At the begining of January 2010 I told my bosses and my friends that I planned to move to San Francisco in the first week of March, just days after my 25th birthday. Those two months flew by and suddenly I was in a rental car with a bunch of clothes and cameras driving over the Bay Bridge and into "the city." Now here I sit on my couch in that city a little over a year since I gave notice and I'm in a reflective mood.
The first few months here are almost hazy in my memory. The first amazing thing to happen to me was answering an ad on Craigslist for a hostess job at a fish restaurant called Woodhouse Fish Co. I went in for an interview, they hired me and I still work there today. That job has been my anchor here in the city. No matter what came after, I always had an awesome position at an awesome restaurant. I have made amazing friends there and my managers and bosses are more than I could have ever wished for.
At first when I got here, I stayed at a family member's house in Noe Valley for about a month in a half before finding a room for rent in a not-so-clean apartment in the tenderloin. I found a man on Craigslist named Jerry McGuire (I swear, this is true). He was looking to rent out his (very large) room for only $600 which is an amazing price in the city. The apartment was pretty dirty. He had lived there for 15 years with his cat and smoked cigarettes indoors. But there was no lease and I desperately needed my own space so I took the apartment and the months to follow became my first ever real excersize in independence and isolation.
Sure I had a few friends here when I moved, and I have a couple more than a few friends here now, but that summer living in the Tenderloin was lonely. There's a lot of "soul searching" (for lack of a better term) that happens when you move to a new place, there has to be. So I'm ok with how isolated and scared and alone I was in that very large room on Polk street. It has made me stronger. It's not to say I wasn't social. I was and am a very social creature. I went out often, discovered great places to drink with friends, the best routes for getting home through the not so great part of town at night and the best places to hail cabs. The lonliness I'm talking about isn't because I lacked personal interaction. It's because I moved from the "Biggest Little City in the World" where I could walk into almost any bar at almost any time of day and know at least half of the people there. Here there are no familliar faces. That person across the bar is not waving at you. Nobody knows who you are. I realized quickly what a small fish I was in such a big, big pond, and honestly, I loved it.
That summer I had a few run-ins with romance. Not so much love, but definitely sex. i used okcupid.com and even went on a few blind dates. Over all I'm happy with my experience the first year here as far as sex and love goes. It's made me realize that I am in no way ready to settle down. That there are far more experiences out there for me and that I'm only just beginning to know what I want. I've also learned to take hints, respect myself and that sometimes deleting a phone number (or two) out of your phone is the best thing you can do for yourself.
I only lived in the Tenderloin for about 4 months. Why I moved out of that apartment is definitely the most shocking part of my first-year story. If you're reading this and you know me, you've heard this story probably more than once. I have never written it completely out with pen but I did type it once (there's still a draft on my tumblr blog that I will probably never delete nor publish). So what I'm saying is this is the first time I'm putting it way way out there for the world. This is what happened:
My best friend Lauren Randolph was in town from LA. We went and saw our friend's band The Young Dudes play at The Fillmore two nights in a row with Motion City Soundtrack. In a few days we were to drive to Reno (both of our hometown) and pack up her car, then drive to Burning Man for a week. To be fair, my other best friend Greyson Beffa was in town too, for the first night, but he had to go home to work (at my old work, the amazing Silver Peak in Reno) so he had left earlier that day and Lauren and I went to Haight with The Young Dudes. We came back to my house to change and be lazy for a few hours.
Around the time we were ready to leave to head to The Fillmore Lauren had to use the bathroom but my room mate, Jerry was in there and was taking a while. We could hear the water turned on. We didn't want to wait anymore so we just left, got on a bus, went to the venue and enjoyed the second night of the show. Afterwards we met our friends Brittany and Joey at Chow on Church for dinner. We got back to my apartment and probably around 11:30.
As soon as we walked in I knew something was up, we were a little tipsy so I may have been slow on the realization. My bathroom door at this apartment only shut by a latch on the inside. So if it was shut, it was locked. Jerry was still in the bathroom. I set my stuff down in my room and then knocked on the door. No answer. Lauren pointed out that the lights in the bathroom were out and that we had left probably only 30 minutes before the sunset. I pounded on the door, I yelled his name. No answer. I went back into my bedroom and Lauren and I tried to figure out what to do. I thought of kicking the door down but Lauren urged me against it. She pointed out that I might not want to see what was behind the door. She was right. Eventually I called 911 for the first time in my short life. The paramedics and firefighters were there in minutes (it is the Tenderloin after all). They broke open the door. We heard them say, "He's in here." Lauren and I sat on my bed in my room. I answered a million questions three times each. It took them a few minutes to actually tell us he was dead. They had switched their wording to ask about Jerry in past-tense so finally I said, "He's dead?" The police officer looked surprised. I don't think they realized they hadn't actually told us he was dead, but just assumed we'd figured it out. Yes. He was dead. Lauren and I looked at eachother. I remember she had her hands over her mouth and her eyes were wide. Jerry was a 43 year old man living with HIV. I didn't know much about him but it was obvious (he also had admitted it to me) that he was an alcoholic. He was a very nice guy though. We had shared many conversations about life, and even a few beers. He had only ever lived in one apartment in San Francisco and that was it. Where he died was the only place he ever called home outside of Ohio where he was from. He moved there when he was 25. I was the last person to ever talk to him, touch him or that he ever saw in his life. I know this for a fact because a week before he died he lost his job, he couldn't pay his phone bill so it was turned off.
