From the day
Perspective: The Anxious Local · Sight
The neon glow from the TV screen flickers over my low-rise jeans as the news anchor drones on about the WTO; I swear, if gas hits two dollars a gallon soon, I’m going to lose it. I just spent a fortune on this new Xbox and a copy of Windows XP, but scrolling through Wikipedia for "affordable living" almost makes me want to type "rofl" out of sheer, bitter irony. Between the "Bootylicious" beat thumping from my neighbor's room and the rumors of a pocket-sized iPod coming later this year, everything feels too expensive and dangerously fast. I catch my reflection in the window—shadowed eyes and a tight jaw—staring at the headlines while the world feels like it's holding its breath.