Tag: apartment

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Response to the Question

Hiya there! Long time no see, although I suppose it is a large town (especially when you live here). Pardon the delayed reaction. There’s been a lot of ups and downs and just upside downs in life of late. Dude. This place is awesome, and it’s only fair, since you asked, I tell you how much.

I live in the Mission. Not the apartment I wrote about awhile ago on The Glot, if you happen to’ve read it. This was a classic dumb-luck good-find. Our landlord practically pushed the place on us, so as a former electricity salesmen in Australia (great job if you like travel but hate money) I naturally thought there was something wrong with it. My roommates lovingly, patiently convinced me that I was being a dumbass and we got it the next day. So far, so good. It’s an old Victorian or Victorian-esque from at least the 1940’s although we aren’t quite sure; that’s just as long as it’s been in the family. It’s aged well. I sleep in a blue heptagonal room on the third floor with bay windows, with 2 grounded outlets and 13 things that require power, with a walled off fireplace that now hosts a gas heater, along with my girlfriend Lynae. We moved in awhile ago and things have been hectic since. I’m getting used to having a quick pace but being raised in the suburbs never can prepare one properly.

By my room there’s a slightly smaller room looking into the “courtyard,” where my other roommates are. Emily, my best friend from college, former punkrawkr and now cosmetologist/wannabe domestic, and her skatepunk/bartender boyfriend Matt are right adjacent. Down the yellow hallway is a pink living room with two orange chairs garnered from moving into a different old house, some 70s lamps from the same cache, and the dreaded television. Let us not speak of it, for it is my sworn… strong dislike. Our kitchen, beyond there, is bigger than you could hope. I found the perfect table on Craigslist FREE the one day I had a Budget rental van. Happened to be the same day I found our FREE washing machine (which actually worked for almost a month). Now it just sits in the washroom/pantry/does-this-go-here room. There’s also a spare room full of junk plus plants. The Venus Flytrap is growing nicely—caught her first ant just the other day. I water them in the mornings, with a half-decent view to Bernal Hill. Rounding out my whirlwind, totally-TMI tour, we have a backyard! Yay! Other people’s dogs poop there. At least there’s a bike rack, and some chairs. The whole place runs us only $1800 a month so between four we’re doing alright.

It’s in the Mission if you wanted to know. S’all for now. There might be a party sometime, but we’re still in negotiations.

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We Have It

We may just have it. I mean, we have it. The apartment. I have in my right jacket pocket a cashier’s check in the amount of $3680 and a contract signed by us, dated today. It’s going to happen. I’m going to live in this town, not just stay in it for an extended period.

A confluence of circumstances has led us to this occasion. This apartment isn’t perfect. Or rather, it’s not perfect for me. I won’t bother writing about the one we didn’t choose. We could’ve. I was persuaded, after Emily and Lynae persuaded me it was perfect for everyone. If this had come a couple days before or after it did, we wouldn’t have had it.

But we have it.

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Critiquing the Viewing of the Dwelling

There are a lot of apartments in this world. Some of them are livable. Lemme tell you what…

There’s a place in the Marina with bay windows and a couple of big bedrooms. Hardwood floors. Private entry. Nice Chinese landlady. View to the bay (just a little). Extra room, almost as big as the bedrooms. Dining room’s gigantic too.

There’s another place in the Mission, on a corner. Got a lot of character and some nice bedrooms, really sunny. Been painted a dozen or more times and we could do the same. Sliding door between the bedrooms. Lots of stuff in the neighborhood, markets and little stores and maybe a crazy-cool neighbor downstairs.

Both places cost the same. They’re both spacious and close enough to public transit. Awesome party houses, if that turned out to be our thing. There are four roommates and we’re split down the middle. Not two and two, but each one of us liking the both of them. We applied to one. The other gets put in tomorrow. How do you decide these things? A coin toss seems somehow inadequate. They’re both good.

Then again, the Mission one is in what some would call “el Barrio.” Those charming taquerias and markets and community parks might harbor gang-bangers at night. The paint is peeling outside and the common courtyard has stained asphalt and a half-dozen neighbor’s windows. Loud music bumped from the place next-door, and I’d assume more of the same. The guy downstairs could just as easily be crazy-crazy. Valencia, the cool street in the Mission, is way farther than I’d like it. I think it’s also possible there’s ten people living next door.

But in contrast, the Marina spot is as boring as a lobotomy. There are enough cool restaurants to shake a toothpick at. A flavorless, bland and splintered toothpick. Union street is close, at several blocks away, and has lots of charming… upscale shops. Every room is ample (and then some) save for the kitchen—which wraps around both the hot water heater and the recycling and the back door and indeed, despite it’s granite-osity, still manages to seem cramped and uninviting. Did I mention that this place is situated on the main highway? Yeah, that’s our doorstep.

I’m not sure if I told everyone who reads this yet: me and three others are currently seeking an apartment in San Francisco. We’ve been living together in a small room on the fifth floor of a hostel in the Financial District, one that now houses a total of six, and we really want to move out by April 1st.

We’re gonna get a cat.

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Moving-its a Process

I’m in San Francisco right now. I’ve been moving to San Fran since last Sunday the 17th. I’ve walked the entire length and breadth of the city, or at least it feels that way. I’ve applied to more jobs than I care to count. I haven’t been laughed at for it. Yet. And although I don’t technically have a job right now, I really am hoping I do. So I’ve started looking around for a place. I started with the internet, and writing out things like this:

About me:
I like things that I find. This has been most apparent in the past, when I lived at CSU Monterey Bay on the old Fort Ord. My rooms were decorated with army lamps, lost art, and all manner of discarded artifacts. They’re never scrapheaps; they’re galleries, with nice lighting and curtains. I like bringing guests into my spaces and so I take care of them.

For those wanting the jist: I’m clean, I have taste (and a decent hobby), and I’m cool enough I don’t make it a big deal.

To be fair I’ll offer some negs, too: I spend too much time on the computer (in the past, anyways). I sometimes get neurotic when things are out of place. I thought I was messy until I had roommates in college, and then I was the clean one with the cool room. I dislike television. I love meat pastries, so vegetarians/vegans have hereby been warned. And I won’t remember anything you tell me upon just waking up.
-from my Roomster.net profile

I’ve written many emails, received none. Am I being too eager? Too honest? Too smarmy? Quite possibly. But Imma keep looking, if for no other reason than because my hostel is a fourth-floor walkup. So I’m going to an open house right now. See you in an hour.

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