Love letter to Bodegas.

In my pre-San francisco life, I was quite the cook. Dinner parties for 30+ people? Not a problem. Thanksgiving in my two-bedroom apartment? Bring it. Since moving here, well, let's just say I've been a little more... restrained. I don't have any money, I just acquired pans, and ultimately it's just me and The Roommate. So save a ridiculously overpriced chicken parmesan exploit and a whole crab episode (I live somewhere that has a CRAB SEASON!), there hasn't been a lot of cooking in my life.

Part of this is that my grocery exploits are a little different here than in the midwest. Midwest grocery shopping, oh my god, is one of my favorite things in the whole world. You drive your car (this is the one place where I will defend an automobile to the death) to a giant food warehouse where ingredients are usually fabulous quality and you stuff your cart with enough food to cook for weeks and then you get home and unpack it all and it got there IN YOUR TRUNK rather than you carrying it for miles and oh my god I might be hyperventilating.

Non-believers may have thought I was kidding about how much I love grocery shopping. Non-believers are probably wrong.

The grocery thing is the hardest one for me to get over when moving to a bigger city - or, at least, a city with no car. Now, San Francisco, let me hand it to you - here's your advantage over New York. You've still got those sprawling, ridiculous grocery stores with fantastic quality items, and god love you, you have the courtesy to sprinkle them all over the place. (I know Safeway might be boring, but I love them. I know this is probably going to cause problems between us. It's the midwest in me.) San Francisco is this funny little hybrid city. A lot of residents still own cars. It's certainly urban and populated enough that you don't NEED a car, but having one isn't impossible, like New York.

The bulk of my grocery shopping in New York happened via Fresh Direct. I could wax poetic for days, but let's just say it would be in the top five reasons for me to move back to the city. Amazing ingredients, delivered to my door when I want, FOR FREE. I have recently learned Safeway delivers, but they want to charge me $15 or something ridiculous if I don't order enough stuff. (Perusing FD's website now leads me to believe you do have to pay for delivery, but it's still way cheaper. Love. Fresh Direct.) Also, I lived on the fourth floor, and they would bring my groceries into my kitchen, because they are awesome and I am easily winded.

Delivery services are your best friends if you need a lot of groceries. It certainly makes life more convenient. My NYC train stop was also right in front of a local grocery store. It was an awful grocery store, mind you, but not the end of the world if I needed something they couldn't screw up. (No meat. No meat ever from the C-Town on 145th.)

Then there are what I consider specialty grocery stores. They have ingredients of absolutely the best quality you can imagine and they are sprinkled all over the place. Some are really specialized - cheese shops, meat markets, etc., like Lucca's. Love to Lucca's at 22nd & Valencia. An Italian market that makes fresh pasta and has fantastic sandwiches, a good cheese selection and a nice wine spread. Some are just small grocery stores that carry a sampling of amazing ingredients. This is where I give a shout-out to my baby, Bi-Rite. 

Bi-Rite, you beautiful bastard. You heartbreaker. You are my favorite place in the city and if I had $100 to drop on a meal for two people you better believe I'd do it every day inside you. Your meat is exquisite, you have fresh whole crabs, you just got in actual Jamon Iberico for $100 a pound, you have truffles, your ice cream is the most sinful thing that has ever passed my lips and it is $8 for a damn quart. This is the downfall of the specialty grocery store. You are going to spend too much money, and you are not going to know how it happened. Chicken parmesan for The Roommate and I this weekend? $42. Yes. That included an $8 pint of ice cream (Mexican chocolate with salted peanuts, I'm looking at you). But other than that it was two chicken breasts, box of panko, italian seasoning, half a pound of shredded mozzarella, pasta, jar of pre-made tomato sauce, aluminum foil. $42. I could have gone to Valencia Pizza & Pasta two blocks away and gotten twice as much food for half the price and wouldn't have had to cook it myself. But, in all fairness, it was an apology dinner since I had just been a giant jerk about my bicycle's gears slipping and I needed to be nice to The Roommate. This was my $42 penance.

This is where I introduce to you... the bodega.

San Franciscans, you probably call it something else. I don't know anyone, so we never have a chance to talk about these little bundles of joy, so I have yet to test the waters. Rest of the country, you call them convenience stores, and they're usually attached to gas stations. You will probably not get why bodegas change my life.

First of all? They are everywhere. Everywhere! Between me and the Bi-Rite, I think I pass four of them. In two blocks. There are literally two on the same block and I can see a third one from there. There is one on every block. They are slightly overpriced but they are RIGHT THERE. Mere feet from my door! You want milk? You don't want to go all the way to the grocery store because you have to do that on your bicycle and you just know it's going to blow up in your bag in the mile and a half it takes to get home? You should probably walk down the hill less than a block and get a gallon of milk. Okay, it costs $5.50 and that is obnoxious. But... it is right. there. And god bless San Francisco, your bodegas always seem to carry the most beautiful array of Pepperidge Farm cookies I've ever seen. Out of my apartment and back into my apartment with Double Chocolate Milanos, a gallon of milk and a Chronicle in less than five minutes. 

They occasionally serve food. The bodega at 19th & Guerrero (you could probably call this one a deli if you really wanted to) actually has a fantastic array of food. You can walk in and get lasagna heated up and then walk to the park and eat it. And here, god love you, they often have huge selections of wine. Decent wine, even! 

