Wasn't sure I was even going to continue the blog what with EVERYTHING being different.  What's everything you ask?  Good question. 

1.  I'm in CA now
2.  I'm single-ish
3.  I'm not in school anymore
4.  I'm back working in computers

How's that?  Enough for you?  Here's a little bit on how we got here.

I stopped going to school two weeks before the end of last semester.  Just woke up one morning and thought, "no, I don't want to do this."  I'd just registered for fall classes, 5 of them, and had yet to be inspired by a rather dull library project we'd been given.  In fact, that entire last semester sucked my ass in studio.  The professor was boring, the class was disinterested and the work was just tiresome.  Probably was a bad idea to start the semester stoned every day for the first month, but that added challenge was really the only part that was making it at all interesting.  I don't know what changed, but I know that I'd had enough of losing my weekends and nights (days I'm used to not having) and the thought of three more years of this just to make less money than I was making at 21 was really unappetizing.  So yeah, I stopped going.  I still got a C+ in studio for an unfinished project... the same grade he gave to peple who presented.  So that's how bull shit all that was.  Nonsense.

Having stopped going to classes I decided I should go out and fool around and waste time in general.  My relationship was already strained from me really never being there, not having any money to do anything fun, and the general sense of distance that had been gathering over time.  Our relationship had become like dust on knicknacks you placed years ago and forgot about but see every day.  We were in the same house but never together, our conversations had regressed to roommate speak and as had been the case for almost two years, we weren't having sex.  Not a good recipe for making a happy relationship, or even keeping something to salvage for later.  The 20 years between us had become greater as the honeymoon ended and as I was changing/growing/reverting to adolecense by returning to school.  No matter how old you are when/if you go back to school you still manage to have some of the symptoms of when you're 18 and in school for the first time.  You fuck up, you change, and if you're with someone who's not doing the same thing as you, you lose something of what you had before.  We parted on good terms and I wish mannimal the best.  Nothing more to say on that right now.

With my relationship now over and school something I was on the fence about I knew I would at least have to get a part time job to afford a new and shitty apartment.  The prospect was not appealing.  I woke up the next morning and thought, "hey, I have a family and friends back in CA and there's nothing holding me to NYC right now.  Let's give SF a shot and make a fresh start."  This meant moving home with my parents initially until I got a job, picking up my life and possessions and heading across the country.  There was the thought of driving cross country, but pricing and timing didn't work out, so it was a moving truck and an airplane that got me here.  Not so romantic, but it got me here.

My folks went out of town for two weeks the week after I arrived so I actually got some time to myself.  Nice.  Spent that time smoking pot, hanging out with friends, and having a bit of a relax.  I'd set up some interviews for when I got there and one looked promising, but it was for a consulting firm and I hated the idea of consulting.  They offered me the job but low-balled me on salary (apparantly school lowers your net worth in the short term, go figure) so I told them to lick my balls.

So finally on one of my latter rounds of craigslisting and after another couple offers that didn't pan out I got fast-tracked on this job requisition for an IT Manager for a non-profit in SF.  Took the job and have fallen back into the grind of work pretty easily.  The pay's less than what I would like, but it's passable and it's a start.  It's also a really great organization so what I've lost in salary I've more than made up for in social cachet and good karma.  It's great.  I do my job like any other and never actually have to deal with the homeless other than to walk through them on my way in.  I get to support the people who have devoted their lives to the unwashed masses of SF.

And what a huge f'ing mass they are.  With so many organizations here set up to do good and right by the indigent and working poor, not to mention a climate perfectly suited for vagrency, SF is a shit hole of homeless.  I'm just saying, they outnumber the pidgeons, and there's a lot of those as well since they take the bread we give them and feed the damn birds.  Oy.

So my first three weeks were spent commuting from SR down to SF by SUV.  Everything I ever wanted to not be a part of, car culture, shit commutes, wasting gas, increasing my carbon footprint... all at once.  My newly found karma was being lowered by the number of baby seals I was clubbing just to get down here.  So I started craigslisting again, this time to interview for my nights and weekends, ie, a roommate share.

