and so it begins.

This is what it takes: a complete lack of shame, a moratorium on modesty. This is what else it takes: a microphone.

I have the microphone: a thin silver attachment for my ipod that's discreet (if a bit rough on the ear when it's played back over the radio). I've urged it toward people before, but always in the name of the Saturday Evening News. Until now, its use has been assignment-specific. I've never thrust it in the face of my friends, asked them what it means to be here, now, in far-flung cities at the blossoming age of 24/5, what it means to shift between delirious happiness and stomach-gripping anxiety in the time it takes to tunnel under the Bay.

We cling to the recent past, and move forward more slowly for it. This is what I want to discuss. Imperfectly.

And here is how I want to discuss it: with the voices of these friends, all of you who are reading this now, smiling at my flimsy effort to move forward, all of you who recognize my need to take my microphone and record your voices so that it can dissolve my fear of whatever's not-quite-ready and propel something else. Someone has to take record of the fact that we are Of Interest, if not in the grand scheme of history then at least to ourselves. Who of you doesn't feel a sense of urgency? Quick! Call me! Talk to me! Let me turn the microphone on, shrug off anything that tells me it's useless.