Learning.

Despite living here for nine months as of today, there's still a lot of room to learn things about this city.

Such as, and I am not kidding you, I did not know Muni trains ran underground. There is a good reason for this, I suppose - I ride a bike, and I rarely take public transportation since the collar bone healed up many months ago. I take the BART if I have to meet someone at the airport. That's about it. Also, you can't take bikes on the Muni trains, which is the only other reason I ever consider public transportation - aiding me and the bike in getting somewhere difficult.

But this weekend, I was going to meet a friend who lives in the Sunset, in the part of the Sunset that isn't easy for me to get to. Possible, sure, but we were going to have a few drinks at her house and I really didn't feel like planning to do all that 1 a.m. riding in a neighborhood I'm unfamiliar with was a good idea. Lucky for me, the L runs right down Taraval, a block or two off of her street. So, sure enough, I walk up to Market & Church (a much more pleasant walk than I had imagined; riding a bike has completely distorted my sense of distance and time between places), and I look for the L... which I think should run above ground, because that's where I see the J run, and therefore that's where trains run.

That's not where trains run.

Enter me, looking like an idiot, finally figuring out where I needed to go. Nine months of living here, with a stop one mile from my house, I had no idea that Muni ran underground. I guess there's still time to learn new things.

Other things I've learned recently - my constant whining about wanting more diners (read as: places to give me toast and eggs) close by has been answered by deciding to walk to the Castro. We were seeing Up on Sunday afternoon, and I'll be damned if there weren't three diners on the same block. Toast, eggs, ham, potatoes. These are the things I want on my Sunday, every Sunday. A walk past Dolores Park, up 18th, to have breakfast and catch a matinee at a really beautiful theater.

And, an unrelated note - Left Coast Barbecue, a new traveling food truck very near and dear to my barbecue-covered heart, is now at Shotwell's every Monday night from 6-8, serving up sandwiches that will make you think about them for days to come. Stop by and support the guys - they make a very good product and they're very excited to share it with people.

The "give up your seat" controversy.

The west coast is generally thought of as being nicer than the east coast. I've had the benefit of living on both coasts, as well as major stints of time living in the middle. What entertains me the most about these stereotypes is what "nice" and "mean" are defined as in each city.

I got indirectly ripped on in a missionmission shoutout about a week after moving here, about how assholes move from the east coast and then don't understand what life is about. 

maybe because all the bad attitudes come from points east. i love this thing about carpetbaggers wishin frisco was more like the crappy places they come from. we californians try to take it slow & easy but there’s always some new-be not gettin w/ the program. we have become LA. sorry for the rant but were on edge down here in the flats.

And, I mean... fair enough. Feel how you want to feel. This dude portrayed "mean" as me yelling some equivalent of "If you hit me with your fucking door, so help me God" at a guy who... well... almost hit me with his fucking door. This, of course, is sort of a panic instinct for me. Being able to throw that many words out was somewhat shocking, as I usually have the time to scream "Seriously?!" in the hopes that they realize it was directed at them, by which point I am half a block away. So, if that's mean, I'm mean. I'm also from a crappy place, I guess. And I don't really wish San Francisco was more like where I came from. If I liked where I came from, I probably would have stayed there. Ah, but I digress.

The definition of mean and hateful is subjective. "Fuck you" really, honestly isn't that offensive in New York. It is a way of showing displeasure. They are words that are forgotten as soon as the two involved parties - the fuckee and the fucked - have gone their separate ways. They are forgotten, because they are just words. Certainly I wouldn't throw out a "fuck you" at my grandmother if she bumped into me on the subway, and I would feel badly if I threw one out after someone stepped on my heel and I turned around to learn that they were seven years old. But I believe that we get to a certain point as adults where maybe words aren't so illegal. I'm just saying I would much rather someone tell me to get fucked than tell me my bike is ugly. (Sometimes, words do hurt.)

A post from BART Musings that I  just came across brings up something that I find to be really awful: not giving up a seat to people who might need it on public transportation. This is where New York owns you, rest of the country. If you are sitting and remotely do not look like you need that seat, and someone comes along that really does need it, watch your ass. The ragamuffin teenager who spent approximately thirty-four subway stops talking about "that ho" will spring to action when someone with a cane rolls deep onto the 1 train. It is a beautiful phenomenon. Someone will give up a seat, somewhere, for you.

