We have a million restaurants to choose from, Napa is only an hour away, we can easily jet to Tahoe for a weekend of skiiing (or, in my case, hot tubbing and sitting by a fire watching snow and being thankful that I don't have to live in it), a multitude of museums are at our doorsteps, we hear French and Chinese and Spanish and Portuguese on a regular basis walking down any thoroughfare, the protest spirit is alive and well, the golden gate bridge and the bay and the coastline up highway 1 north are as beautiful as ever. The unexpected views at the top of each hill still take my breath away even after seven years of living here. Yes, San Francisco is a truly great city.
But it's also a city where $2000 a month gets you a one-bedroom apartment without parking rather than the mortgage for a 2000 square foot house of your own. That is, if you can even get an apartment after working to make your "housing resume" more impressive than the thirty other people who show up at the open house. The last time I tried to apply for a new apartment, the rental agent laughed at me, "we rented that five minutes after the open house....there were eight applicants immediately." (And that was to rent a 600 square feet one-bedroom in far away Diamond Heights for $2,500 per month.) Then, there was the "garden apartment" on Macondray Lane that canceled the open house after the first person to show up paid the $7000 security deposit on the spot. My friends Molly and James were rejected from an apartment despite having the salaries of two lawyers. They were not selected because they aren't a "couple," and the landlord preferred to lower the rent rather than rent to transitory singles. When they heard this, they wished they had thought to pantomime a fake love relationship. But it was too late. To directly quote the rental agent, the next apartment they looked at had a "lovely, romantic bathroom" with shockingly hot pink 80s style decor. (The next time I went apartment hunting, I begged my friend to pretend to be a lesbian couple with me in an attempt to avoid such a debacle.) And then there was the time I tried to get an apartment in Noe Valley, aka "Sesame Street." Every livable apartment my two roomies and I found was instantly snatched up by a yuppie couple with an adorable baby. "You can feel free to apply," the haughty rental agent told us, "but we're really looking for a nice family to live here." Oh, the injustices of apartment-living in San Francisco. Three-fourths of the owners will charge you your first born child to live there only to impose so many rules upon you that you feel like you're living in your parents' basement, an option that would be cost free: no parties, cover the floors with carpets, no waterbeds, no sex, no smoking even outdoors, no use of the laundry facilities after 9 pm (9 pm! I'm not even home from work by 9pm), the landlord may enter at any time (my building manager once showed up with two Asian businessmen when I was just out of the shower, wearing nothing but a towel, and had the audacity to request that I show my apartment to the "new owners"!), etc. etc. etc. Most SF apartments were last remodeled sometime in the 1970s (if you're lucky). "This [ugly] tile is original to the building," the manager will tell you. Finding a dishwasher, parking and in-unit laundry is a completely lost cause, no matter how much you're willing to pay. What a racket! I count my lucky stars every day for my current adorable 700 square foot Russian Hill one-bedroom, thanking God that I (barely) won that battle in my divorce process.
Well, to make the money to pay the high rent (forget about buying a place unless you're a millionaire or moved to the city more than 10 years ago), we San Franciscanites are forced to work all the time. (Taking a non-profit job is a noble goal, but only if you are willing to live somewhere "across the bay bridge.") As a result, seeing your friends once a month is considered "frequent" because everyone is too busy working to have much free time. Work, work, work. But not much to show for it because all our money is quickly gobbled up by the expensive restaurants that are the usual night out, the costly spa treatments and weekend getaways necessary to "relieve our stress," the aforementioned huge rent that is money thrown down the drain, and the cost of convenience items like cleaning services and take-out food. The first question a San Francisco local will ask is "what do you do for a living?" Because none of us have anything else to talk about besides work.
It's also a city where there is no parking and having a car means $200 a month in parking tickets, making it more prudent to get rid of your car entirely, particularly after having to pay $600 to get your car out after it has been towed by the mafia-controlled city towing contractor (your cries of "I never saw any 'no parking' sign" will have no effect). A city without a fast subway city where the city buses take forever to get anywhere, and where riding the bus means being subjected to teenagers cussing and smoking marijuana in the back seats, the "dancing machine" (a crazy homeless guy) dancing, and another homeless man screaming about Bush's foreign policy debacles at the top of his lungs at 7:30 a.m., a time that is way too early for such verbal assaults. The latter was my most memorable San Francisco bus experience. I literally thought the bus was being hijacked as a rough looking man entered the bus screaming at the top of his lungs, "Attention everyone... George W. Bush is a terrorist!" On and on he screamed.... preaching to the choir as not a single person on a San Francisco public bus is a "Dubyah" supporter. In true San Francisco style, we all avoided eye contact, hoping the crazy homeless guy would leave us alone. Finally, a frustrated fellow passenger, a woman attired in business casual on her way to work replied, "Buddy, you think George Bush is a terrorist...well, you're terrorizing us!" This exchange took place on the Yuppie line, the Russian Hill to Financial District 45 Union - not a line where you would expect much action to take place. I won't even start to tell tales from my two years riding the 5 Fulton, Western Addition to the Tenderloin, line during law school. Those tales would fill a novel that I have no time to write.
The cost of living, lack of transportation, homeless people constantly pan handling or peeing in the middle of the street, fog, wind, earthquakes....the dot com crash, followed by the mortgage and investment bank crash, followed by layoffs left and right and six percent unemployment. Sometimes it is downright stressful living here.
So, you might ask, "why do you stay in San Fran? Why not just move?" The answer is simple - "I can't." San Francisco is as addictive as the most dangerous drug. The streets of the Tenderloin are not only full of crack: San Francisco is my crack. I am addicted. Without the culture and spirit and vistas and weather and hippies and protesters and diversity, I would suffer a withdrawal too extreme to ponder. So, stay I must.
To be honest, the bad things about living here do not often cross my mind. It's only lately, when I've become angst-ridden enough to write a blog, that I've begun pondering the purpose and quality of my life. I've thought about moving (see below posting about the Marina). I've begged my friends to move with me in a group exodus to another city where single, straight men are more plentiful and the cost of living more affordable. "We could move to D.C.," my friend Jeff suggested. "D.C. kind of sucks, Jeff," I replied (no offense to my friends living there). "No it's not - Georgetown is great," he urged. "What about the remaining 3/4s of the city?" I asked. No comment. NYC - too many single women; Chicago - too cold (for me); Phoenix - too hot (for me) and a red state to boot; the South - too scary (for me). The truth is each of these cities could be the most wonderful place on earth. But I can't move there. San Francisco is my drug of choice, and I'm as addicted as they come. How I love thee, let me count the ways....
But seriously, this posting started as a way to try to get me some free Zipcard dollars. Lately, I've been exploring ways to ease the burden of my "ever so difficult" life in the city (that was tongue in cheek - I've got it good, and I know it). Here are some of my new favs for making life just a little bit easier:
(1) Zipcar! I'm so happy I got rid of my car. I saved $400 per month for garaged parking, $200 per month in parking tix, an immeasurable amount of money for insurance and gas and gained one hour per day in time as I never have to look for parking. There is a Zipcar lot two blocks from my home and another right across the street from my work. Plus, I can try out every type of car imaginable, feel like I'm saving the environment, and can use Zipcar in tons of other U.S. cities when travelling. If you're not a member yet, click here so we can both get some free driving time:
(2) Crystal Cleaners (415.292.6889): The other day I found myself with literally five loads of laundry to do plus 3 suits that needed dry cleaning. I had zero time and zero quarters. They picked up my clothes at 6:30 pm and dropped them all off pristinely clean at 7:30 pm the next day. Heaven in a laundry bag!
(3) Aimee, Andrew & Co. Caterers (2238 Polk Street, Polk & Green): I walked by this place for literally two years before I finally went inside two night ago on my way home from work. Now, I am a convert. This place has tons of prepared foods that you take home and microwave or stick in the oven. You can choose an entree and two sides and they put it in a microwaveable or oven-proof container, you take it home, heat and voila! It's not as if the food is that good (I really don't know if it is yet). The important thing is that the place has a lot of healthy options. Two nights ago, I selected boneless, skinless jerk chicken with a side of broccoli and some roasted potatoes. Except for the potatoes (I should have forced myself to choose the brown rice), it was a very healthy meal, and the portions were generous enough that it provided me with dinner for two nights. I am going to try to make this one a habit for whenever I don't have time to cook. Better than the temptations of Chinese or pizza delivery!
(4) Safeway.com: No explanation needed. Groceries delivered.
(5) Yelp.com, Craigslist.org & Amazon.com: Find everything else.
I'm still looking for the "easy way" to find a date, but haven't had any luck so far. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, cheers to city living!
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