I’m one, and I’m spinning through a golden field. I remember that much; everything else is a blur—a story told so many times, it feels like a memory. Sunrays splash my dress, a lovely white thing ornamented with pearly ruffles, extravagant lace, and jingling beads. It’s unbearably itchy, but I’m dancing, so I don’t mind. [...]
On June 27th, 2011, a 220-pound, straight edge, tattooed superhero named CM Punk changed my life forever. I know, that sentence could have easily been the beginning of a disturbing confession, but such is the reality: CM Punk changed my life. On a dreary Monday night in the middle of the summer, he sat cross-legged [...]
3:17 pm. I was late. I leapt from my friend’s mother’s car, scrambled into my bedroom, grabbed my books, and tumbled back into the garage. After snagging my bike lock off the wall and lifting my bike from its hooks, I took off from Albion then flew down 1st Avenue. As I turned to take [...]
FADE IN: Every movie, from Pulp Fiction to Casablanca. From Dr. Strangelove to Goodfellas all start with this phrase: “Fade in,” in 12 pt Courier font. It’s the unseen and unheard prologue of the entire adventure that awaits you. It’s an exciting thing, really: the beginning of something great. The problem is that [...]
The airport was packed. People bustled by, boarding planes, grabbing breakfast– or in my case– kicking a tattered, brown suitcase through the baggage check-in line. A warm, June breeze blew in through the opening doors of DIA as I glared down at my bag. It seemed to enjoy resisting my every effort to move it [...]
Layered in sweaters over my leotard, I head towards the dance studio. The San Francisco morning bites my nose as I walk through the heart of Tenderloin. Sidewalks clutter with trash and human waste. Sleeping people bundle against buildings. Tenderloin is isolated from outsiders… perhaps the majority of San Francisco’s homeless reside here. Their afternoons [...]
You should never substitute kosher salt for plain salt in a recipe, for an equivalent volume does not mean an equivalent weight. This knowledge wasn’t born of experience; I learned it from a habit I developed the summer after freshman year. Somewhere in the bowels of San Francisco, a man known only as “Chef John” [...]
There is a specific cacophony that accompanies a room of musicians, a discordant mix of scales and warm-ups, with boisterous showoffs playing dramatic solos from the margins. For most, an experience in the backstage holding pen is jarring, but for me, it represents my career as an orchestral musician. The bizarrely alienating combination of shrill [...]
You can find essay advice all over the internet and in book stores. There’s a whole slew of topics about which NOT to write. I say: ignore most of the advice you get, and lead from your heart. Colleges want authentic kids, so write about your authentic self. It doesn’t matter so much WHAT your topic [...]
