New apartment, inconveniences.

So, despite earlier claims that I was going to stay in my $600/month, no-kitchened studio (in my defense, it was going up to $860 for October), I'm signing papers on a new apartment tomorrow. It comes with a year lease, which is incredibly scary. In good news, The Roommate is capable of affording it on his own in the event that I have to bail and go back to the midwest where I might actually be employable. It is an incredibly large studio apartment with a separate kitchen around 21st & Guerrero for $1150 a month, and it probably goes without saying that I can't imagine a world where I'm more excited. As my mother was kind enough to remark today, who would have guessed a month ago that I'd be so excited about just having a kitchen? Ridiculous. But that's my life for you.

The employment search is, well, continuing. Still haven't heard back from incredibly-cute-bakery woman, but I'm not expecting to hear from her until the end of next week or potentially even the week after. I've started applying to every single job I might be even remotely qualified for, as well as some jobs that I just know I won't get. Today's joy comes in the form of a high-end artisan chocolate shop setting up an interview with me. It won't pay nearly what I need to make to scrape by in this city, but it will be significantly more than the negative income I'm working off of right now.

I had kind of forgotten how inconvenient it can be to live in big cities with no car, especially when you're somewhat used to having a car. Or at least the option of a car - my last month and a half in my previous town, I wasn't really driving the car, but I had the option if I wanted it. Now I have to move. With no car. And I might be buying the furniture that is currently in my furnished apartment, so I need to figure out how to get that to the new place.

Other things that are irritating? I've got to buy all sorts of crap for the new place. I'm a cook, after all, and now I have a kitchen. Nothing but my incredible chef's knife, a microplane grater and two potholders (priorities.) made it to San Francisco with me, so things like pans are all of a sudden going to be incredibly important. As a cyclist, I can officially buy what can fit into my larger of the two messenger bags, which is still not terribly big. I might have to suck it up and go public transportation on this one. 

Grocery shopping was among the most frustrating things about living in New York, that is, until I decided to exclusively use FreshDirect. Anyone living in a city that has grocery delivery service, you're an idiot if you don't take advantage of it. Especially if there's no delivery charge, and the things you can buy are super high quality. Sure, I paid a small premium for some of it, but I was also living in a city where it was incredibly inconvenient to go grocery shopping. I was also living in an area of town with awful grocery stores. So to acquire enough groceries to last me a week - we weren't big takeout people - meant getting on the train, going somewhere else, then carrying whatever spoils I acquired back to the train, riding with them, getting off, walking home, etc. I know these things make me sound like a little bit of a whiner, but when you're buying $150 worth of groceries in a single pass, things get heavy. And I get irritable. Enter FreshDirect, the answer to all of my problems, and the city got instantly more convenient for me. 

I've been googling around and may try out Planet Organics. Not quite the same thing as my beloved previous solution, but those people haven't gotten smart enough to expand out of the NYC market yet. The Roommate is on board with just going to the grocery store and buying whatever I need for dinner that night, but I like my solution better. Having food already in the fridge is a pretty likely sign that I'm actually going to cook. By the time I get home, I probably don't want to go out again, and the chances of me actually making a decision on what I'd like to make before I leave the office (ha!) and get to my apartment are pretty low. If the food is there, I'll make it. Plain and simple. This may sound lazy, but I suspect I'm not the only one like that.

Oh, related news? I'll be even closer to the ravioli place, and now I'll have a kitchen. Mmmm.

A week and a half in this apartment, and I'll be out. I'm already thinking about what I'm going to cook first. (Hint: it's probably ravioli.)

Apartment search may be over.

So, I've mentioned that I'm subletting illegally, yes? 

I currently sublet from a fabulous woman whose name is not important. She is not allowed to sublet. She was maintaining her $860/month apartment in case she wanted to move back to the area, but she's currently living in one of those outer cities of the San Francisco metro that I can't name and probably can't point out on a map. She is subletting it to me for $600 a month, provided I don't have mail sent here so she doesn't get evicted.

I had yet to meet her, but she had a job interview in the neighborhood today and decided to stop by. Upon discussing everyone's situations, we've decided that I'm going to keep my tiny apartment with no kitchen, and The Roommate will move in here when his lease is up at the end of the month. So now my 150 square feet of heaven will house two people. 

We moved here with what fits into two suitcases. I think we'll be able to make it work. We have yet to exhibit any behavior that makes me believe we're going to kill each other. And you know what really, seriously sweetens the deal? $430/month rent in the mission.

Stay tuned for stories about us killing one another, or all the stories that are inevitably going to come up when I meet the landlord and officially try to get it transferred into my name. I've told her that I have no job but fabulous credit, two very true statements, and she thinks it won't be a problem. I've told her that two people will be occupying the space that's clearly meant for single occupancy only, and she claims it isn't an issue as long as we don't have a cat. If everyone could send me some rental-based karma over the next couple of days, I'd certainly appreciate it.

