Essays

It's the most honest time of the day to go for a walk in San Francisco — and... like, just be with yourself. Turning the corner of Castro Street, I pass the Mollie Stone's Markets location on 18th Street where we make out underneath harsh overhead lighting. His lips are smacked with mango chapstick; it was his coy way of concealing the American Spirits he smoked outside The Edge. The lustful combination of organic tobacco and synthetic fruit sent electricity through my fingertips — the same ones that clutched his soft mullet before typing my contact information into his iPhone. The moon is now positioned high in the sky, opaque through yet another thick marine layer enveloping San Francisco. The city is cool, crisp, echoed with the humdrum of passersby with hands holstered inside coat ...

New perspectives of the seven-by-seven float thousands of feet above the Golden Gate Bridge. There’s something pristinely captivating about viewing San Francisco from an airplane window. The vastness of a 49-square-mile city — one populated with over 150 public parks and some 880,000 residents — condenses into the frame of a double-sided viewing hole. It also puts your own physicality into focus, a feeling akin to seeing pictures of the cosmos. You’re both everything and nothing, stardust and garden soil, all in the exact same moment. Humbling doesn’t even begin to describe such a feeling; maybe perspective-focusing is better. In the context of San Francisco living, I always come to understand my place in this maddening, wonderous metropolis looking, quite literally, down ...

The culmination of experiences — to meet a moment of opportunity For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a storyteller — wordsmith, writer, scribbler of thoughts onto the page. I filled notebooks with nonsensical jargon at five years old. While my vertical height grew unfortunately slow, my pen grew mightier. Stronger. Steadier. Far quicker and more intentional. By the time I had left third grade, I knew I wanted to, somehow, create a life that had its axiom around the written word. However, there was no present blueprint in my immediate family to build that lifestyle from. My neurodivergence (read: severe dyslexia) didn’t help, either. Time and maturation and work ethic, thankfully, can serve as a trifecta to complete objectives that seem too far out of reach, so long as you heed th...

‘Be *that parrot*’ Hey Babes, It’s the end of the day, and I’m brewing oolong tea, trying to come down from it all. I think you know what I’m talking about, but just to make sure: What I mean by “it all” is the nagging obstacles, tasks, and bouts of insecurity that come with our new jobs. You thought it would be something great — a welcomed career shift. A change of pace. A new landscape, blossoming with fresh opportunities and perspectives. The pay was also *chef’s kiss.*  Remember how incredibly drunk we got after you accepted the offer letter? (It was the only reason we were able to polish off those hellacious PR bottles of red vino from Snoop Dogg's new wine label.)  There was so much joy that flooded that moment. A lot of that has evaporated away as of late. Promises f...