People usually have preferred locations. It entertains me when these preferred locations are not actually the closest one to their homes. In NYC, I was all about 144th & Broadway. I was 6-pack of Heineken girl there. I'm loyal to 20th & Guerrero and 21st & Mission. Some bodegas have names. Some don't. The Roommate understands what I mean when I ask if we can go to the bodega. That is all that matters. They don't need names. They are nearly identical but all of them have their little quirks. 20th & Guerrero has rogue board games hiding in the little side room. One day, I'm buying one.

This is the trade-off I accept for losing my car and my giant grocery stores. I will suck up the delivery charge and let Safeway bring me my groceries. I will strap a big messenger bag on my back and go to Foods Co. or Rainbow and buy as much as I can fit into it and ride it home awkwardly down 20th Street. I will go to Bi-Rite and spend way too much but eat like a queen. And I will sure as hell stop at my bodega every day, where the incredibly nice man talks to me about the weather every single time and never remarks that maybe I'd be less of a fatty if I could buy a gallon of milk without a bag of cookies, for once. 

The bodega does not judge you. It knows what you need. It does not judge when you're a single female walking in and picking up two six packs AND a 22 oz. of Anchor. You can walk in sweaty and disgusting after you've ridden home from work, and it doesn't even make a catty remark about how you probably just ride a bike to overcompensate for all the Milanos. (It's kind of true.) The bodega is slightly over-priced, but humble and unassuming. It is there for you in the best and worst of times. Thanks, bodega.

Burritos.

Every city has them. In Kansas City, it's barbecue. Cincinnati has its chili, New York has its pizza. Prior to moving to San Francisco, I had given the Bay area chocolate. There's a lot of really, really good chocolate here, people, from my favorite and somewhat-well-known artisan chocolate maker Scharffen Berger to the lesser known, web 2.0-ey up and coming Tcho. (Full disclaimer: I am a tester for Tcho, but the fact that they send me free chocolate doesn't make me love it any more. Okay, maybe a little more.)

And then? Well, then I moved to the mission. Home of the mission-style burrito. People. San Francisco has BURRITOS. That's their thing!

The mission-style burrito is a thing of beauty. You have had something similar to them, most likely. The chain burrito craze hit a few years back and has since blown up, largely thanks to Chipotle. (Say what you will about Chipotle, San Franciscans, but be very careful. I eat your burritos now, but Chipotle burritos defined five years of college for me.) I remember eating New York Burrito in Salt Lake City back in 1999, but that was my first experience with burritos the size of my face. They are an art form here. You can get a regular burrito, but if you're smart, you'll go with the super burrito - which has, among other things, cheese and sour cream, my favorite parts of any Mexican dining experience. They'll run you around $6 and you can probably make them last two meals, depending on where you go.

I will not make any claims as to the "best" burrito, because I have only had a couple of them, and that would not be fair. There are more taquerias in the mission than there are anything else (they rival the number of bars, I swear). Supposedly the first super burrito came from El Faro at 20th & Folsom, a location I pass almost every day but have never gone to. It's a San Francisco tradition, and I'm incredibly excited to share it with my mother two weeks from today. Incidentally, I was the first one to take her to a Chipotle, so it's only fair that I show her where they came from.

What are your favorites, locals? I'll admit, I really like Cancun's food - I know it's kind of a standard answer, but they've been good to me. I didn't mind El Toro's (17th & Valencia), and I was recently subjected to one from Chavo's, which is totally not in the mission but was still a decent lunch. 

Oh, and since I've mentioned my San Francisco biases, it's only fair that I list the other three - get your pizza from John's on 44th when you're in New York, your barbecue from Arthur Bryant's on 18th in Kansas City, and your chili from the Ludlow Ave. Skyline in Cincinnati. You're welcome. :)

P.S. I just wrapped up one big on-site job and another small personal job, which means I have nothing to do. Expect more posts this week, including the "furnish your completely bare kitchen" post I've been working on for months.

Bar roundup, and why I'm really loyal to Make Out Room.

I'm unhappy with my work situation right now, so I don't want to talk work. Let's talk drinking.

I know I've mentioned bars here before, so it's probably no secret that I'm kind of a major critic of them. Here's what you've got to understand about me: I really, really like bar games. My social life is centered around them. I throw a mediocre game of darts and play a similarly mediocre game of pool, but god help me, I could do both of those things for hours. I love cards. I love stupid little bar machines. And also? I really, really love beer.

San Francisco and I are okay as far as bars go, mostly because I live in an area of town that's littered with them on every corner. We are not okay, because I don't make very much money, and my desire to pay more than five dollars for a beer is really low. That being said, here's a roundup of my experiences so far:

Doc's Clock. I like Doc's a lot. It's on Mission between 21st & 22nd, so it's close to me. Their happy hour lasts from 6-9. Midwest happy hours - and most east coast happy hours, for that matter - exist until 7 if you're lucky. I can get cheap drinks until 9?! Thanks, Doc's. I also like Doc's because I don't like to have to wait twenty minutes to get a drink. It gets busy, but it has a tendency to get busy way later than I arrive. The Roommate and I have a tendency to arrive at happy hour time and be done by 10 or so, which is just when Doc's is hitting its stride. They've got a fantastic shuffleboard table, and an assortment of board games that are all missing a few pieces, but work well if you're willing to adapt. (Our favorites: Trivial Pursuit where all of the pieces have at least one wedge stuck in them and Connect Four missing half of the pieces.) PBR is $2 until 9p, or all night on Sundays. And after that, the PBR price only goes up to $2.50, so you don't have to be too worried. Plus, the bartenders are awesome - I had to wait a ridiculously long time the other night because the bartender was involved in a conversation and didn't see me. Two Anchor Steams for free because he felt bad. Yes to all of it. Thanks, Doc's.