Other points of winning: I'm going to buy her furniture off her for super cheap, so I don't have to worry about moving Ikea mattresses up the stairs, and she doesn't have to move the table/futon/other table out. Oh, and I found a place in my neighborhood to buy pillows, so I can officially stop sleeping on my arm. Success on all fronts!

My apartment.

Note: I had been debating for a couple of days where to host the new blog, as I love my personal blog hosting site but it doesn't allow anonymous comments. I do have the time to write this much every day, but what you're seeing right now is the backups I didn't have any place for.

As a personal choice that's based on a lot of factors, I don't plan to ever have children. My friends are of the age where they're starting to have kids, though, which means I'm going to be the faux-aunt with all kinds of stupid stories. The one I'm currently crafting is of my first apartment in San Francisco.

Also, I'm a New Yorker at heart, which means I'm obsessed with talking about real estate.  And I don't have a job, which means I have twenty-four uninterrupted hours a day where I can jump on craigslist and see every single place in the city that I can't afford.

Searching for apartments in large cities develops unique characteristics in people. My favorite is an ability to see through the bullshit. This unique characteristic only actually works once you've been in the city and you've seen a couple of apartments so you can compare what you've seen to what the listing said. A listing for my apartment, for example, would use words like "cozy" or "charming". It will talk up the location. And the bay window. And sure, all of those things are accurate, but can we be honest?

I live in a room. A room that is smaller than my former kitchen and manages to encompass a bathroom, a closet, a "kitchen" (upper and lower cabinets in an alcove, sink, no stove, mini-fridge with television sitting on top of it that I intend to never turn on), a futon and a two-person dining table.

The things that will make my mother cringe (oh, for reference, she might get to be The Mother when we get into her slightly passive-aggressive support of the decisions her completely out-of-control daughter tends to make) are the reasons she will never live in a super large city. In 2002, we lived in a fairly large midwestern city. We had a two bedroom apartment that, well, did the job. We needed a place to live and it fit the bill. The living room was large enough for a couch, a loveseat and a recliner. It had a dining room, it had a spacious enough kitchen, it had two bedrooms and two bathrooms. 

It was $545 a month.

So it is much to her dismay, I could imagine, that I currently am paying $600 for a studio where I cannot make food. (I have been previously employed as a food writer and I just left a fully-stocked, beautiful kitchen to move someplace with a mini-fridge. The mission has takeout.) Me? I'm elated. Go to craigslist and look up apartments in the mission for $600. Let me know what you come up with. (Then, please forward the links to me.)

The shower is sort of non-functional. I've painted all sorts of colorful pictures of it for my friends recently, so I'll spare them here. They involved tying dogs to the wall and punching them in the kidneys and oh, it's just a story for young audiences. I chopped all my hair off before moving here, and it's a good thing, because I would have been standing there for twenty minutes attempting to wash the shampoo out of it. But it gets me somewhat clean as long as I take the time investment, and I appreciate that. Especially because I ride a bike, and can we talk about the heat wave that's currently enveloping this area? Gross.

The thing is, though, much like my first college apartment - consequently ALSO up four flights of stairs, except I wasn't carrying a 25+ pound bicycle then) - this apartment is mine, and I will wax poetic about it for years to come. I hate my shower, I want to make pasta, I can barely get a gallon of milk in my mini-fridge - None of these things are important. I have a bed to sleep in and what is, legitimately, a beautiful bay window to look out all day while I troll the internet for jobs on my stolen internet connection. There is enough room for me, a bicycle, and occasionally The Roommate if he drops by after a day at work. I can't quite figure out if I'd be able to make this arrangement work permanently - and also, the rent goes up to $950 in October - but it's a start. I'm luckier than most people.

Apartment searching.

San Francisco residents, is there anything worse than finding an apartment? Seriously?

Step one, let's introduce a new character. We'll refer to him as The Roommate. The Roommate is a very good friend who went to college with me. He did San Francisco the smart way: found a job, then found an apartment, THEN moved here. The Roommate is brilliant to a really ridiculous degree, and not just because he figured out how normal people relocate. I'm sure we'll speak more of him later. (Note: he may or may not actually be a roommate, considering all the things I will talk about shortly, but there's a very strong chance he will be, and he might as well be considering he is my solitary connection to the city at this point.

I needed something else to stress me out, so less than 48 hours before I was moving to the city, The Roommate called and said that his landlord had kicked him out. We're not sure why. Landlord has recently been acting a little weird - doesn't want his bike in his room, freaks out when he accidentally clogs the sink, etc. Today, the other shoe drops, and he has to move out. 

Well, this is tricky. See, I was staying in The Roommate's... well... room. For a couple of days. Until I find that magical apartment/sublet/who the hell knows where people stay in San Francisco. And I guess that's still okay? Maybe? Why don't we just spent 48 hours flipping our shit about it instead of thinking logically about the solution?

