What it means...

The City by the Bay

So once again, I've been racking my brain trying to come up with something decent to post...and it occurred to me that people are always asking me what it's like to live here and why I love it so much. Therefore, this blog post is a bit different but I hope you enjoy it anyway. I decided to give you a breakdown of what it's like...at least what it's like for me:

For those of you who are always asking, "What's it like to live in San Francisco?" or "How can you afford to live in San Francisco?" or "What's so great about San Francisco?"...well, buckle up. I'm about to answer all of those questions and then some...all the good, bad, and ugly as I see it.  Now assuming that you are an average person with an average education in an average field of work, this is what it means to live in the City:

Affording life in this city means....

San Francisco Guardian

...that no matter where you live, there is someone sleeping or "getting it on" on the other side of your wall...maybe even in your shared apartment...you've undoubtedly heard things in other languages that really weren't meant for human ears. It means you have probably worked at one time for a non-profit, smelled weed as you were waiting for your morning Muni bus to arrive, sold your clothes to a

The couch you're willing to sleep on for $1500/month

clothing exchange, looked into selling your plasma at the Blood Centers of the Pacific, contemplated selling your eggs to one of those places on the back of the Bay Guardian, participated in one too many focus groups about dog food just to get the $100 Visa card, thought about starting your own dog walking service, provided babysitting services for your boss, sold weed, asked strangers on the sidewalk for "a minute of their free time to talk to them about Greenpeace", checked the "free" section on Craigslist on an hourly basis...all in an effort to scrape together the $1500 a month to sleep on a stranger's couch....and you thought that was a deal and totally normal.

Irony in this city means...

Your new BFF!

...that you secretly have a crush on the guy who makes overpriced salads at the trendy overpriced restaurant by your work, but you eat there anyway while promising yourself that you will pack your lunch the next day...and realizing that buying that salad means you may have to forgo Happy Hour this week. It means smelling weed (as you run out for lunch) coming from the alley where the suits take their "smoke break". It also means that you spot that same salad guy performing at a Happy Hour drag show in the Castro (you'd recognize that butt anywhere!)...which leads you to contemplate if he has "made the change" yet...You end up becoming best friends and swapping outfits in the bathroom after the drag show.

Your neighborhood pride means...

Karl hanging out in the Sunset

...going YEARS without setting foot in the Marina because you aren't part of the 3% who work in Silicon Valley, you carry a $12 bag you bought on sale at Ross, at don't have the coordinating jacket to go with your yoga pants. It's knowing that the Panhandle, Cole Valley, Asbury Heights, Buena Vista, and Upper Haight are all really the same neighborhood. It's walking through said neighborhood and smelling weed six different times within 3 blocks. It's knowing that the Mission will ALWAYS be 10 degrees warmer than where ever you are. It's constantly convincing people that the fog in the Outer Sunset reminds you of growing up in Maine and that it's "not really that bad"...Besides, your City's fog is actually known on a first name basis as "Karl" (it's true...check out @Karlthefog on Twitter). You also have a local bum that you kinda look out for, slip him a buck or two, and go along with it being his "50th birthday" almost every time you run into him for the past 8 years.

Loving the City means...
...not getting attached because places that you love will close up forever without any kind of notice, apartment buildings will seemingly sprout out of the ground overnight, friends will have kids and move to Berkeley, friends will quit their non-profit jobs and join the Peace Corps, friends will end up in rehab, friends will move back to wherever it is they came from...it's also living in constant fear that the "big one" is coming and will destroy the City anyway...it's accepting that change is inevitable.

The weather in the City means...
...you NEVER leave the house without wearing at least 2 layers and bringing a sweater or jacket. You

Dolores Park on a sunny day

will own a hoodie in every color. LOTS of hoodies. Oh and LOTS of scarves...you will have Summer AND Winter scarves. Scarves you bought on Haight St., scarves you bought from the Chinese lady who sets up her stand in front of your work, and scarves you learned how to crochet that time you had to stay in a hostel for a week because the roof of your apartment caved in during the rainy season. It's not unheard of to call in sick to work because it's 80 degrees out and you want to go to the beach in February...just so you can say you went to the beach in February. It means there will be someone smoking weed at the beach. It means you endure the "June gloom" of cold and fog so that you can soak up Indian Summer in Dolores Park....while worrying that the term "Indian Summer" may be offensive.

