Traffic court.

So I had this car for two months. And y'all, it was ridiculous. I live in the mission - an outer corner of the mission, but the mission - and parking sucks. Constantly on watch for new spaces, memorizing the street cleaning days, moving that thing just for the sake of moving it. Don't get me wrong, there are awesome things about having a car - like being two and a half hours from Monterey, or going to Ikea. But seriously? Zipcar for that shit. No more cars ever again for me. But I did have one for two months.

In that two months, I managed to blow a headlight and totally forget about it since I never drove the thing. Lucky for me, San Francisco's finest were on the scene to remind me. I got a ticket. This ticket has one option: put in a new headlight, then "just have any police officer sign the ticket". Yeah, cool. What am I going to do? Speed up behind one and flash my new headlights at them and they'll totally know what that means? I don't know if YOU have tried to flag down a police officer to sign your headlight ticket lately, but they sort of have better things to do.

But it was a lease, right? And I returned the car on the 26th of February, and my "do this by this day" ticket was for the 4th of March. I told this to the officer as he was writing my ticket, and he told me I could come in with my lease paperwork and just show them that I didn't have the car anymore.

I go down to traffic court today (the day before my very last chance GIVE ME A BREAK IT HAS BEEN RAINING) and first of all, I go through the metal detector. With my bag. The surly lady that watches all of your wine openers go through the machine asks me "Do you have a wine opener in your bag?" The answer they don't want to hear is "Oh, probably." Because of course I have a wine opener in my bag. This was the bag I took to Monterey last weekend and I obviously needed a wine opener if I was going to be in a hotel, but it doesn't matter because I would probably have one anyway. So she tells me it has a knife and that I can't bring it in to traffic court. I ask her what I should do with it, and she tells me to put it in my car. I tell her I don't have a car, and she tells me, verbatim "You can try hiding it somewhere outside." Laughing out loud wasn't the response she wanted, but I legitimately thought she was joking.

Wine openers can, if done with great force, be shoved between the rails of a bicycle saddle and tucked up under there. YOU'RE WELCOME.

So I stand in line for 25 minutes and finally get to a human, who tells me he can help me out with this, then tells me it's time to pay the $25 compliance fee. California, I hate you. Compliance fee? I pay you $25 because I did what I was supposed to do? I mean, jesus. He then tells me that what he is SUPPOSED to do is schedule me a court date in June, but since my situation is "unique", he's letting me slide.

Out of pure curiosity, what do you imagine happens in that court date? I show up four months after I've gotten rid of the car to plead my case? A judge - presumably someone who paid a real ridiculous amount of money to go to law school, and presumably costs the state a shitload of money per hour - looks at the same piece of paper from Honda that I just showed the traffic clerk? Do I cry and say that I'll never do it again? Because I won't. Because I don't have a car.

The whole process was just ridiculous. It's a headlight. And look, I know, you should have headlights. Hell, I ride a bike. I want everyone behind me to have headlights. Get seven of 'em. I want to see you coming. So I get it. But, seriously, mandatory scheduled court dates for a blown headlight bulb? It's a little much. I have ideas on how we might close that budget gap I'm hearing so much about.

Happy anniversary.

My college gallery opening had a program of sorts, where all the graduates gave a short bio and quote. The end of mine was "It's been a good run - here's to the rest of it."

This time one year ago, I was zipping up my suitcases. I had to wake up early to catch my 6 a.m. flight out of Dayton, so I'm pretty sure I tried to go to bed early. I didn't take much. I assumed I'd just buy everything again when I got to San Francisco.

I didn't have a job. I didn't have an apartment. Thanks to an overlooked exit counseling session, I didn't even have my real diploma in my hand yet. The $1500 I had received three months earlier as a combination of graduation presents had long run out and I was living my life on a slowly dwindling credit card limit. I owned a house, I had a life, and now I was going across the country on a one way plane ticket in two suitcases. I don't do terrified very well, but I managed to figure it out for that day. It wasn't exciting. It wasn't exhilarating. It was awful.

So I arrived in San Francisco and I settled down to do whatever it is you do when you're 23 and you just gave your life up. I found a one month sublet for $600. It was 10x10 and couldn't hardly fit my bike and didn't have a kitchen. It had a bay window that looked onto 18th street and the sun woke me up every morning. I needed that bay window. I didn't have much to get me up in the mornings and having a natural, warm alarm clock will always be my favorite memory of San Francisco.

I broke my collar bone 18 days after moving here. It pissed me off. I had no money and no future and now I couldn't even put my own shirt on. Ten days later I scored a $700 freelance job that paid my rent for October in the new apartment that Harry and I found. It was the first money I made since graduation. I paid my rent, bought a burrito, and stored the remaining $150 away in the hopes that it would feed me for a month.

