Sideways
Thursday, September 4 : 12:55 AM : 0 comments :
The bagel store girl said, "Here you go gorgeous," as she handed me my bag. I thought to myself, "Wow, gorgeous is such a wonderful word! Why don't people use it more often?" The only time it really gets used is in describing the weather, like "It's a gorgeous day." What a waste of a beautiful word I say. My hope is to replace my incessant use of "fabulous" and/or "beautiful" with "gorgeous." Note to self: Find gorgeous people/things and say it to about them.So right after the trip to New York was a one day layover in San Diego where I did some laundry, made sweet reunion love to my dual monitors, and said hello and goodbye to my mom (she's off to Africa for a month). Even in that short thirty six hour period home, I could feel the itch to keep moving. Luckily, San Francisco was on the immediate horizon. In evaluating exactly where I'd like to be for the upcoming fall and winter, San Francisco is the destination that makes the most sense. The weather sucks but isn't horrible. I have friends and family here. It's a city with enough of everything to keep things interesting. But I've never been able to sustain much interest in the Bay Area.
I don't feel alive and energetic the way I do in New York. I don't see how that would change if I moved here. Still, it would still be an improvement on San Diego now wouldn't it? Then again, living anywhere but San Diego would probably require me to get off my butt and get a job. Rent here is just as steep as Manhattan and it seems like you'd need a car to effectively get around. That's staring at maybe $1500 a month for rent and parking and then add some bills and utilities and you're SOL. The minimum I'd think you need to live an adult lifestyle in either New York or San Francisco is about $50,000 a year. And that's cutting it low. I've never made that in my life, much less a whole year. Quick, cash in that life insurance policy. Sell off that comic book collection. Mine for gold or build a railroad.
You know how they say living in New York for seven years makes you a New Yorker? Is there a similar thing about becoming a San Franciscan? Do people become San Franciscans? I feel like they don't. In my generalization, New York molds you, whereas you have to mold San Francisco to your liking. I want to be molded, I think, because I don't have the foresight and drive to mold something myself right now. Hum, maybe that's the problem.
Anyway, we arrived last Thursday and immediately launched into a long weekend full of activities. The Little Mermaid Sing-A-Long, my first ever trip to Napa for wine tasting, shopping on Haight, partying and drinking and a few late night shenanigans. Karaoke, of course.Coming straight from New York, the most drastic change is this 2am closing time thing. It's just killer. The city goes to sleep and by association, so does everyone else. I don't even know where I would roam at four in the morning. I haven't seen a single sunrise out here yet. San Francisco is literally putting me to sleep.
Let's talk about Napa real quick. I was a bit underwhelmed. I'm not a wine drinker, nay aficianado, and couldn't tell you much else besides "This is a red, eat it with meat. This is a white, eat it with fish." It seems like somewhere along the way though, many of my peers picked up wine knowledge. What the hell, why's everyone getting all sophisticated on me? I personally find the whole wine culture to be a bit pretentious and ridiculous but no more than someone who's a dedicated foodie or something. All that swishing and smelling is so hifalutin isn't it? Then again, I do similar evaluative acts with my movie popcorn so who am I to judge?
I'd personally rather really get into coffee but that's just my own tastes. I wonder how much the appeal of wine is mixed in with the idea of it as a high-class item. It bothers me a bit that knowing about wine is equated to being grown up -- or maybe that's just in my head. On the other hand, I do really enjoy how we've kind of evolved to uncorking bottles instead of popping aluminum tabs.
I did enjoy the overall Napa experience, if not the actual physical space, mainly because we went with so many people and had a chance to play some car games, to get into random conversations, and to just get out and do something different. Even though it was hot as hell that day, we had such an enjoyable and wonderful afternoon driving around collecting wine merit badges. It was, in a word, gorgeous.
Oh and I totally got a number too. No, not from the bagel girl. It was from one of the wine server guys who gave me his card so we could play video games together. We had a little talk about how we both played lots of online games and some MMORPGs. I swear I must have "geek of the universe" written on my forehead because within ten minutes of talking to people I get their geek cred spilled out and into the open. Seriously, just in the last two weeks I found out that this one girl is a super video game and comic book fan, and her friends of many years knew nothing about it. And then a boyfriend of a friend revealed his secret obsession with Magic and D&D to me during a smoke break. I must be doing something awfully right. Or wrong?