The apartment search also involves The Monkey. The Monkey likes to climb on things. (So does The Roommate, for the record.) The Monkey has also decided it's time for a change, so we made the decision to move to San Francisco together. Sort of. I'm coming out first to secure an apartment and then we'll live together and it'll be great. And we'll pass that rental application with no jobs and no bank statements that reflect any money.

Oh, have I mentioned that I'm financing this entire journey via credit? Before anyone starts in on how bad of an idea that is: I worked in pre-foreclosure for a year. I spent ten hours a day listening to people tell me they could feed their kids or make their three-months-past-due mortgage payment, so why don't I choose for them? It made me more money than I had ever seen at the time, so I suffered through it and just came home and cried for a year. Got me through a year of college. So I know the dangers of racking up credit. I'm just going to ignore them for a month or two.

So, we start searching for apartments. Me, The Roommate, and The Monkey. The Roommate has a job that doesn't pay enough for him to secure a two bedroom apartment in the city by himself. The Monkey has no job and next to no credit history. Me? I've got fabulous credit but a really ridiculous amount of debt. And no job. Hmm.

I arrive in the city and stay with The Roommate, and life seems to be okay for day one. Day two, Roommate's landlord corners me on the stairs and we introduce ourselves to one another. She has a friend who has an apartment that I can sublet for September. I start to launch into a conversation about how that's not really ideal for me, and then it occurs to me that I'm probably a step or two away from getting myself kicked out of this apartment. Turns out I'm the reason The Roommate is getting kicked out - it wasn't quite effectively communicated that I wasn't moving in permanently. Oops. 

This begins the two day apartment search from hell. I've been off the plane for two hours and we're seeing the most beautiful studio apartment ever. $1575 in the mission. Beautiful rooftop access. Enough space for me and The Roommate, who also moved with what he could fit in two suitcases. A little pricey, though. We decide to think about it and see what else we can find. Roommate goes to see apartment way out in Inner Sunset, ends up being way too small. 

The next day, I introduce myself to the Tenderloin. This is an area of town that I will only discuss objectively, as I have absolutely no biases about neighborhoods. This is also an area of town that everyone told me to avoid at all costs.

Look, people, honestly? I don't get afraid of neighborhoods. I've lived in bad neighborhoods. I'm more scared of bad neighborhoods in the midwest than I am on either of the coasts. I lived in Spanish Harlem for a year. (One of my former roommates has a story about his grandparents getting off the train at our stop and seeing two kids exchanging a gun. I have no such personal stories.) I'm not afraid of sketchy neighborhoods.

So, I go. I see a beautiful $1200 studio that I love. I call The Roommate and tell him to get to this open house right now because we're taking the apartment. He's still at work. Tells me to walk the neighborhood and look for our new bar. (We're pool sharks and dart players. And drinkers, if the amount of time we spent in pool/dart establishments is any indication of our character.) I leave the building, and in the span of 3 minutes, I have watched a man take a shit in the street, watched another man punch a man in a wheelchair in the leg, encouraging all his friends to step up and start a fight, and I am referred to twice as "Big Tits", just in case it wasn't clear what my new moniker was the first time.

This breaks my spirit, not because I have the capacity to fear neighborhoods, but because there are certain things I know about myself. I know I can't live here. In theory, I'm going to end up with a design job that pays me more than people my age should probably make. I'm in it for the cheap rent in the as-yet-ungentrified neighborhood. I will walk by people every day that literally have no other options in their lives but being crazy and fatigued and hungry, and I will go to my yuppie job, and that will make me an asshole.

No Tenderloin.

So then I go see the apartment recommended to me by The Roommate's landlord. Spirit is broken and I really hate my life. I have $500 in my pocket that the US Bank I managed to locate on Van Ness was kind enough to dispense to me. (Credit!) The apartment is on the third floor of a building around 18th & Valencia, right in the neighborhood I want to live in. The current tenant is not allowed to sublet. I can sublet it for $600 for the month of September. It does not have a stove. 

I do not care.

We try to rent $1575 studio. Voicemail says it's been rented. I borrow $100 from The Roommate until I can get to an ATM again, combine it with all the cash currently in my pocket, and I am immediately handed the keys. 

So now I've got 26 days to find a real apartment, or we're all going to be homeless. The Monkey arrives around the 15th. As of today, we may have a fourth roommate. (I don't have a name for her yet. We might call her The Cutie, because she rides a bicycle and has fantastic hair, and her facebook photos confirm that she looks good in a pencil skirt.) 

Dear San Francisco,

If you have an apartment that's three bedrooms and under $3000, preferably in the mission, with bike storage, that you'd like to rent to four recent college graduates with no money and a current combined income of under $50K/year, based solely on the fact that we're trying really really really hard to get jobs, I would appreciate you giving me a call.

Sincerely,

New Bay Resident