Rescue me from Oakland

Ever since being mugged at GUNPOINT here in Oakland a month ago, I've been eagerly looking forward to the day I move into The City - to be closer to work, and just to live somewhere I feel that I belong. My quality of life has suffered considerably lately. I now see menace and danger where I used to see ethnic diversity and think how cool (and sort of typical of me) it was that I was the random tall gringo living with a Mexican family. (I still love Latino families and the way they stick together and live together in an extended group, from grandparents to little kids, and my roommate's sister cooks authentic Mexican food good enough for any restaurant. Their familial bonds are sort of what I've always dreamed of, and never had, having grown up with a small fractured family - basically just my single mother, my sister, and me - and my Cousin who lives on Maui - that's about all the family I have.) Well, I'm making it my foremost goal now, to move into San Francisco by February 1st. I need to save a bit more money, but will begin aggressively looking for a shared living situation at the beginning of January. Before I came to the Bay I envisioned a great job - utilizing "The Secret" (watched it on Maui), and I scored a really good job with great benefits shortly after arriving. Now it's time to apply that to my living situation. Because it's hard to be happy with anything else in your life if you aren't happy with where you live. At least in my experience.

I've had a nearly lifelong dream of owning a fabulous Victorian home, and in the meantime, renting a room in one seems a nice conceit. San Francisco is certainly one of the most likely places for that to happen. I did live in the attic of a Victorian in Portland, Ore. during the summer of 1997 (the summer that inspired so many William S. Burroughs-style writings that have thankfully perished with the passage of time), right across Ash Street from 3 Friends Coffeehouse, but my circumstances at the time were not auspicious. I'd like another chance to do it RIGHT this time.

Let's just see how well this quantum physics, "manifest your destiny" thing works.