Kilowatt. Oh, Kilowatt, I moved further away from you and now you feel like you are SO FAR AWAY. (Five blocks. Suck it up.) Kilowatt is the best place to play pool in the Mission IF you want to rotate in and out of tables. And if you're not completely worthless as a pool player. Free pool on Sundays. Gets wicked crowded when football is on, unfortunately, so we occasionally end up across the street at Delirium until it clears out. Beer isn't particularly cheap, but isn't the end of the world. They've got a nice selection and a killer pale ale on tap. $3.25 for most beers during happy hour, which only lasts until 7. Also, they've got two dart boards. They're awful dart boards, but they exist - and they're on a raised platform so assholes aren't constantly tripping over you while you try to shoot. Plus one for Kilowatt. Unfortunately, there are two tables up there, and when there's nowhere else to sit, people default to sitting there - making it impossible to shoot. I can't handle Kilowatt when it's busy, but I love it on Saturday afternoons.

500 Club. Love me some 500 Club. I will fully admit, however, that I've only been there when they were showing the presidential debates, so I can't say anything about the clientele. What I can say is that their happy hour lasts until 7, all drafts are $2 on Tuesday during happy hour, and the bartenders are very good at what they do. I will be investigating this deal tonight while I rock today's crossword puzzle, because I am a nerd.

Delirium. I kind of don't feel like I belong at Delirium. Ever. Still, the beer is cheap, and on Sundays, they've got free food and free pool. The free food is seriously an event - they grill about seven pieces of meat at a time and set it on a table in the middle of the bar, and you better be watching for it, because seven pieces of meat go very quickly. Like, seconds. And it'll be about 30-45 minutes until the next run of meat comes up. But it is free, so it's hard to make a major case against them. A couple of TVs if you want to watch a game and don't want to battle the Kilowatt crowd.

The Phoenix. Love/hate relationship. $5 Hoegaarden. Grumble. But they have food, and occcasionally I just want to sit at a bar, watch World Series of Poker reruns with The Roommate, and down an order of fries with mayonnaise. This is the perfect location to do that, if you hit the timing right so you're not battling way too many people that are trying way too hard. I've got a soft spot in my heart for this place, but I just can't figure out why.

Inner Mission Beer Parlor. If I wasn't so poor, I would love the hell out of this bar. It looks super divey, and hell, maybe it is. What I know is that they have a simply incredible beer selection. Absolutely my favorite in the Mission. They're also $5-7 per draft, and that's a little much for me to pay for a real night of drinking. Getting $25-30 deep with tip for a night is a little more than I'd like to pay, and I feel a little bit like an asshole ordering $3 bottles of PBR in this place. They do have two pool tables, a decent amount of seating, and the pool tables aren't as competitive as Kilowatt. I'd like this place a lot if I could feel less guilty about dropping a lot of cash on beer. As it stands, I still like it a lot - I can just only go on nights I don't particularly feel like drinking. Too bad. Good beer = I want to keep drinking it.

Elbo Room. I probably have to say that I don't like Elbo, and that's too bad, because I kind of do. Decent beer selection. But oh, god, it's so dark. SO dark. Your eyes have to adjust something fierce. I know. It's a bar. But if you've never been there, you cannot understand how damn dark the place is. I don't like bright, shiny bars, but this is ridiculous. They have pinball machines in the back. I understand they have an upstairs, but I've never been there. I like sitting at the bar for a beer or two occasionally. Also, they start to get packed pretty early, and then it's obnoxious. They also claim to have the longest happy hour in the city, 6-9p, which is a lie, because that title is held, in my experience, by my favorite of the Mission dives so far...

Make Out Room. I love this bar. I have a really ridiculous amount of reasons to love this bar. Also, please realize that my experience with this bar is mostly before 10, and does not involve shows, and those are the two things that they kind of specialize in. That may be why I have such a ridiculously high opinion of it. But allow me to paint you a word picture. In SAN FRANCISCO, they have $5 pitchers (!!!) of PBR until 10. Look, people, I know it's not great beer. But The Roommate and I can get two beers each for $5, and that is amazing. Their other drafts are cheap during happy hour too, and they have cider, which I can drink like water. They claim to have no cover charge Monday-Thursday. We turned up there on a random weeknight and they were charging a cover. When we talked nicely to the door guy and said we really just wanted a pitcher and didn't want to see the show, he let us slip in and just sit at the bar. (We weren't trying to be assholes - it was a comedy show, we paid absolutely no attention, and sat at the bar chatting instead.) I've never had a huge wait for a drink. I'm also usually there before it starts to get packed.