MUNI riders kind of don't do this. Of course, I am speaking from somewhat limited experience, I guess. I'm not a daily MUNI commuter. I was riding it regularly when I broke my collarbone and couldn't hold myself up on a bike for awhile. I ride it when I'm with people that aren't cyclists. There are other special occasions, like today when I bought a new bike for The Roommate and learned I cannot ride one and roll the other along with me like that super hot cyclist girl from a few months back on Van Ness. But I do know that I have seen a lot of sort of shameful behavior when elderly or disabled people get on the bus and there are no seats.

What I find funny about this is that maybe this behavior really isn't a San Francisco thing. One of the comments on the aforementioned post says something about being afraid they'll offend someone. I've gotten this sort of reaction - I'm a seat giver. I feel so crazy guilty sitting down on public transportation that I pretty regularly stand when it looks even remotely crowded, even if there are still seats I could squeeze into. I've offered my seat to people and had them look completely shocked. I don't mean to offend someone. I'm really trying to help. 

I got pretty irritated with this during the collarbone incident. I had the sling on. There was a day in particular where I was carrying a few huge bags. There were no seats and I was in a lot of pain. But I'm also very young, and I look healthy aside from that sling thing. I don't like being the one to select who doesn't deserve a seat that day, so I felt really weird asking. It would have been nice to have someone offer. I would have been grateful. No dice - from 4th street to 20th on the 12, not a single offer. 

The "to give or not to give" controversy is interesting to me, and people talk about it pretty much anywhere with an active public transportation system. I think the dynamic is very different. Here, I see so few people actually offering seats that I can see how someone might get offended. In New York, it is customary. You are sixteen years old and I am eighty holding this walker. Give me your seat.

Yes, we all pay the same $1.50, yes, we all have equal rights to that seat. But really, it's just kind. I would destroy someone if my grandmother got on a bus with me and no one offered her somewhere to sit. It's nice. She is old and tired and hopefully gave up seats in her day. Let the poor woman sit for sixteen blocks, for God's sake. I was still giving up seats even with the broken bone. I still felt like people needed to sit down, and it was clear that no one else stepped up.

So what's up, San Francisco? Am I totally clueless? Is offering someone a seat actually a dick move and I don't know it? Are there really nice bus lines where everyone just stands in the event that someone with a cane shows up, and I just haven't taken any of them? Tell me how it really is so I can judge fairly.

Milk.

I saw Milk at the Castro on Saturday night. If you live in San Francisco and have yet to do this, you should probably get on it.

For anyone who's not following movies, doesn't live in a major city that's playing it, or has managed to stay under a rock when it comes to cinema, Milk is the true story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay public official in San Francisco. He was killed in 1978 by another supervisor, in an act that stunned the city and will forever tarnish San Francisco's history. (I would have given you a spoiler alert, but that's sort of like when people reminded you that the ship sunk in that big boat movie a few years back. You should know how this story ends.) 

The film couldn't have come out at a more poignant time. One of the biggest moments in the movie is when Prop. 6, an initiative to keep gay and lesbian teachers (and anyone that supports them) from working in the public schools, failed. It was around this point that I started uncontrollably sobbing. I'm not a crier. It's not really my thing. But seeing all these people getting to dance in the street for gay rights only made me think, "That should have been me." And once that thought hits you, you can't let go of it. And if you're me, it'll mean you continue crying until the lights come up in the theater.

The movie is stunning. Truly. I know what Sean Penn looks like and might be able to do a quick illustration of him off the top of my head. But he becomes this character. He is funny, he's a little awkward, and he makes you fall in love with him. His supporting cast is absolutely fantastic. They capture the spirit of the 1970s in San Francisco: over the top, but with a mission, because they're more than a little scared. This is not the flamboyant, out-and-proud Castro district of 2008. This is people coming together because they need each other's help.

If you live in San Francisco, please do not go see the movie at any other theater. Please have the experience of seeing it across the street from where this movie actually happened. There is no greater landmark for the neighborhood than the giant neon "CASTRO" sign outside of the theater, and we are exposed to grainy 1970s footage of it over and over in the film. You are sitting in the building you are seeing on the screen. People laughed and cheered, everyone got the little jokes and the ironic parallels to our current time, people cried together. Gus Van Sant manages to take one of the most tragic events of San Francisco's history and turn it into a beautiful celebration of life and a reminder of where we came from. 