I had to sign a receipt for his body. That was weird. His cat, Gonzo was meowing and walking around like what the fuck are all these people doing in my house? I walked by the bathroom one time while all the men were there doing their jobs. I saw Jerry's feet sticking out of the bathtub. He had fallen face first into it. I still don't know how he died. It wasn't obvious to the paramedics. He could have had a heard attack or stroke and fallen. Or he could've just fallen and broken his neck maybe. Since I went to Burning Man two days later and was out of contact with the world for an entire week I never found out the cause of death. Sure I could have called somebody and asked, but I never wanted to. Lauren and I both saw his body zipped up in the body bag. It wasn't black like they are on tv. It was white and very tight. They took him away, taped up his room with a coroner's office sticker (even though that's not where he died). Animal services came and got Gonzo and Lauren and I got a motel room across the street.
The next day I found out that I'd either have to pay the full amount of rent or move all my stuff out before the end of the month. Since I was leaving that meant in the next day and a half. So that's what we did. Lauren and I moved everything I owned out of that room, except for my bed, my old shitty bookself and my dresser. We didn't have time for those things. We did take the dresser drawers though because they were full of my stuff. I got a storage unit about a mile away, left everything in it and we went to Reno less than 48 hours after Jerry died.
I am so fucking glad Lauren was there. I haven't said much about that yet because the story takes a lot of words, but that's all I ever really feel about the whole thing. Lauren is probably the one person in the universe I can trust to completely understand my actions or emotions. We are so different but so close, we have watched eachother grow up a lot in the 7 years we've been friends. There is nobody else in the world I would have prefered to have by my side when shit like that goes down. She, by just being there next to me saved me from a complete and utter melt down. If that would have happened on a night that I came home alone, I have no idea what I would have done. The only thing is that I feel bad she had to be there. She didn't take a chance on that shitty Tenderloin apartment, I did, but by knowing me she too had to go through the crazy ordeal of having someone die and it be your responsibilty, then she had to help me move when she had just planned to have a fun SF trip and take some pictures. Basically, she's the best friend anyone could ever ask for and I loved her a whole lot before we went through this together. Now I love her so much it's kind of ridiculous to think about.
So I arranged to stay with my friend Becca Finch when I got back, stayed one night on Brittany & Joey's couch and then Lauren and I were on our way. We drove to Reno, picked up my Burning Man stuff from my mom's house, went to her mom's house and started packing. That night I didn't sleep until 4am. The events of the last few days were catching up with me. I was manic. The next day we drove out to Burning Man. It was amazing. I could write seven thousand paragraphs on that and still have more to say but I'll save that for another day.
After Burning Man I drove back to SF with my friend Audrey. Slept in Becca's bed (she wasn't home) for a few hours then woke up in the wee hours of the morning and ended up going to someone's house. I hadn't cried or even freaked out about any of the events that had unfolded in front of me. I went to the desert and had a lot of fun but I didn't let the tragedy of it all hit me. Until I told the story to someone late at night sitting on a bed. Later that night I cried. I cried good and hard and someone held me while I did it. It needed to happen. It felt good. I'm glad for that friend and for the release I was able to get from our talk.
After that I started the apartment hunt while living with Becca and her cute pup Henry. She had a studio on 20th right across from Dolores Park. Her landlord lived upstairs, he was this old man who would come out everyday and water his garden (which was essentially our backyard). Becca and I had explained my situation to him and he seemed understanding. One day he asked me to leave for a few hours so that he could do an apartment check. He also asked me for my phone number. About an hour after I left the house I got a message from him. He said he had checked with the rental board and that I was tresspassing. I was not to go to the property again except to drop off my key and that if I did enter the place again he'd call the cops. So for the second time in one month I was homeless. I didn't even have my work clothes. I walked to the corner across from Becca's house so that she could get me my work clothes and toothbrush and stuff. Her landlord's boyfriend freaked out at her and called her a bunch of crazy names. I stood in awe, feeling like maybe I was a little cursed. I found a place to stay that night and the next day Lauren's cousin Lindsey Cook whom I'd never even met (but we were facebook friends) offered to let me house sit for her while she, her husband and newborn baby were away for the weekend. I watched their dog and slept in their amazing loft in Soma. The kindness of friends and friend's family members has basically saved my life this year. After that my friend and coworker Victoria let me crash with her while she was house sitting at her uncle's place.
A few weeks later the lovely Kaitlin Chamberlin (whom I was quickly becoming very close with) offered me a room at her apartment. By "room" I mean "large closed under the stairs." I took it and that's where I live today. I'm so thankful for everyone who has helped me out on my adventure in homelessness. Now I've been in Nopa with Kaitlin, Panda and Frank (the dog) since October and I couldn't ask for a better situation. I love both my room mates and the pup. We all get along very well. They are unique and beautiful ladies who have been great friends and room mates to me the past several months. Kaitlin is my rock these days here in the city. I don't know what I'd do without her. She makes me laugh everyday and her personality is like a light. I'm lucky to be where I am right now.
So that's basically it. My first year in SF in a nutshell. A long, heavy worded nutshell. Forgive any grammar issues or misspellings. Like I said, this is the first "blog" type post I've done in a very, very long time. I did it because it needed to be done. This year has been the most amazing, hard, lonely, beautiful and crazy year of my life. I hope next year is just as fucking weird. Thank you to everyone who has been any part of it. Even if your part is just reading and looking at the stuff I post online. I need all the support I can get! Thanks for reading, especially if you got this far.