Now I figured I'd be a good candidate for a roommate.  I now had a good job, I'm funny, I'm only partially obnoxious and I'm a great roommate (I think).  Unfortunately, if you're normal and looking for roommates September was just not a good month.  With the housing market going to shit and I'm sure a bunch of college kids beating me to the hipster punch I was runner up a half dozen times to places I was totally ready to jump into.  Fuck.  As great as having no rent can be, the commute was killing me and I was, after all, 29 and living with my parents.

"Have you tried looking at Oakland?"

I'm sorry, but as a native NorCal boy, Oakland has about as much to do with SF as Staten Island does to NYC.  Sure they're in the same area, but they may as well be other planets.  Oakland is where NorCal keeps its dark or foreign people.  Rents are cheaper but you may also get shot if you're in the wrong part of town.  Not that SF's much different in some places, Halloween's canceled this year because someone got shot and killed last year.  Bummer.

Anyway, I swallowed my pride and gave a look.  Huge places, parking included, close to BART... um, maybe I'm not so hip as all that.  Besides, when I switched my craigslisting from roommate hunting to apt hunting the results were just as bad.  50 people looking at shitty 2br's with 1 small bath and sucking it up that their rents were about $500 more than what the places were worth.  Sorry, but location's just not that key for me.

I ended up in an area of Oakland called Jack London Square.  It's kind of like a second city DUMBO.  It's a warehouse district near the historic part of town that's undergone and undergoing a residential urban renewal.  I got a 1200sqft 2br 2ba for within my budget and they threw in a month free rent as an incentive.  Got my IKEA on and thanks to the friend who helped me find the place in the first place furnished the place on the cheap with stuff that looks great.

One more craigslisting (fucking hell).  This time for a roommate.  Now the shoe was on the other foot and I would get to do the interviewing.  Now I assumed that there'd be tons of responses, but not so.  Enough people feared the Oaktown that my responses were slim.  Then, when hope had started to wane, came a recent MIT grad PHD girl making nuclear bombs in Livermore to save the day!  She turned out to be very sweet and I'm very happy I made the offer to her, so the living situation is all taken care of and getting put together.

So while work is working and home is being put together I'm also out having the occassional drink.  Man cannot live on Trader Joe's alone.  I had started myself dating over the summer, but nothing serious.  My heart was just not ready for anything new.  I still miss and missed my now ex husband, but I'm glad we decided to move on.  Still, if I was going to get my life as a whole back on track that would involve going out and meeting people and reestablishing a social network.

The guy who introduced me to Oakland was someone I was kind of dating, but there were too many similarities in personality between him and my ex, only my ex had done them all so much better and this new guy needed some training and was getting really posessive and not all that kind as a boyfriend, so we drifted a bit.  I went out one Friday after work and met this great group of guys and took specific interest in one.  We've been dating about six weeks now and it's good.  I don't know where it's going because I'm still not ready to date, but this one's really sweet and has been great about introducing me to a lot of things here in the city, so my social network is rapidly expanding.

Beyond dating (which I don't really want to talk about right now) I'm taking rowing lessons at the lake a few blocks away from me.  Been wanting to learn how for a long time and am really enjoying it.  There's also a gay rowing club I want to join once I get through the lessons.  I'm also really wanting to get a kilt which is totally unrelated, but something I tried on at Folsom and have decided I simply must get in a few months.  Next year when I'm a little more settled in my finances I want to take some smithing classes at this place down the street that offers classes in blacksmithing, glassworking and fire eating.... how cool, right?

So I'm not quite fixed in my own head, but I'm making progress in many directions and working through what wasn't working out for me in NYC in my own time and in my own way.  Figured I'd get back into blogging because shit still amuses me and hopefully will amuse you as well.