If Prop. 8 would have lost, we could have all left, gone out and had a drink, and congratulated ourselves for continuing his legacy. But it passed. I wish the movie had come out before the election - not that I necessarily think THAT would have turned the tables, but still. I think everyone got complacent. I kept my voter registration in Ohio (to my defense, by the time I had to register in California, I didn't know if I was permanently relocating here or not), mostly because I thought they needed my Obama vote more. This state is full of transplants like me. I think we all just assumed that Prop. 8 would fail because, come on, it's California. Of COURSE we're not going to pass this crazy proposition.

If you have the opportunity, go see Milk. I've already admitted how much I cried, which means you don't have to feel badly if you do. Promise.

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.

Destinations?

I am a shitty San Francisco resident, people.

You see, here was the point of starting this blog - show people my experiences living in a new place. I really love hearing people not from New York talk about New York. It makes me see certain things in a new way and get all nostalgic about when I found those things to be weird too. (In Cincinnati, when someone doesn't hear what you just said, they'll often say "Please?" instead of "Could you repeat that?". I say "Come again?" and people there look at me like I'm crazy.)

It was also going to be an excuse. A beautiful excuse to get out and explore the city and do all sorts of... whatever. You've heard this before.

And I have done none of it. I moved to the mission, like an idiot, and I have no excuse to leave my neighborhood, ever. I break a collar bone and can't ride a bike. I decide to freelance instead of getting a real job so I never leave my house. I get an on-site job and it's at 3rd & Folsom, a 15 minute bike ride from my house and a commute that involves not one single degree of difficulty.

Now? Now, I have lived here for over two months, and my mother and best friend are coming to visit me for Thanksgiving. They have never been to San Francisco before and it is my job to make their week worthwhile.

They are exactly like me - pool, dive bars, burritos. Yes. All of it. So I'm not worried about what to do around my apartment. I know those answers. What I don't know is where else to take them. We have no desire for the overly-touristy, though going to see the bridge might be nice. But where are all those beautiful hilltops that everyone takes the touristy pictures at? I don't even know how to be a tourist in my own city. I have failed myself, and I'm about to fail them.

Nothing expensive, nothing that involves a wait line. (Ice cream from Bi-Rite excluded.) When Mom came to visit me in NYC, there was no Empire State Building. Violates both rules, so it was out. Both of them claim that they couldn't care less about sight-seeing, but the fact remains that they are in this amazing city for the first time and I'd like to give them a couple of experiences to write home about. 

The Roommate recommends Sutro Baths, and I agree. I recommend seeing the bridge from somewhere high up and pretty and accessible by MUNI. They will eat burritos and do dive bars in my neighborhood. There's probably going to be a Market St. shopping trip, but we have no money and I'm not sure what there really is that's super unique to this great town of ours. 

Help me not look like an asshole, guys. What am I missing out on? (Probably taking them to Boudin, and somewhere with chocolate. Side note.)

Oh, and P.S., you crazy liberals, thanks for Tuesday. I sincerely hope it was as good for all of you as it was for me.

Vote.

I am so busy I don't have time to breathe, thanks to an on-site freelance position that I really enjoy. We'll speak more of that later. Right now, though, here's what's important.

Today, commuting to work on my bicycle, someone pulled up to me in the bike lane and asked if I knew where a bank was. I didn't. But it opened a line of communication between myself and another person. We talked the rest of the way to work. He gave me advice on my bike, I told him about my broken collar bone. We didn't exchange names. There were lots of people parked in the bike lane today, so we called back and forth to one another to let the other person know it was safe to go around. I made a human connection today as I flew in and out of traffic. This is what riding a bike affords me: there is a sense of community, a sense of belonging. I am a part of something.

This story could not have happened to me at a better time. I am 23 years old and have participated in two presidential elections. I left my grandmother's funeral early in 2004 so I could fly back to Ohio and vote. My candidate was already chosen, and I wanted him to win, but I was in the "lesser of two evils" crowd that you hear so much about come voting time. I didn't feel like I belonged to a movement. I was simply making a choice. I voted for Kerry, who ultimately lost. It would be easy to say my vote didn't count, but it would also be painful and pointless. It would imply that I regret voting; that it didn't matter.

But this time? This time, I am in it. I have invested for over a year in my candidate, from the steps where he gave his first speech declaring his intention to run, to the convention where he accepted the nomination to be this year's candidate. I was the first on my street with a yard sign. I attended every function I could. I participated. I became a part of something bigger. I didn't let the fact that my vote "didn't matter" in 2004 deter me from committing to this as hard as possible.

