Driving.

It is all too appropriate that the day after I talked about how public transportation is my favorite thing in the whole wide world, I ended up driving a goddamned cargo van through the streets of San Francisco.

First of all, to anyone that actually owns a cargo van - how do you people do it? Fifteen seconds on 16th Street and I simply wanted to die. 

Second of all, the most fun thing about strange broken bones is that you don't realize what you can and can't do with them until you've actually done it. For example, with a broken collar bone, I cannot turn the steering wheel of an automobile. Of course, this isn't information that was made clear to me until I attempted to turn the steering wheel of the van I had just rented.

Thanks to the wonders of craigslist, I went from having no furniture to being the proud owner of a double bed and a coffee table. The bed cost me $140, the coffee table was free because it was literally 100 pounds and the owners really wanted someone to take it down their stairs and get it the hell out of their apartment. The thing is, as mentioned before, I don't own a car. So after considering zipcar, we just decided to suck it up and go U-Haul style. It ended up costing me $48 total, which isn't so bad.

What is so bad, however, is the fact that I haven't driven a car in a month, I have a broken collar bone, I have never driven something this big in the city, and my foray into San Francisco driving came in the form of a cargo van. CARGO VAN!

It went well enough. I took advantage of my situation and did some driving around the city to buy a few things that we need for the new apartment - two gallons of milk, tacky shower curtain, etc. The necessities. (Also: Oreos, cottage cheese, turkey, 6-pack of Anchor Summer.) I managed to hold up my side of the 100 pound coffee table with minimal wincing; The Roommate put a bed together so I didn't have to even with the PDF of Ikea instructions that was for a different model. 

My other thing to bitch about today is internet access. Everyone can feel free to hate me for this, but let's just say I spent September stealing internet. Look. It's a major city. I live in an area that's incredibly densely populated. Nothing is keeping you from protecting your wireless internet. So if you leave it unprotected, there's a chance I'm going to steal it. I am poor and was living in an apartment illegally for a month. It's really hard to keep the morals in tact. So I stole internet for a month. New apartment building is surrounded by people that are incredibly smart, so all of the routers are protected and I can't steal the services someone else is paying for. 

The midwest and the northeast have Time Warner, and while there's certainly enough reasons to complain about them, they never charged me for a single thing other than monthly service. Ever. That means no $100 "internet installation fee" (here's looking at you, comcast) or $80 modem. If only I had realized how great I had it.

So, I ended up selecting the cheapest service that AT&T has, and we'll see if it sucks. I always have the option to upgrade it if it's wicked slow, but I figure I went the past month with really awful internet service and managed to survive, so I'll probably make it through with my $20 internet at least until I have a job that actually enables me to pay a bill or two. 

Oh, right, jobs! The reason I'm out here in the first place. Yes, jobs. Freelance job finished up yesterday, and I'm hoping something more will come out of that. I have a casual coffee meeting with someone who owns a firm I'd really like to work for next week. I emailed about a freelance job that I would be absolutely perfect for today. A company in Mountain View emailed me to ask me about my salary requirements. (No interview yet, but I'm hoping when they realize how relatively cheap I think I can be bought for, they'll bring me in.) Things are beginning to look up. No call from incredibly cute bakery that I applied at a few weeks ago, which is disappointing. Win some, lose some. 

Who's watching the VP debate tomorrow, kids, and where are you going? I'm thinking about hitting 500 again, but realize that I can most likely go anywhere in the mission and they'll have it on. I've learned my lesson with 500, so if I attempt it this time, I'll be there super early.