San Francisco, here we come. Our weekend in the city confirmed it.
The short version:
We found a great apartment in a really amazing part of town. Amanda got a really promising job at a small boutique, located maybe 10-15 minutes on foot from our place. That's like 5 minutes, tops, by bike. I lined up some seasonal photography work doing little league portraits. And that sealed it. We move in September 1. After a road trip through Vegas. Sweet.
The long version:
Amanda and I had already been thinking about moving when the Post laying me off really kick-started things. Once I made the difficult decision to leave the Texas Observer, we started looking for new jobs in earnest. We concentrated on San Francisco because I loved my visits out there so much and it seemed like a good job market, but we applied other places, too. Despite months of dogged Craigslisting and exploiting our social netowrks, our inboxes were hardly brimming with options.
Come the weekend before last, we had a trip lined up to SF to explore our only leads: one apartment that sounded ideal, one job interview for Amanda, and one interview/training session for me. Obviously, they all worked out.
The apartment is most exciting, so I'll start with it.
We're renting two rooms from a middle-aged woman, R., who works as a stagehand. R.'s apartment has a quirky layout that works perfectly for our situation. The front door opens onto a short staircase that spits you out at my and Amanda's bedroom door. The room has hardwoods floors, a decent-sized closet (with built-in dresser), some shelves below a window, and it comes furnished with a nice bed and little desk. The room is connected directly to a living area that is up against the front of the building and the front wall is nothing but windows. It also comes furnished with a (now decorative) fireplace, cable TV, and a kitty-ready couch. R. got it from some friends who owned cats, so it's nice but "gently loved," as she put it, meaning the cats can scratch to the heart's content.
The rest of the apartment is R.'s TV room, which is a converted bedroom at the front of the building; her bedroom; and the big kitchen/dining area/greenhouse/washateria. That's right, in one big open space is a large kitchen with something like 15 feet of counter space, a little table for eating, and a back area where R. grows plants and has a washer and dryer. And in the very back of all that is a door that leads to a little garden with benches and trees and some veggies in pots.
If all that wasn't great enough, the apartment is located about a block from the corner of 16th and Valencia — "the center of the universe," R. called it.
Check out this map:
We live at the green arrow. As you can see, we're two blocks from the BART, aka the subway. Amanda's job is about half a mile to the north (one route would take her past the U.S. Mint).
Then, if you find Valencia and follow it south, for pretty much the entire length of that map there are nothing but shops, restaurants, bars, and bookstores. And there are more down many of the side streets. In all, I'd guess I saw between two and three dozen restaurants of every variety and ethnicity when we walked down that strip. The most common: Mexican food. Hell yes.
A couple blocks to the west of Valencia is Dolores Park, a perfect, hilly oasis in the middle of the city. This place was Dog Central when we went. Everyone there seemed to be either napping under the palm trees or throwing tennis balls down the hills for the their dogs. Amanda's got puppy fever now. For good measure, the park also boasts a full size basketball court and about six or seven tennis courts open to the public.
Go north from the park and you'll hit a coffee shop called Maxfield's, which looks very promising (that is, it serves $12 pitchers). Go east a couple blocks and you'll run into a mini-Whole Foods. I've forgotten the name, but it looks like any other little corner store until you walk in and see the place crammed from top to bottom with fresh, organic, local produce and a huge selection of chocolates, cheeses, and wines. And I didn't even get a chance to check out the hoppin' butcher's station. Good gawd, man.
Oh crap, I'm out of time, but that's the basic gist. The other stuff: Amanda's job is with a little boutique that barely has 10 employees. They're expanding, though, and the intimate nature of the place could allow Amanda to quickly work her way up to doing buying and planning for each season's clothes. She thinks that would be a blast. It's also likely this place will put her on salary soon if she does a good job.
The most important qualification for my job is that you be on time, which tells you everthing you need to know. But, hey, it's work. I've also got leads on some copyediting, and I plan on applying to be a portrait studio manager. I'm also signed up for this vision/brain study at the local university. I'll get paid well for about 15-20 hours a month of work. They'll be scanning my brain while I look at tests, or something, not entirely sure. But if it goes well, I'll get a sweet ass detailed picture of my brain from the MRI they take. They're paying me to get my brain photographed! YES.Labels: all about me, san francisco
