Underestimated.

The frigidity in San Francisco is unlike any bluster my tippy toes have ever felt.

I must really start wearing socks.

This murderous cold chills so deeply that I'm unsure of its origin--whether the freeze comes from without or, most likely, from within. Each gust of air brings with it a wind chill factor an octave lower than the prior, a sharper set of teeth ready to puncture my skin to bone to soul. I trudge on with recalcitrance, upstream, eyes seared shut due to the caustic qualities of the wind's undertow.

I may be going somewhere scary, a place people fear, where they get material for nightmares. It's a place where no one ever wants to go and if they end up there, it's usually only by force. It is a place of deep loss and pain, the kind that bleeds dry and doesn't clot, the type that never goes numb and rarely ever heals completely.

I'm on my way, so sure I'll make it out alive, though near-fatally wounded. Perhaps, in the direst of straights, the lowest levels of the inferno, this chill will be thawed and, again perhaps, I will finally open my eyes.

Life must not only be lived but loved as well.

The Hunt.

The anticipation itches forth from center palm in a clammy, sick kind of way. As if my hand wants to vomit but, lacking a digestive system, utilizes my pituitary instead. The usual bodily reaction to knowledge of self-betrayal, when one, fully aware of their scruples, no matter how ill-informed, deliberately acts against them. The faux leather kitten heels nip lovingly at my Achille's tendon, so playfully persistent that bloodshed seems imminent. A twenty-something year old preteen playing dress up, another sale item subjected to the demands of some unseen titan dictating decorum and proper etiquette; a conservatively dressed prostitute trying to convince you to buy. Oh, can't take my word for it? Contact my references, because obviously they know better than I know myself. Clamoring desperately for opportunities to shore up my market value, another indent on the ol' resume. Ah yes, my resume!, to have defined myself in the confines of a white paper rectangle, my blood and guts inked black in straight lines, Times New Roman, and bullet points. Two-dimensionalized (for easy transport and consumption), I carry all the essential parts of myself in a plastic folder, next to the tampons, tissues, and chocolate tin merrily jumbled in my purse.

Fuck this faceless system, people reduced to format text, coded numerically on some arbitrary scale according to how much of a moneymaker they can be made into, how easily they assimilate into this economically exploitative agenda. This shit just ain't for me. I have a face, a voice, two hands, and a functioning brain; can't be four-cornered, unwilling to give up my depth. When I walk up in there, oh the tirade I'll unleash! Straighten out these crooks, and swear never to don conservatively colored slacks again! The education I could bestow, knowing the little I know, the refuge found in each verbal blow, this rabid, instinctual urge to rebel and reveal and revolutionize, desmystify. Go on, ask me why, this system so obsessed with paper! I ain't got no fancy art education but you know what color you get when you mix red, white, and blue? GREEN. Mean green, dead presidents' green: the color of our nation. Paper people chasing more paper, this is the stuff Americans are made of. Flammable freedom, once ablaze, how quickly this nation will burn. Unwittingly, leading our lives foolishly on paper, we secede to a future of ashes, resign to inevitable oblivion and the erasure flesh. Paper has elimated the necessity for the corporeal, identities forged in binary code superceding the organic. My face, my voice, my hands, my fuctioning brain--all meaningless without paper backup. It just ain't right! I'll yell. I'll gesticulate as if swatting at millions of bees, infuriated, impassioned, and brutally correct!

Then, a voice shakes, followed by a handshake. All politeness returns to my voice. I take my seat with composure, attentive and docile. Prepared to succumb to questioning, standard procedure. I am content with my proof of existence, flesh and bone solid in front of my adversary, confident in my reality.

My interviewer pulls out my resume.
A needle to a helium balloon.
Looks at it before giving second glance to me.
Punctures the taut, artificial red rubber.
Assured of my existence, she proceeds as if she knows who I am, what I'm capable of.
The sound bursts like an open-palmed slap to the face.
At the end of our interview, she asks if I have any questions.
Red rubber carcass casualty.

Yes, one.
Why am I here?

I don't understand this whole concept of "tough love."
Can someone explain to me how this is supposed to help someone?

Music through Headphones.

I want to destroy it all, reduce concrete titans to rubble, cause even the most formidable edifice to tremble right down to its titanium core, see the fear in the thousand glass eyes of the city.

I want a laser beam gaze, to look at the sun and make it sweat and seek shade, give me eternal night time.

I want my meat raw, bleeding, gutted, still warm and pulsing with life down my esophagus, to swallow without chewing, ripping, tearing, gnashing lips rouged with bloodshed and suffering.

I want my innards to rupture, my body to dismantle itself, my heart to go on beating shamelessly, defiantly, long after my body is beyond recognition, so my next of kin not even knowing if I deserve their grief.

I want to crush civilization in my fists, strangling the life out of this already dead world in which I am forced exist.

I want to be reborn with wings and hummingbird heartstrings, covered in feathers and singing mourning songs, battle cries and love songs during twilight.

This isn't coming out right at all, nope.

Libidinal post.

I want to make green tea EVERYTHING.

So. I will.

Sunday October 12th - nearly failed green tea shortbread cookies. Fruitless hunt for matcha powder, but much road rage. Oh, yes, I've succumbed to recounting the events of my day.

On my way.

Albeit very, VERY slowly.

I'm going for journalism everyone (and I use the term "everyone" loosely). Of course, it's standard for most serious journalism majors to have 2-3 internships fresh out of college. Surprise! Not only do I lack any internship experience, I also lack a degree in journalism.

It's gonna be tough, but I am compelled to write. I'm converting this blog into my own miniature newspaper, media outlet, editorial column, opinion space (which, it pretty much has been anyway). I realize that I'm bound to encounter obstacles not only in the actual realm of finding fulfilling hands-on experience in the journalistic world, but also in my personal style of writing. I lack any sort of formal training in communications/journalism/creative writing, and am, for now, solely relying on the small gift I possess--a passion for the written word--to propel me (again, very, very slowly) into the rough waters of print news media.

Okay, maybe "propel" isn't an apt description for my sluggish journey into the field. Bad word choice. Noted for future reference.

The written word performs the crucial task of bridging perception and reality through a medium that's often taken for granted, often mislabeled as "universal." Yes, journalism is espoused as objective, as fact--but it's spun. Any two people can witness the same event, be told the same information, but, ultimately, when asked what happened or what they heard, two different stories emerge--with both authors swearing with vehement conviction that their story is the "most true." Yes, fact-checking, research, double-triple-septuple edits are going on, but there's hypocrisy inherent in the way journalism is conducted (at least in the U.S.): though stories are meant to be universally understood as the "truth,"because most journalism is conducted through voyeurism and not actual experience, all the public receives is a slanted interpretation of events.

Presently, this characteristic of journalism serves both constructive and destructive purposes. It's no secret that Rupert Murdoch owns pretty much all the major media outlets, transforming all readily accessible news networks into carbon copies of each other; however, though information control is rampant in the U.S., journalists, under the unfortunately conditional right to free speech, can manipulate this system through their own educated opinions. Now, I don't readily believe I could be considered "enlightened," but I don't hesitate to describe myself as inquisitive and hungry, with very little interest in informing people about things they already know. Combine that with a robust dedication to ethics, rebellion, and social justice, and voila! A recipe for some worthwhile reading.

Now, to figure a way out of this funk; writing in this manner feels so foreign, being where I am in this world feels so wrong, so ill-fitting. I must move. I must make elbow room. I must not fall. I must I must I must!

Silence.

Tibor Kalman.

Happy October.