I cannot say this enough: Your vote matters. I very strongly believe in my candidate and my political views, but this is not the day for me to push them on you. I hope your mind is already made up. I hope you believe as strongly in your candidate as I do in mine, no matter who you're voting for. You can debate all day whether or not your vote matters, you can spout facts about the electoral college, but this is the one thing you can do.

This is your vote. Belong to something.

(Oh, side note, if you would like me to push my views on you - YES on Prop 1A, a really gigantic FUCK NO on Prop 8, and YES to Obama/Biden '08. But honestly, just get out there.)

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.)

San Francisco microcosm

To say I love living in San Francisco feels a little strange. I really, really like being in San Francisco. Living here has been an experience. I'm not sure if we can say I love it yet. I don't know many people here, and I really miss my house. I have an apartment that is twice as much as my mortgage for a third of the space. My job prospects are still few and far between. The broken bone factor sort of put a damper on a lot of things. What I can say is that I think someday, I'm really going to love living here. That magical day when the money starts rolling in enough that I'm not actually afraid of how to pay my rent for the next month and I get some of my stuff out here from home, I'll be much happier. There's nothing I dislike so far, there are just things I miss. Like being employed. And having something in my kitchen other than two bowls and a skillet. (And ants.)

Here's what concerns me. I'm concerned that San Francisco is destroying me, and I will never be able to live anywhere else as long as I live. I was talking to a friend the other day, and somehow weather came up. I have literally forgotten it is autumn. The weather has not changed since I got here. It's occasionally a little chilly in the morning or the evening, I suppose. I have no concept of what the rest of the country is going through. I have yet to see rain. I grew up with snow. I have lived through snow in October. If the day ever comes that I actually bitch about weather here, someone should probably remind me that I'm an idiot.

So I'm afraid I'm going to simply lose time. October means something to me in the midwest, but it does not mean a damn thing here. I am still wearing shorts. I can ride a bike year-round. I am petrified that it is going to suddenly become March and I'm not going to know where the past six months of my life went. I am petrified that I am going to turn 30 and not have any idea how I got there. (Note: The jump from six months to turning 30 is a much larger one than I would usually lead you to believe.)

I'm also a little afraid that I'm going to forget how the rest of the country works. Can I ever move back to a conservative town after living here? I will have the experience of observing the presidential election from one of the most liberal towns in America. (Note: I would have said THE most liberal town in America, but a newspaper here recently endorsed McCain/Palin, and I know it's a worthless newspaper, but the point is that A NEWSPAPER IN SAN FRANCISCO ENDORSED JOHN MCCAIN. Ahem.) I come from a somewhat conservative town, followed by an incredibly conservative town. Somehow, one month in San Francisco is managing to make me forget 23 years of living everywhere else. The options of where I'm able to live next are dwindling rapidly.

The San Francisco microcosm is a funny one, and I'm only mentioning this now so that when I forget that a little later, I can look back and see that I actually wrote these words, and there was a time when I acknowledged that the world I'm living in is a little strange. Don't take that as a complaint, by any means - I moved here for a reason, and it's just been a slightly different adjustment than I had anticipated.

Today marks five weeks that I've been here. I'm pretty confident that's the reason my "time slipping away from me" post here came about. The job front is looking up a little. I've decided to be a full-time freelancer rather than getting a "real" job, something I'm pretty excited about. My only concern is my ability to keep the work coming in, but it's going solidly enough so far. I've got a client right now that seems like he's going to be a fairly repeat customer. There are a couple of communication issues, and I hope we're able to resolve those to develop a good working relationship. I wanted very badly to freelance full-time a few months ago, but it didn't quite work out. Now, the work is starting to come in, and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed every day that I can keep enough balls in the air to make this a successful enterprise.

So, thanks for five good weeks, San Francisco, even though you're making me broke and destroyed my collar bone. Here's to the future.

Driving.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

Cycling woes.

The second thing I spent money on in San Francisco was a bicycle. (The first thing, if anyone's curious, was the $7.80 required to get out to Oakland and pick up the bicycle.) It was easier and smarter to get a bike here rather than getting mine out here. I owned a late 70's Raleigh that I had recently totaled, but was working on rebuilding - let's just say I have a history of not being particularly coordinated, and when you combine that with my history of doing really, really stupid things... you probably get the picture.

Living here is shaping me into a better cyclist very, very quickly. I'm from a city with a lot of hills, but it's a very different experience riding there. It isn't a bike-friendly town by any means. It's pretty awful. Here? There are bike lanes! Cars are used to the idea that there might be cyclists around! No one has honked at me! It's been absolutely fantastic. I've read the stories, I know there's a lot of controversy and the city should be doing a little better - but from someone who may have lived in the most unfriendly city to cyclists ever, I'm pretty pleased with how my life is turning out so far. 

Saturday night, The Roommate and I decided that we didn't really want to do the bar thing. We're also not huge "let's try too hard" people, and it was a Saturday night. We decided the weather was too beautiful to ignore, and it was bike riding time. We left the mission and rode toward downtown, where eventually we ended at the Giants stadium to sit by the bay and watch the scoreboard change for the last two innings. (They had the common courtesy to win after we had ridden all the way down there.) Then we rode down the Embarcadero until I decided it was tourist time, otherwise known as time to go to Pier 39 and watch some sea lions. In true touristy fashion, I called my mother at pushing midnight her time so she could listen to them via cell phone. Left there and went to catch Market and go back to our area of town. 

Just as we're crossing over a set of train tracks, he asks me if I know how to deal with train tracks. I tell him no, as I've only crossed them, not ridden parallel to them. He warns me of the dangers of getting stuck in the tracks because you can't get back out. I note this, then promptly get on Market St. and throw my bike into the tracks 20 seconds later. Crash, bang, get foot stuck in the back spokes.

I'd like to note, however, that instead of taking The Roommate's advice and taking the BART home, I continued to ride. I rode all the way down Market to Valencia, and took Valencia straight to a bar, where I proceeded to drink a Hoegaarden and watch the 2008 WSOP on ESPN and give continued updates on the status of my foot. 

I've had my first San Francisco fall. When I crashed my old Raleigh for the first time, The Roommate assured me that I had gotten all the fall out of it - older bikes like that only come with so much fall in them, you see. I proceeded to wreck it two more times. Considering how mangled my stupid foot is, let's all just assume that there's no fall left in this one either. (Oh, and the bike is fine. After some incredibly kind passers-by helped me out of the street, that was the only thing I wanted to know. The front wheel is a little out of round now, but luckily I live in an area of town with bike shops every four blocks, so I can probably get that fixed.)

In other news, for the first time since moving here, it's cold! I woke up and didn't instantly want to throw all my windows open. It's cold and overcast, but I think I see the sun starting to poke out. Today is all about looking for jobs. It most certainly isn't about heating up the leftovers of last week's burrito at 10 a.m. and eating them off the microwave plate since I don't own any dishes... that would be disgusting. (I cleaned the microwave plate first.)

Being unemployed.

People, let me tell you this - I can be a lot to handle. I am wordy. I get really, really obsessive about everything. I am occasionally an emotional train wreck. My friends are all incredibly good people, however, and they come with their tradeoffs as well, so it's okay that I'm like this and I don't feel quite so bad about making people put up with my shit because, well... let's just say it's a give and take sort of relationship. You know the one time people can't handle me, though?

When I'm bored.

I am a high-stress, constantly moving sort of person. I also really like to bitch and whine about it, as if this isn't the sort of thing that I live for. So, for example, I would spend the last three weeks of my school quarters complaining about projects, not eating, not sleeping, telling everyone around me that I couldn't wait until it was all over. Then, like clockwork, two days into my one week break? I don't have anything to do, and this is stupid.

I have been without anything to do since June 14th, the day I graduated from college. I'm pushing three months of unemployment. This is the longest I've ever been without something to cling to or something to look forward to. The last time it got close to this bad was the summer of 2003.

I moved from one midwestern city to another, but the two cities are hugely different. I was subletting an apartment - starting June 13th, coincidentally enough - from a frat boy who was going somewhere else for the summer. I had the attic of a three story house to myself and paid $250 a month for it. Out of pure convenience, I paid him the full $750 up front and had a place to live for the summer. I had a boyfriend who actually had things to do during the day, which left me in my sublet, unemployed and looking for a part-time job. This was before I ever had a credit card, so my bills were completely non-existent, and I was living off of going-away money from relatives. Life was affordable and okay. However. I had absolutely, positively nothing to do. This was before I realized the hobbies and pastimes that at least get me through a few hours now. This was the summer I learned to sleep.

Boyfriend gets out of class at 4:50? You better believe I can sleep in till 2, wake up, microwave an artichoke, eat it with some mustard and mayonnaise, and be back in bed at 2:30, awaiting his phone call to wake me up at 5. I was sleeping easily 16+ hours every single day, and I was good at it.

Now, I live in an apartment with three giant windows that face east, so I wake up at 6:30. By 9, I am bored. The Roommate doesn't get off work until 6. The ability to entertain myself is getting a little harder each day. I know, I know - one of the greatest cities in the country, get out, explore, blah blah blah. It's hot. I'm not used to riding a bike this hard all the time. I'm tired. Also, lazy. And I'd like to be within 8 feet of my laptop at all times so that I know when a new job has come up on craigslist.

But I am really, really bored. My favorite author released a book recently that I hadn't picked up yet, and it will be finished within the hour. I managed to convince myself to get out of the house, so I went and sampled some absolutely fabulous Mexican cuisine - and Mexican bottled coke. Oh, God. Highlight of my day for sure. But now I'm back in my apartment, doing whatever it is that unemployed people do. Perhaps I should get out more and explore the area, but I legitimately feel guilty if I'm not spending as much time as I can trolling the internet for jobs. 

So tell me, friends, what do YOU do to get through those times when you seriously have nothing better to do? And if it could cost me a freakishly small amount of money, all the better.

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

Introduction.

I'm terrible at these sorts of things, and I always think they're really lame, but for lack of a better first post, here we go.

On August 27th, 2008, I bought a one-way plane ticket to SFO. The ticket was for September 1st. I have absolutely no job, no savings, and didn't have an apartment until September 3rd.

Why San Francisco? Let's start with the cliches and then move on to reasons that might actually be convincing. First of all, I'm a recent college graduate who wasn't having any luck finding a job in the city I lived in. So, yes. I'm one of those stories: graduated college, "moved west in search of opportunities". Second of all, it seemed a logical choice for me. I have friends in the Bay area, I'm a cyclist, and I simply needed something new. I made the decision that I was unhappy with my previous life and I needed to make a change. When I started searching for plane tickets, I found one for $143 that was five days away. All the surrounding tickets were more expensive. September 1st, indeed. 

So I packed up everything I could fit into two checked bags (thanks, $75 luggage set from Kohl's that has moved me across the country three times!) and two carry-ons (thanks, Timbuk2 bags, for already making me look like I live in San Francisco!), and got on a 5:53 a.m. flight. Nine hours later, I was in San Francisco, homeless, jobless, and with no prior experience in the city save 32 hours with my boyfriend back in the spring of 2003. 

I'm a motion graphics designer. The easy question now is "Why not L.A.?" The answer is relatively simple. If I lived in Los Angeles, I'd probably have to kill myself. I just dislike it and really didn't want to live there. In terms of making decisions to change my entire life because I was unhappy, I probably should select a city I actually, you know, want to live in.

How do I know I want to live in San Francisco if I've already admitted I don't know anything about it? It's kind of a hunch. Lots of friends with lots of experiences here, people I trust, who tell me it might be a city for me. I'm a New York girl. I'm a little high-strung. The other day, flying down Mission, someone started to open their car door and I screamed a string of obscenities that would hardly be out of the ordinary in New York. This is not quite part of the San Francisco culture. I'm trying to adapt. I'm hoping that I become less high-strung as the days go on. (Getting a job would probably REALLY ease that stress. I'm talking to you, Bay area.)

Now that we've got the reasons, here's a little more about me. As previously stated, I'm a designer, predominantly 3D animation but with some 2D mixed in on the side. I'm a newborn cyclist. I moved from a city that's decidedly not cyclist-friendly, but with the college graduation and whatnot, paying $4+ a gallon for gas didn't make any sense. I was friends with a lot of cyclists. I spent $75 on a bike instead of a tank of gas and never looked back. That story may be discussion for another time.

I'd like to refrain from getting too personal here, mostly because I'm looking for jobs and I know how easy it is to find people on the internet. It's not that I'm attempting to create some sort of secret identity, just that I'd like to be able to actually document the journey of moving to a completely new city with 150 pounds of luggage, no job and no home - and the job search is a very big part of that. Networking is everything. While I have no plans to slam some company that rejects me, you better believe I'll have words for it if I go on the worst interview ever. I am also friends with a number of people in my exact situation, and I have no interest in naming them by names, because they'll get hit in google searches too, and I don't need their potential employers knowing that I watched them pass out on a pool table the night before.

So, welcome. Hopefully this'll be a fun ride. (With no more flat tires, because I already did that yesterday, on a newly-acquired bicycle.)