The most recent reason I love them? I got real, real messed up there last week, and I have a certain bartender to thank. We went to see the debates at 500 and had a couple of drinks, then ended up here a little later. (Post-sandwich.) We bought the first pitcher of beer, then made friends with a bartender who looked really bored. I asked him if he was doing okay, he said he was super tired, and I asked him to tell me about his day. After immediately insisting that I didn't really want to hear about his day, I reassured him that I actually did. We made friends quickly. Turns out he's moving soon. We told him that we both recently moved here and wanted to know what awesome things we should probably be doing. Our beer was nearly out, so he poured us another pitcher as he was talking. We're certainly not ones to refuse free beer, so we hung out for awhile longer. This incredibly nice bartender proceeded to introduce us to some friends and try to integrate us into the bar scene. A little later came the shots. 

People, I can't take shots. I just can't. But when a bartender pours three shots of tequila for him, you and your roommate, you suck it up and suck it down. And shockingly, for the first time in about four years, I managed to successfully keep a shot down. A couple drinks at 500, then two pitchers, then the tequila shot? It was all over for this girl. But I got to chat up a really great bartender all night, I became successfully reacquainted with hard liquor, and I did it for $5 because the really great bartender was buying us drinks. (We tipped him incredibly well on our way out because we were incredibly grateful for how our night turned out.)

Much, much love to Make Out Room. And much love to all of the mission bars. (Except the creepy one on Mission where we drank $4 Coronas and I got hit on by an incredibly lewd fellow who did not speak English, but spoke the international language of gross hand gestures. No love to that place again, ever.)

Mission Street Food.

I have a set of storyboards that I had wanted to get out in an hour and a half, but I literally have no ideas for them, so I've decided to procrastinate by making all of you jealous of the incredible food I got to eat last night.

Have you heard of the new Mission Street Food truck? It's honestly a really brilliant concept. The chef from Bar Tartine, a restaurant I simply cannot afford to eat at, has rented an already-established food truck. On Thursday nights, he parks it at 21st & Mission and makes three sandwiches, as well as an Asian Pear Slaw and brownies. This was the third week. It's been a wildly popular concept, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out why. $5 sandwiches! GOOD sandwiches! $3 brownies!

I'm a food nerd, so the concept is honestly amazing to me. We're taking very good food and making it accessible to a lot of people. It's incredibly experimental - we all know the stigma some people see behind food that comes from a truck - but it's backed by a solid name. This is good food that you can get in a paper tub on the street.

Chef Anthony has a blog, so we can all keep up on what's going on in his world. I convinced The Roommate to walk down with me (two blocks from the apartment!) and grab dinner with me last night. 

Let's face it: the wait is astronomical. I waited an hour for a sandwich. The signs claim they're open from 8p-2a, but I have a really difficult time imagining that to be true. We got down there around 9:20, and the whole experience probably took us about an hour. We waited in line for about 45 minutes, then waited about 15 after placing the order to get our food. The thing is, we knew that was going to happen. For whatever reason, no one seems to really care. Sip a soda, watch the crowd, smell the pork cooking - we all know the experience that we're participating in. They aren't advertising, so we all only know about it because we're blog-reading nerds. We read that there were 45 minute waits, so what did we do? Flooded them with orders and made it last even longer. 

The food is incredible. "Sandwich" is a sort of tricky term. I consider it a sandwich as much as I consider a taco to be a sandwich - because, well, I ate it like a taco. It's one piece of flatbread topped with delicious, delicious toppings. Both The Roommate and I had the cleverly-named PB&J - pork belly and jicama. The pork just melts in your mouth, the jicama provides a starchy textural contrast, and I swear to you I would drink the damned aioli that they drizzle on top of it. I could have killed two of them, and next week, there's a strong chance I'll skip lunch so I can do just that. 

Be aware, though, that they run out of food. And OF COURSE they do - you don't want to bring food you won't sell, so you have to estimate a little low, but this place is being absolutely flooded with traffic. There is no way the truck is open until 2 a.m. By the time we actually got up to the truck around 10, they were a customer or two away from running out of the handmade flatbread - but were substituting tortillas for $1 off each sandwich. They ran out of the brie for the brownies far before we got up there, assuming that most people would probably not be open to the idea of cheese on their brownies. (They compensated by giving me $1 off my brownie as well.)

Oh, and the brownie? Delicious. It just disappears in your mouth. So moist, so rich. These brownies will kill you. It's a good thing The Roommate and I decided to split one, because I couldn't have eaten it on my own. 

The hype and the wait are worth it. They do this once a week, kids. Every week they're practicing and refining. As long as you go into it expecting a learning experience, you'll enjoy it. Also, there's one of my favorite bodegas across the street, so you can go get a beer and pound it while you're in line. (Still hung over from Make Out Room the night before, we opted for sodas, but the group behind us took the 22 oz.-in-bags route. More on Make Out Room and my tequila shot later.) Do NOT go there expecting a short trip, do not get impatient, and get there early. After just two hours they were desperately running out of things and making substitutions. I don't know what the line was like when they first opened, but I wish I had gotten there early enough to get brie with the brownie. Next week, you can bet I'm going to get out of my apartment closer to 8 rather than watching The Office before I go. 

500 Club + Debate aftermath.

Note to self: Next time you go to 500 Club to watch a presidential debate, you might want to get there an hour early. Good lord.

So, 500 Club was absolutely packed by the time I got there at 5:45. I will say this - it's the type of place I think I'd like a whole lot if it didn't have so many people in it. It could use a pool table, but quite frankly, I feel that way about every bar I've ever been in.