The randomness in the City means...

Hammer working out at our gym

...holding on to hope that a celebration/street fair/some naked event will break out at any given time on a weekend. For this reason, you keep a box of costumes at the ready for events like Bay to Breakers, Burning Man, Halloween, Santa-con, Folsom Street Fair, or a holiday party you might get invited to...where EVERYONE is smoking weed because EVERYONE in this city has a medical marijuana card. You never know when you could end up dancing in the streets...ie: when Obama won, when DOMA was overturned, when the Giants won, when you ended up at The End Up at 5am after a night of said dancing in the street...or when you might run into a local celebrity like Robin
Williams in a comic book store, MC Hammer at the gym, Chris Isaac at a surf shop, or those guys from Mythbusters while waiting for your $8 latte in Starbucks.

Making friends in the City means...

Random people drinking beer

...you now have an eclectic group of friends that you will accumulate...sex workers, friends with PhD's, gay friends, straight friends, friends who could swing either way, friends who don't work but you're afraid to ask what they really do to pay the rent, vegan friends, computer geek friends, friends who speak 6 languages, heavily tattooed friends, friends who still do graffiti, friends that you met on Muni, friends in bands, friends who are older than you but still ride skateboards, friends who used to be a man, had a sex change, became a woman, married another woman, impregnated her new wife
with her frozen sperm from when she was a man, and now have two kids kinda friends! (That last one is true!) It means being completely open-minded and accepting of all people, unless they're Republicans.

Sports in this City means...
...you have no clue about sports but as soon as October rolls around, you know the entire starting lineup and who's pitching for the Giants. You jump on the bandwagon...unless the A's are doing better and then you jump off of the Giants bandwagon and onto the A's. It's really not giving a shit about the America's Cup...but breaking your neck to glimpse of those boats as you cross the bridge.

City pride means...
...the feeling you get at seeing the Golden Gate bridge and smiling at the way the fog sits right on the top...or driving over the Bay Bridge, seeing the skyline of the City and knowing that you are almost home. And when you're away from the City, it means visiting other parts of America and being thought of as some kind of liberal gay hippie...and being ok with that. They can call you a hippie.

Old hippies in Golden Gate Park

The houses are just as wacky as the people!

You recycle, you compost, you have a Nalgene bottle and a Kleen Kanteen to match nearly every outfit, you can swing a cat (but you wouldn't because you volunteer at the SPCA) and hit a grow house...and you don't hesitate to remind middle America that they are going to hell for not following in your carbon free footsteps! But being away means missing burritos, missing pupusas, missing Tapatio and Blondie's pizza. Being away also means getting teary eyed watching re-runs of "Full House" because it's set in San
Francisco and they all presumably live in one of the Painted Ladies....something that you've dreamed about since you moved here.

Then there's Muni...that great equalizer. It doesn't matter where you're from, where you work, how much money you have or what part of the City you're going to. Living here means riding the Night Owl and thinking you're gonna get mugged by the teenagers in the back (see previous post about the Owl). Taking the 48 from the quiet shore of the Outer Sunset through stroller-riddled Noe Valley and ending up in the bullet-riddled Bayshore and observing the City's varying degrees of humanity. It means at any stop on any bus you could encounter humans weeping, sleeping, peeing, drinking, shitting, fighting, smoking weed, shooting up, screaming, singing, and raging against whatever demons live in their head. It means you could be sitting next to a woman carrying a $2,000 Chanel bag on your right, while the guy on your left snorts a line of coke off of his iPhone...and you end up giving up your seat to a toothless 107 year old Asian woman with a 55 gallon drum full of cans and a live chicken in her wheelie cart. It means when the bus breaks down, you're ALL late...whether you're going to work, the beach, the nail salon, the Chinatown market, or to meet your acupuncturist at the medicinal marijuana dispensary. Yes, Muni is the great equalizer...It does not discriminate. We ALL deal. We ALL endure. We ALL are at its mercy.

Living in this City means complaining about Muni, writing a blog about it, and loving it all at the same time....


Thank you for riding Muni!

Yours Truly

Here's your SAM: