082102For Cory, who utterly loves fried chicken: Fried chicken. What is there to say about fried chicken? Well, for starters, I�m not a huge fan of the food. Don�t get me wrong, I�ve eaten my fair share on occasion. It�s just not something I would request for, say, a last meal on death row. It is just too greasy. Sometimes, if I hit an air pocket in the skin, a surge of grease flows into my mouth, causing what would have been a perfectly good bite to become utterly worthless. After I force myself to swallow, I get totally grossed out thinking I just ate grease. I mentally take the little chicken wing and stick it to my thigh. Then there�s the fact that it has to be eaten with your hands. I could sit there with my knife and fork, delicately sawing it into bite-size pieces�and have everyone stare at me like I was wearing a black belt with brown shoes. I don�t like having my hands saturated in mystery chicken goo. Utensils were created for a reason, which is also why I don�t use chopsticks, but that�s another story. Fried chicken is something you eat while watching football games, and I don�t like football. Go figure. 081302Once upon a time, there was a restaurant named Asia Grille. Situated near the Burnsville Center, it appeared to have the prime location to snag hungry passers-by as they headed home from a long day of shopping. Unfortunately, mall-goers refusing to pay exorbitantly high food court prices didn�t have the taste buds for Nuevo-Asian cooking. Not long after it opened its doors to the public, it soon closed them for good and Asia Grille disappeared from the map, existing only in memory alongside fellow bankrupt eateries like Maggie Moo�s and Boogie's Diner. In December of 2001, I was on my way to a concert with my boyfriend. We turned onto Prairie Center Drive and I began to admire the fine shops located in luxurious Eden Prairie - the "new money" suburb. At first glance, I thought I was hallucinating. I blinked a few times, expecting it to be some cruel trick my eyes were playing on me. There, straight ahead on my left, was Asia Grille. I was so excited I began to scream. Cory became worried, hoping nothing was wrong. I wasn�t screaming in fear, oh no sir. My scream was filled with sheer jubilation. It was a muggy Sunday afternoon in August. I had just switched off the blow-dryer and was checking my reflection one last time in the large wall mirror. Simultaneously, Jack and I left the two upstairs bathrooms. We locked eyes, nodded, and I grabbed my purse. Twenty minutes later, a green sign flashed by us: Prairie Center Drive, exit 11A. -- Pushing in my chair, I slipped my bright floral-print purse onto my shoulder and began heading towards the exit. I briefly stopped at the bar, snatched two business cards from their simple black holder, and made a beeline for the door. "Have a good afternoon," the hostess chimed, crouching in the shadows past my peripheral vision. I swiveled around and grinned. As my brother and I stepped into the bright sunlight, a wave of heat hit our bodies. My forehead instantly began to sweat. I knew I had successfully added ten pounds to my thighs from the meal, but I didn�t care. I felt a burp gurgling in the depths of my stomach. We reached the car and I unlocked the doors. Jack swung open his and, no sooner, began complaining the car was too hot. I told him to get in or he was walking back. The gas in my stomach crept to the surface all too fast and, without warning, caused me to punctuate "back" with an earth-shattering belch. I smiled to myself. Mmm, the regurgitated taste of Cilantro Pesto Potstickers. 080902I may only be eighteen, on the verge of turning nineteen, and quickly approaching my sophomore year of college, yet I am already experiencing the joys of being a writer. The case in point: my search for a job. Having been accepted into SJMC this past spring, I am a full-fledged journalism major, taking all the same classes big-shot juniors and seniors do. Yet when people see "sophomore," the synonyms that come to mind include "inexperienced" and "unqualified." They like to assume writing is something I picked out of a hat. They think it�s as if I took one of those career inventory waste-of-time surveys in junior high and the majority of my pie chart contained "good written communication skills," meaning my career of choice should be journalism. It�s not like that. I�ve always enjoyed writing. I have an army of journals, filled to the brim with stories, thoughts, and feelings, piled high in my desk at home. I have file folders bursting at the seams with old writing assignments, given by teachers who felt obligated to get students thinking outside the classroom. I have countless saved stories on my computer; novels, with only a beginning, that I promise myself I�ll finish one day and make my millions off of. Writing is all around me - literally. It�s my world. This is why I can�t comprehend how someone thinks I�m going to be bad at it. I know I�m no Jane Austin or Mark Twain. I�m not expecting to be this great gift the literary world has been waiting for. I just want to write. All I need is one person to give me a chance. I need someone to believe in me, to feel it in their bones that this soon-to-be nineteen year-old has what it takes. And, when that someone comes along at just the right moment, they will help me take that first step down the road to the rest of my life. 080802I officially have writer�s block, but I�m sure you all know that. I�ve been severely lacking in the update department recently. It�s quite hard to overcome, for those unable to comprehend. I sit down at my computer, click on the �Quick Launch� pencil and paper icon, and, upon arrival of the Microsoft Works window, promptly begin to stare at the blank white simulated page for anywhere from five to twenty-five minutes. I�m not totally wasting time though. Some of my best thinking comes from staring at an unidentified location. There�s just something about a good, long stare off into Never-Never Land to get the mental cogs working. It gives me time for uninterrupted thought - a state of mind I don�t experience often. With my job, for instance, the perpetual state of being is do, go, call, stamp, cut, mask, file. Some days I swear I never stop moving. My workplace has a "finish and get it out the door" vibe wafting through the air, becoming quite stressful at times and allowing room for the weekly outbursts at my mom. Yes, that�s right, I yell at my boss. But isn�t that practically a perk of working for your parents? I know, I know, if I had acted that way at Lady Foot Locker, I would have been kicked to the curb faster than you can say "overpriced athletic footwear." The abrupt closing of my brother�s bedroom door jolted me from my hypnotic writing trance. Writer�s block to Lady Foot Locker - how do I do it? It�s like that Seven Degrees of Patrick Swayze or something: everything is related. It just takes a good writer (and a little Peter Pan) to find a way.
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