It is an interesting experience being in a room of people just like you. I managed to get up to the bar, thankfully, because this sling is still putting a damper on my ability to hold a beer. I was standing next to a guy who was really, really unhappy to be there. He was older and really hated the fact that his bar was being infiltrated by crazy hipster liberals. I wanted to feel badly, but it turns out I didn't. When we'd get all riled up about Obama, he'd attempt to shout out some counterpoint. Didn't so much come across as intelligent debate so much as being curmudgeonly. He left fairly early, and because an incredibly kind girl wanted to be nice to the chick with her arm in a sling, I managed to snag a seat at the bar right in front of the television. Score. 

Props to 500 Club - it was a little difficult to get drinks, but the bartenders were fabulous. They ran out of Anchor Steam about halfway through, but they have a fantastic selection of other beers, so no one seemed too distraught. Me? I was throwing down $2 PBRs, partially because I'm very poor, partially because I like hipster beer, but mostly because I was a little afraid that someone was going to knock into me, and I am notorious for spilling beer all over myself if someone gets within two feet of me. I have yet to spill a bottle of beer on myself or others, but a pint glass? Watch out. Also, The Roommate couldn't get close to me at the beginning, so I needed something I could pass over people's heads to him, and a brimming glass of Racer was not going to work out.

A friend of mine in her assessment of watching the debate at a hipster bar in New York said "We're really partisan, so we don't know if Obama is winning or not." This is how I felt. Don't get me wrong - I'm making my Sarah Palin jokes ("Oh shit, they asked about Russia! If McCain mentions Palin, we're taking shots!") and pounding the bar every time Obama says something about healthcare. But really, he could have thrown the debate and we would have cheered at everything he said and booed McCain. I felt like both parties made some incredibly good points. But really, we were just happy to watch Barack Obama and ponder the idea that we might have a president we actually support in a few months. 

So, thanks, 500 Club. I'll be back, but I know how to play your game now. See you at the next debate.

Working + Debate.

So, I've been a little absent, and I apologize. 

Very, very good news: I picked up a very short freelance job that will pay my rent for the month of October, which is a pretty huge thing in my life. I have also started opening up some fairly healthy dialogue with a few companies that are looking for freelancers, so with any luck, maybe I'll never have to put on pants or leave my apartment, ever. I'm loving the work I'm doing right now, even though it's a small job and it's pretty simple. I'm doing motion graphics and getting paid for it, and that's the whole reason I moved out here. 

In addition to paying my rent, it will also be paying for my beer for at least a couple of weeks, at the rate/bars I've been drinking at. ($5 pitchers of PBR at Make Out Room? I know it makes me sound super hipster, but if The Roommate and I can get drinks for $1.25 each, I really don't give a good damn. And I feel way better about the $4 Anchor Steam we order after that pitcher.) And speaking of beer, go to a bar tonight and watch the presidential debate. 

Really, just watch the presidential debate. But I don't own a television, and I'm sure many of you are the same way. It's foreign policy tonight, kids, so let's fire up the McCain drinking game and see who at least talks like they've got the most experience.

SFist has a list of places that will be showing it. I'd like to hit the 2 Lips showing, but have little desire to get on a bus, and I'm still all slung up from this stupid collar bone thing. Instead, I'll be at 500 Club, and a recent text message confirms that The Roommate will be meeting me there. So if you're in the mission, swing by! And if you see a redhead in glasses, launching back the cheapest beer they've got and wearing a sling, there's a chance it's me, so come say hi. I still know enough people in this city that I don't need to use my second, broken hand to count them. Come make friends!

Accidental delay.

It's been a couple of days, folks, and I apologize for that. Let's go ahead and get it out of the way: I snapped my collar bone falling off of my bike. 

It is incredibly difficult to refer to myself as a cyclist sometimes. We should also get it out of the way that I've fallen off of my bike five times in the past two and a half months. 

Test ride: Ripped up left foot. Still scarred.

Rounding a corner too fast: Convinced my pedal was going to scrape and I was going to land in traffic, I chose to give in to it and slammed my bike directly into a curb, flinging myself into a pile of dirt. Still scarred on inside of left ankle from pedal scrape.

Totalled bicycle: A really, really not pretty incident involving a lot of injury. Scarred on elbow.

Meeting train tracks: Like an idiot, threw bike into BART tracks on Market St. on a Saturday night. Convinced I broke a small bone in right foot.

And then there's this one. I've considered coming up with a really cool story, but there isn't one. What I can come up with is this: I was in my highest gear and my chain slipped off. I was pedaling really, really hard. When my chain slipped, my feet flew off the pedals, and I simply lost control of the bike. I went over the handlebars, directly onto my elbow and shoulder, causing a stress fracture in my right clavicle.

If you see a red-headed girl walking around the mission (uh, let's say from 16th to 22nd between Mission & Dolores), with her arm in a white sling, probably wincing a little, possibly walking with a tall boy with brown hair and a red beard, it's probably me and The Roommate. Stop and say hello to us. I look really, really pathetic, and I promise you my hair is usually a lot cuter than this.

Special thanks: There were four people who stopped to help me, called an ambulance, and called The Roommate. If you helped out a cyclist on a little blue bicycle around 7th & Townsend on Thursday, thank you so much. I don't remember any of your names. I was really scared and in a blinding amount of pain, and you were all really great. I wish I knew who you were, but thanks for staying with me and making sure I was taken care of. I'm sure you had better things to do with your day.

