecoming. My birthday was a few days earlier, but because the dance was that weekend, I thought it would be more fun to celebrate after. We talked about it all night, and the excitement grew with the invitation list
August 08, 2010
ESSAY: Mizzou Idol
(Web Exclusive) I was six years old when I learned my first Indian classical song. During that time, all I cared about were things such as when I was going to see D3: The Mighty Ducks. Nevertheless, I sat on the beige carpet in my parents’ bedroom and opened my crisp black composition notebook to the fourth page.
August 01, 2010
ESSAY: Drinking responsibly in college
(Web Exclusive) I often hear my fellow college students jokingly say: “If you’re in college, it isn’t called alcoholism.” The problem is that they’re only half joking, and it’s a flawed theory: The same problems with excessive drinking come up no matter what age you are.
July 25, 2010
ESSAY: The end of a gymnastics career
(Web Exclusive) I am a gymnast. That is what I do. It’s nearly who I am. I am the girl who can stand in the middle of a room and do a back flip. I’m the daughter my mom parades around because I can hold a handstand longer than deep-sea divers can hold their breath. I can flip twice, add a twist off the uneven bars and make it look easy. I can do things few others can. I am a unique, competitive, Division-1 athlete.
July 18, 2010
ESSAY: My annoying mother
(Web Exclusive) My mom has been a constant fixture in my life for 26 years. She has annoyed me for 25. I waged war on her when I was a teenager, trying to win my independence. Like many battles, it has been pointless, and I’ve grown tired of the fighting. I let down my defenses recently when she came for a visit. We had a blast. It has taken me a quarter of a century to acknowledge that I am just like her.
July 11, 2010
ESSAY: An ode to the pizza delivery guy
(Web Exclusive) It was a typical mid-afternoon day during the summer of 2005. I was cruising in my red 1989 Chevrolet S-10, making good time for a quick and easy pizza delivery. I arrived at a little brick house, clutching three pizzas in my arms, ignoring the heat permeating from them and knocked on the customer’s door.
July 04, 2010
ESSAY: Cooking pancakes
(Web Exclusive) In the process of cooking so many different foods, I’ve worked to find recipes that use ingredients I already own. So when I noticed the left-over carrots in my fridge from the chicken meatball and tortellini soup I had made a couple of weeks before, I knew it was going to lead to something interesting, the way cooking for friends always does.
June 27, 2010
ESSAY: The Music Man's daughter
(Web Exclusive) “The sun’ll come out tomorrrowww. Let your bottom hang out til tomorrrowww...” I belted in the middle of Dillard’s department store. My mother laughed awkwardly and shoppers stared in our direction as I half-sang and half-shouted what I thought were the words to “Tomorrow” from the musical Annie. Four years old and not yet filled with grade school inhibitions, I thought I was the apple of Daddy Warbucks’ eye. I wasn’t completely off-target. Although I did not have curly red hair, impressive vocals or a millionaire father, my dad could have sworn I sung the part perfectly — give or take a few words.
June 20, 2010
ESSAY: Bros icing bros
(Web Exclusive) “Take a knee,” a man commands as the room erupts in cheers. Is this a knighting ceremony, or perhaps a coach’s command to his team in the locker room? Oh, no. It’s the sound of a bro icing a bro.
June 09, 2010
ESSAY: Food critic
(Web Exclusive) It seemed like an infomercial. Take this 20-minute test and find out your future! I had no idea what I wanted to be at 17. But I was pretty sure my future career would not involve distributing mail. I’m not exactly an outdoorsy kind of girl, and at 5’3” I’d be lost as a make-up artist or fashion designer in a sea of leggy supermodels.
June 06, 2010
ESSAY: Millton the Cabbage Patch doll
(Web Exclusive) The walls of my bedroom are cream. The pictures are all in black and white, and hang perfectly above my bed. Textbooks and 300-plus page novels line the one shelf I have. This is the room of adult me. At almost midnight, I’m standing in a baggy pair of sweatpants and oversized Chicago Bears T-shirt. Gently tossing two white and green Euro-size pillows from my bed to the floor, I hear my roommate walk in and sigh. She points toward my bed. “When are you going to stop sleeping with him?” she asks.
May 30, 2010
ESSAY: Nude modeling
(Web Exclusive) About two years ago, a friend of mine told me the art department was always in the market for stark nude new staff and shelled out big bucks for anyone who was willing to pose. Now, I’m not a particularly extraverted person. And I don’t have the physique to warrant flaunting myself naked in front of people. But for some reason, I found the offer hilariously titillating.
May 23, 2010
ESSAY: Principal Dad
(Web Exclusive) On a humid day in August, the first day of my freshman year of high school, my friends and I piled into the main campus auditorium dreading the hour-long orientation. We raced to find a table in the back to avoid direct encounters. Our assistant principal, Mr. McLin — who earned the nickname “Catfish” because of his long, white mustache and pointed eyebrows — gave his speech on discipline. Mrs. Miller, our petite, sweet-natured counselor, gave us tips on how to begin our high school career with proper study habits. Then the head principal, Mr. Schupmann, took his turn.
May 15, 2010
Suburban Commandos
(Web Exclusive) From inside our bay window I could tell it was bad. Reams of toilet paper blanketed the front yard. Just after midnight I’d glimpsed the devastation lumbering up from the coolness in the basement.
May 09, 2010
On faith and homosexuality
(Web Exclusive) In my church, no one ever talked about homosexuality. The unspoken assumption was that no member of the congregation was gay. I’m a Missionary Baptist, and even though I had never learned anything concrete about homosexuality from the church, my school years had led me to believe that it was wrong.
May 02, 2010
Surviving Death
(Web Exclusive) One of the best memories I have of my brother Benjamin is his sweaty stomach grazing my face on a hot day. We, Ben, my sister Alicia and I, were in the backyard, playing a pickup game of basketball during the summer. Because Ben was well over six feet and Alicia and I were anything but, we decided to play two on one. After my sister gloated about shooting a mean jumper in his face, Ben, the competitive big kid that he was, took the ball from my sister and proceeded to dunk on the both of us.
April 25, 2010
Fuji slacker
(Web Exclusive) My family lived in Japan from 1997 to 2002 while my father was a Marine. Living overseas meant we went on incredible vacations — Tokyo, Sydney, Beijing — and I loved every trip, except one. In 2001, my parents signed our family up for a trip climbing Mt. Fuji, Japan’s tallest mountain.
April 18, 2010
A socially anxious journalist
(Web Exclusive) In a cozy, square-shaped space framed by Japanese screens and maroon couches, I was among ten men and women attempting to talk to each other. Most of us looked distressed and could barely make it past two or three sentences. After a few minutes passed, silence invaded the room. I glanced around nervously. The person I was talking to stared at the floor. The moderator stood up and told everyone to stop. He then drew two names from a hat. One was mine. I had to have coffee with Mary for 15 awkward minutes. No more, no less.
April 11, 2010
Dear Unicorn Boy
(Web Exclusive) As I open my mailbox, I can see it — a tiny white triangle peeking out from behind the Entertainment Weekly that I never bought a subscription to. As usual, my mailbox, like my apartment, is a mess, but the difference is that I clean my mailbox every day and my apartment every, well, never. I reach my hand in and unearth the Netflix copy of Never Been Kissed (to open tonight), the U2 issue of Rolling Stone (to open this week), my electric bill (to avoid as long as possible) — and then I grab it, my latest letter. My fears have once again been conquered: No one has stolen the mail from my too-warped-to-open mailbox, and my friends still like me. Or at least still write to me.
