Today, having finished my morning work shift, for the first time I don't have to dread going home. That's because yesterday evening a friend came over with a rented minivan and helped me move out of the Richmond district flat where I have spent the last month in a state of hostile limbo and into a residential hotel that is going to be my home for the next month or three while I set about rebuilding my life here in San Francisco. It ain't much, but it's mine, and at this point all I want is a little independence, four walls and a roof of my own, until I determine my next more permanent living arrangement - and some permanence in life (and employment) is my main goal at this point.
This city, and the Bay Area in general, have thrown an awful lot at me since I moved here not so long ago (was it really only last September?), but as of this writing, I'm still standing, and I must admit I take a certain pride in surviving the latest in the seemingly endless minefield of setbacks that life (the universe, God, providence, kismet, quantum physics, whathaveyou) has strewn across my path since leaving what looks in retrospect like the womblike and embyronic candy-land of Portland. By the time my time inside the Golden Gate is through, I'll be able to write a book called How to Survive in San Francisco Starting From Absolute Scratch, with the subtitle Despite Moving Here on the Spur of the Moment, Knowing No One, Being Unfamiliar with the Area and Renting a Room Sight-Unseen Over the Phone, Being Mugged at Gunpoint in Oakland, Losing My Job, Being Unemployed and without Income For Nearly Three Months (with Absolutely No Savings), Moving In with a Dishonest and Sexually Inappropriate Maniac, and Being Forced to Apply for Food Stamps and Government Assistance Because I was on the Verge of Being Homeless.
Compared to all that, my life right now - as of last night - seems downright romantic to me, romantic not in the Danielle Steele sense, but in the "starving artist scraping by in the big city, just starting his adult life," novelistic way. I got to eat breakfast and lunch at work this morning, and took home leftovers which I will warm up in the microwave for dinner. I made some tips and got my first paycheck this morning, which I deposited in my checking account, now slowly recovering from my recent depressing dip into total indigence. The building I live in is pretty much equidistant between Chinatown, North Beach and the Financial District - a lively and exhilarating place to spend a month or two while I start over again on a new footing. This evening I will arrange things in my room (including two plants I brought with me - a jade plant and a spider plant - because they're the closest thing I have to a pet right now, and I regard them with the affection usually reserved for sentient creatures), watch a little TV, read - I'm in the middle of five biographies right now: of Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, President Obama, Virginia Woolf, and Jean Cocteau - and make sure I have all my dates and appointments accurately recorded in my planner. I will get a good night's sleep, wake up before the sun tomorrow, take a shower, and get ready for another day of work, and whatever else may happen after - which is really anything, at this point.
Infinite possibility and no one to answer to but myself makes Tony a happy tiger.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
Back when it was real, man
Overheard today in San Francisco: Young, scruffy rocker dude, on the sidewalk near Union Square, tells a random group of tourists, "I saw the Stones in concert back in '94, man!" Points to a 20-something tourist girl and says, "You weren't even alive then!" Then his voice trailing after him down the sidewalk: "Those were the REAL days, man! Back when it was REAL!!"
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