Things got better. I got another freelance contract, one that I still hold today with an incredible company that was really the first to take an interest in me out here. I took a job for a few months in Silicon Valley that just wasn't right for me and learned a few huge lessons about how I wanted my professional life to start. I returned to freelancing and have managed to make a pretty strong go at it. I've been overbooked for a month and a half and while it would be inappropriate to say that this might be things turning around, let's just say I'm hopeful.

It has been a heartbreaking year in a lot of ways. Say what you will about personal growth and learning, but none of it comes all that easy. I have not fallen in love with San Francisco the way everyone else seems to, but I'm slowly making my place here. I have a favorite bar. I have a couple of favorite restaurants. I've been car-free for over a year and have managed to do all the traveling I need to on a bicycle, something I wouldn't have ever believed was possible a year and a half ago.

I miss everybody and I miss everything. Being on the west coast when everyone you love is at least two time zones away is awful. I've become a much more internal person since moving here, and perhaps that's okay. I'm a little smarter, a little more calculated, a little more careful. But at the same time, it's the most unrestrained I've ever been. There's nothing glamorous about this life - it's a whole lot of Tecate on our roof deck, and a whole lot of $5 burritos because they can last me for two meals - but it is a life that's completely fluid and unpredictable and it's exactly what I needed to do.

San Francisco, I've been real hard on you this year. You are expensive and a little hard to get around and I'm pretty negative about you sometimes. So here's to all the Tecate on the roof deck. Here's to freezing at night because it's California and I'm too stubborn to wear a jacket somewhere that sounds like it should be warm. Here's to appreciating every single sunny day at Dolores Park, to burritos the size of my face, to street food regardless of whether it's made by 30 year residents selling bacon-wrapped hot dogs or new residents with push carts. Here's to your ridiculously beautiful neighborhoods, your ocean, your bay, your wine country.

Harry's quote was "This is it, kids, we're going to live forever. We're part of the story now." Breaking a collarbone 18 days after you throw caution to the wind and move across the country discounts your invincibility a little bit, but I think I'll hold on to it for a little while longer. It's been a good run, San Francisco. Here's to the rest of it.

Thursday love list.

I've been in a kind of negative mood this week since The Roommate has been wicked sick. Also, since it's gotten warm again, all the cyclists that were scared to get on their bikes when it was 40 degrees outside in the morning are stoked about riding, which means I have had to miss three stupid CalTrains this week because they were already full of bikes. I'm a little grumpy. 

The thing is, though? I live in San Francisco and I bought a new bike and the weather is gorgeous, so I should probably shut the fuck up. I'm really good at negativity, people, but I'm sort of sick of it. So here are the things that I have loved over the past few days:

• Dolores Park on a Sunday afternoon. I don't have a dog, but I really like watching puppies play. The Roommate's family came to visit and brought their giant mastiff along. I got to sit on a blanket and watch puppies play all afternoon, and I got to watch people react to a dog that is their size. Amazing.
• Living in the Mission. I know I've remarked on this before, but I literally don't have to leave my neighborhood. For anything. Ever. Grocery stores, bars, restaurants, bike shops. There are three bike shops visible from the bottom of my hill. Three! I don't get to ride all that much unless I'm going to work, because everything's too close to my house to justify even getting on a bike. That is incredible. (Also, no drunk driving, ever. And I don't get drunk enough to be arrested for drunk walking.)
• Cyclist unity. When you come from a town with two million people in it, and your Critical Mass has 40 cyclists in it, the unity is strong, but doesn't do much. Here? The Market/Octavia bike lane has caused a huge stir. When Caltrain is full and we can't get on, we all stand and bitch together because we get each other. Cyclists here have a shared cause, and there are enough of us to do something about it. I was bitching today about getting bumped from my train on Twitter, and a friend in Cincinnati reminded me that he'd kill to have my problem - trains and too many cyclists. It was nice to gain that perspective again.
• My Safeway has a killer wine selection. Don't get me wrong, the midwest has the occasional really great grocery store with an awesome wine selection. But I can walk across the street after I get off the train and get an incredible bottle of wine that was made less than 50 miles from my house.
• Transportation options. This week, I have ridden to 4th and King. I also needed to pick up a new bike, so on Tuesday I took the BART to Millbrae to Caltrain, and then did the same on the way back so I could stop in Daly City. 40 miles of transportation with lots of different travel options, all just using my feet.
• Local blogs. I know blogging is wicked trendy and now everybody has one, but I live in a city big enough to have its own spin-offs of the really popular ones. Eater, Curbed, -ist, Streetsblog - all with SF branches. Also, if I need to figure out where I can get brisket at two in the morning, SOMEONE out there has already asked the question and answered it in some form I can find by googling.

So, there you go. Hope you all have found things to love this week. Enjoy the sunshine! (But if you see a redhead on a tiny blue bike on the train that looks super angry, it still might be me. I'm still sick of getting booted from trains.)