Additional thanks go to the paramedics that said it was okay to curse and told me that when someone offers you morphine, you should take it. I'd also like to thank every single person I came into contact with at San Francisco General Hospital, especially the male nurse who helped me fasten my bra when I was crying and couldn't do it myself, who reassured me that he had one just like it.

I'm not going to lie: It hurts. Really, really, really hurts. It's getting a little better by the day, but "better" from "worst pain I've ever experienced, literally" is not much of a step up. I took a successful shower yesterday, and managed to BART it over Potrero Hill to go to a job interview this morning, so these are all steps in the right direction. I have learned that morphine makes me sick, vicodin doesn't affect me, and that I really like Bayer with caffeine added to it. I have also learned that Farmacia on 20th & Mission has Mexican coke for $1.29. That doesn't have anything to do with the rest of that information or my health, but it's pretty important to me. 

Plus, I'm wicked angry that I can't ride a bike. It was the one thing keeping me happy and entertained around here, and now I've lost it for 6-8 weeks. There have been much happier girls than myself in the past.

How are you doing, San Francisco? It's hot out today. Hope you're staying remotely cool. Get a Mexican coke. Totally worth it.

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.)

Grocery roundup, frustration.

Spirits are a little low around the old apartment, kids. 

No job leads are coming through. The "be here tomorrow" emails I was getting from a certain creative recruiting company when I was still living in the midwest are, somewhat as predicted, no longer rolling in since I packed my bags and moved 2500 miles. I spend eight hours a day staring at my computer, sending email after email, unable to enjoy the fact that I live in one of the greatest cities this country has to offer. 

Still? Trying to remain happy about some things. Went on a great bike ride on Saturday, as I did the Saturday before (with the exception of the wreck, which we are no longer talking about). The Roommate and I have figured out a fun little loop that goes up 16th street, cuts in a zig-zaggy way over to the Embarcadero, and ends up at Pier 39, where I pretend I need a break, but really just want to watch the seals. Then it's back down a little to Market, which we take all the way to Valencia back to our neck of the woods. Attempted hitting up The Phoenix again (despite the fact that I was there after last Saturday's bike ride, and okay, I was there on Friday too but give me a break because where the hell else can I watch the WSOP, get fries with mayonnaise and drink a Hoegaarden?), but it was overrun by some weird mission bar crawl. 

The same mission bar crawl, I might add, that made me leave Kilowatt after a girl sat half on my lap and pretended I didn't exist while I was watching the Ohio State/USC game, then when I elbowed her in an attempt to move, told me to stop being such a bitch. At 5:30 in the afternoon. When only one of us had been drinking. Seriously, I know I've only been here two weeks so I have no right to bitch yet, but please stop invading my bar. And get a smaller purse.

So today was email upon email, pleading with very good firms to give me a job. The financial situation is a little desperate, folks, I'm not going to lie. In two weeks I have to pay rent for another month, and then there's going to have to be some very serious decision-making about my future in this city. I know jobs don't just pop out at you, I know the good ones take time. That's why I'm being semi-patient. But at the end of the day, I am an unemployed girl sitting in her apartment for eight hours a day refreshing craigslist. No one likes that girl.

Today, though, I decided I had to get out of the house for an hour or so, which led me to a very small market tour of the mission. No bicycle, because I was too lazy to carry it down, but everywhere was very close to my apartment anyway, so it didn't matter. 

Number one was Bi-Rite on 18th between Guerrero and Dolores. The type of place that could easily be my only grocery store choice, ever - great food, two blocks from my apartment. Reminds me so much of the little grocery stores I loved so much in NYC. Also, though? Expensive, which is why it isn't currently my grocery store of choice. Wicked expensive. I know food is more costly here than it is in the midwest, but christ. I am not prepared to shell out that kind of cash right now. Fabulous wine selection, additionally.

Number two was the Guerrero Market on 19th & Guerrero. I went there yesterday to pick up a giant piece of lasagna (just slightly cold in the center, like my home microwave makes it!) and a Chronicle. The Roommate went with me and tried a homemade chicken empanada. We didn't discuss it, but based on how quickly he faced it, I'm fairly sure it was okay. In news of the classy, we also bought a half-gallon of milk, walked to Dolores Park (so many pugs! so cute!), and drank the whole damn thing. I have always thought I could be a major contender for the milk challenge, but I've never actually tried it.

It should be noted that the whole reason the Guerrero Market and I made friends the first time is because yelp claimed it had macaroni and cheese. Since I no longer have a kitchen, I have started to crave all the things that I make really, really well. Yesterday was mac and cheese day. Except it wasn't. Because I think they either have mac and cheese or mac and beef, depending on the day, and they have now only had mac and beef for two days in a row. It is making me sad. I need a giant bowl of real mac and cheese soon, or I'm going to lose it.

Number three was the place we refer to as yuppie food market on 21st & Valencia. I think it's called Valencia Whole Foods. I have never actually purchased anything there, despite walking through a couple of times to see if there's anything that suits my fancy. They do sell the New York Times, and they are just a few feet away from the coffee shop I like so much, so you'd think they held a higher place in my heart. I did see today that they sell one of my favorite cheeses in the whole world, but I felt weird only buying a block of cheese, so I declined. I have yet to be super impressed by them. And it's so, so expensive. The markup does not make any damn sense. 

