From the day
Perspective: The Anxious Local · Sight
The gas station neon flickers over a price sign showing a steep $1.51 per gallon, and it makes my stomach knot with the feeling that everything is getting too expensive to handle. I squint through the dusk at a group of teenagers in low-rise jeans huddled near a sketchy-looking alleyway, their laughter muffled by that soulful Alicia Keys song *Fallin’* blaring from a passing car's speakers for the hundredth time today. The headlines at the corner kiosk shout about the Giants finding their edge, but I can barely focus on sports with the heavy humidity sticking to my skin like a bad omen. Between the flickering billboards and the rising costs of a simple loaf of bread, the whole city feels like it’s balanced on a razor’s edge tonight.