Number four? Lucca's. Oh, god. Now, here's the problem, and here's why I walked out without buying anything. I have heard only good reviews. But I wanted to eat pasta. They are a ravioli place. It's in their name. But I don't have a stove. So I don't give a damn that their fresh ravioli has been reviewed super well, or that it could not have looked more tasty, or that the people behind the counter made me want to buy every single thing they have... no, what matters is that I can't cook anything they sell. I really wish they had more of a deli-style thing where they could throw some cooked ravioli in sauce for me or something, but that's not what they're going for. It would simply be a solution to make me happy. I would have dropped a ton of money there today if I had a kitchen.

After all the walking-in-not-buying-anything, I ended up at my favorite bodega. Thanks, Mike's at 21st & Mission. You have a huge variety of Milano cookies, you have gallons of milk that aren't overpriced, and you sell individual bags of microwave popcorn for when I decide it's movie night. You have never treated me badly and I continue to walk all the way down there when I know there are closer bodegas to my apartment. Thanks.

Being awkward.

I'm a little bit awkward. I know this about myself. I'm that sort of endearing kind of awkward, I guess, if you're into mildly awkward women. I really don't mind making fun of myself, I'm pretty funny, but I have a tendency to do really stupid shit and immediately realize it, then voice that concern, drawing even more attention to the fact that I'm a little socially inept. 

Like last night, walking down Valencia with The Roommate's co-workers, one of whom remarks "Is that the sex shop?" as we pass by Good Vibrations. "Yeah! ...Maybe." I respond, really, really quickly. It is between 17th & 18th and Valencia. I live at 18th. I walk down Valencia all the time. The Roommate and I have had a conversation about it, because the doors are always open. There is no other reason for me to... oh, fuck it. I live on the block and I know what's there. I could have just said "Yeah", and they probably would have moved on. No, self. Tack on the immediate "Maybe". That'll show them you're not really, really awkward.

So I have this job interview today. It's at a bakery. A cute, adorable bakery, the smells of which wafted through every single part of the building. It is run by a cute, adorable woman who was kind enough to bring me in for an interview for a sort of apprenticey-type of job. It's very, very part-time, but I thought it might be something good for me. It would get me out there, doing things, and it would make me a little bit of money. Plus I really, really love bakeries, I love cooking, blah blah blah. Perfect job for me if it was full time, but for now, it might be a lot of fun.

As I have only interviewed with design firms for the past four years, I really don't remember what it's like to interview for anything else. I'm prepped with various answers - why do I want to work in a bakery, for example. She tells me first thing that she's just going to ask me some really, really random questions. 

If your house was on fire, what three things would you save?

What do you like to do with your hands? (Girly story about crocheting scarves for everyone I know when I get a little down in life.)

Who's your favorite artist? (The design graduate blanked and couldn't remember a single artist's name, ever.)

My personal favorite? Calls other bakery employees over, tells me she's going to embarrass me, and asks me to tell them a joke. I'm a funny girl. I'm a story teller. I do not know jokes. Two things - and ONLY two things - come to mind while I'm staring at these women. Why was Helen Keller such a bad driver? (She was a woman.) And, the even more classed-up version, what do you tell a woman with two black eyes? (Nothing. You already told her twice.)

So these are the things that I cannot, under any circumstances, say in a job interview. I stall as long as humanly possible before channelling the biggest pun-teller I know. I rub her apron and tell her "Wow, this is really nice. Is this felt?" Clearly, it isn't, so she shakes her head. "It is now."

This story is inevitably going to become a major part of who I am as a person. She mentioned that it would be a couple of weeks before she got back to the people she interviewed. I'm, uh, keeping my fingers crossed. And probably going to research some jokes, just in case this ever happens to me again.

Pool players, Bar roundup, Yelp.

In the city I just moved from, I was a fairly decent pool player. Owned a pool cue, shot about three days a week, could occasionally manage to run a table for a few rounds. I used to be a god-awful pool player, but seriously stepped my game up over the summer and became comfortable enough with where I was, skill-wise. There, I was a pool player. Here? I'm just a confused-looking girl holding a pool cue.

Where do you people come from? I have taken a liking to Kilowatt, a bar not too terribly far from me. I'm also a darts thrower. (I cannot bring myself to ever use the word darter because it is stupid.) This is what brought me to Kilowatt in the first place. Two steel-tip dart boards. None of this wussy electronic bullshit. Kilowatt is ridiculous. Two pool tables that people rotate in and out of. The one closest to the door appears to be more competitive and certainly goes faster, but by the end of the night last night people were rotating on both. 

The Roommate is better at pool than I am, and he got his ass handed to him. I put on a fairly embarrassing showing last night. Seriously, people are GOOD. 

I'm a bar person. It's not so much a drinking thing as the fact that I really just like sitting at a bar. Also, the pool playing and dart throwing sort of means that bars are where I'm going to spend my time. So far, I've sampled a couple in the area, and luckily I have yet to run into anything I really hate. I like Kilowatt. I've done happy hour at Elbo Room, shuffleboard/happy hour/later than happy hour at Doc's Clock, shot pool at Lexington Club (which I didn't realize was a lesbian establishment until The Roommate and I had been there for entirely too long, but the drinks are cheap and the pool table was fabulous), and ate french fries at some Irish-y place on Valencia after I mutilated my foot on Saturday. Don't remember the name. Only remember getting hit on hardcore twice, drinking Hoegaarden, whining about my foot, and waiting too long to get in the bathroom with some girls that were trying too hard. Thanks, Saturday night.

Favorite tool? Yelp. And it's taken with about nine thousand grains of salt, but proves to be at least entertaining, if nothing else. Yelp, for people not in a major metropolitan area, or people who already know where the hell they should go to shoot pool, is a fabulous website where you can review restaurants, bars, stores, etc. If you live in my area of town, it's also a way to see which bars within a mile radius of you are way too hipstered out. 

Oh, wait, that's all of them.

Seriously, there has never been such mud-slinging as the hipster hatred on the internet. Good lord, San Francisco. Be polite. The thing is, after reading so many reviews, I'm starting to be able to paint actual pictures of how I think I might respond to certain places. There's a lot of hipster that I'm willing to put up with. I'd rather roll up to a bar with twenty fixies sitting outside of it than have to fight through a crowd of girls with giant purses. These are my own personal prejudices. I'm also willing to overlook just about anything if I can get in on a pool table on a Saturday night without having to constantly hit people with a cue.

Cycling around town is getting easier. Google maps claims it's 3.3 miles from here to The Roommate's office, a feat that takes me no time, is completely flat and feels fantastic. Took the slightly longer way home from there, so I got about 7 miles in today. Working on gearing higher and higher, getting stronger, etc. Since destroying my foot, I hadn't been doing much riding. Felt nice to get back out there today.

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!

Why I really like my neighborhood.

I've mentioned that I'm a New York girl, and well, that's sort of true. I was raised in a large midwest city and then transferred to another large midwest city. In the meantime, I spent a year living in New York, and most of my close friends were bright enough to go there for college, so I spent a considerable amount of time there. It's my major experience with no-car, major city living. 

I lived at 143rd St. and Broadway, a location two blocks from either the 1 or the A/C trains. For any of you that have ever casually visited New York, let me assure you - you probably never went there. You got to Columbia and you stopped. There is no reason to go to 143rd & Broadway, unless you're going to the 200's to catch The Cloisters. (You should.) My neighborhood had very little for me - but I had a 3-bedroom apartment in Manhattan for $1450 that I split with two roommates. It was gorgeous and I can't believe we ever let that lease go. But, life happens, and you lose your freakishly cheap, close-to-a-train rent. Then you're living in San Francisco and crying out for $1600 studios... I digress.

I was close to the train, and I never minded the commute. I guess because I never knew otherwise. My midwest cities were all car-based, my New York life involved a train. (And the occasional 4 a.m. taxi.) Everything was a short train ride away, and hey, I paid $74 a month for that damned MTA pass. You better believe I was using it as hard as I possibly could. 

I actually had it pretty easy with midwest life too. I always chose to stay toward the downtown core areas, so I was a 2-3 mile jaunt to everything I wanted to do, and most definitely walking distance from a few bars and restaurants that became my usual haunts. 

But here? Oh, god. Can we talk about my neighborhood? It's fallen under fire in the past couple of days, literally, due to a couple of violent incidents that I'd rather not talk about. They are tragic and awful, and they could happen anywhere, so I'm not so worried that they're happening close to me - just worried for the neighborhood in general. It would be really easy to harp on them, but The Roommate and I love this neighborhood, and so I'm just going to focus on why it's currently the best thing in my life. 

Midwest city #1 had a very large hispanic population, so I grew up with Mexican food. None of this Taco Bell/Chili's nonsense - real Mexican food. You can't throw a rock from my apartment without hitting some fabulous Mexican restaurant. (Well, I can, but I'm not very strong. I'm sure you can't.) The Roommate and I were craving donuts on Saturday, so we googled bakeries and found a donut shop a block away. (95 cent cake donut, yes, please.) We walk to fabulous Indian restaurants, I walk to the bike shop (when I got a flat... not because I make a policy to walk to bike shops), I walk to the nine thousand bars that are the proverbial stone's throw away from me. 

I haven't explored much of San Francisco because... well... I haven't had to. All the things I love and need in my life have been in this very area. That's not to say that I haven't gotten out a little bit, but I most definitely haven't found a single reason to leave my neighborhood. This is the aspect of "big city living" that I was missing in my New York days. The Roommate and I very badly need a new place to stay as of October 1st, and we're both so spoiled with our neighborhood that we're a little unwilling to look in other areas. We're happy to trade off square feet in favor of being able to go wherever we want in just a couple minutes.

The best thing about moving to cities where you literally know nothing, however, is finding all of these things. Where can I buy a New York Times? Where can I get a gallon of milk? Thankfully the internet is alive and well to help me with some major issues (the donuts), and I can piece the rest of it together by just exploring on my own. I've already got a favorite bodega. I've got a favorite donut shop. I'm like those people that order the same thing every time they go to a restaurant - I tend to fixate. 

I know I've got a lot of passers-by thanks to the Mission Mission blog reference, so speak up while you're here! What are your favorite places around here? Where should a girl who's not too-hipster (yeah, I know, who isn't?), doesn't particularly care for super crowded, over-priced bars be spending her time? I'm a pool player and a darts thrower, so those things are major bonuses. The only bars I've attached myself to so far are Kilowatt and Doc's Clock. And while we're on the topic, where the hell would a girl go around here to do actual grocery shopping?

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