Breaking the Loop

I have experienced a shift in perspective on living in San Francisco. It came with the gradual trickle-in of a few friends, the anticipated arrival of spring, and a potent cocktail of melatonin and 5-htp giving my receptors a warm fuzzy. The fierce loathing and paranoid anxiety died down and what was left behind was bland exhaustion. Newfound "positive" attitude notwithstanding, an opportunity to jump ship came; watch my cannonball!

Initially, I felt some reticence in leaving San Francisco after not quite a year; I thought that maybe I would lose something by a sudden discontinuation of my daily routine (even though my routine filled me with despair and gave me weekly migraines). I was afraid that I hadn't yet learned the lesson, hadn't yet discovered the "reason" for my being in San Francisco, and felt if I left before some oracle divulged it to me then I would be doomed to repeat the cycle of working as a secretary and living in sub par apartments with too many guys on an endless loop. I've been in the new place, a studio I share with just James in Davis, for a little over a week, and can already see that all my reasons for staying in San Francisco as long as I did were motivated by either pride or fear. Oh, and I learned my lesson after all! Of course, it was stupidly simple and I wish I didn't have to have such a crap time in order to get it.
I came up with it myself. It is:

QUIT DOING THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE.

I will miss my SF transplant friends, La Mediteranee, Outerlands, The Painted Bird, Golden Gate Park and The Presidio, but with this move I got myself back-- a worthwhile trade. Maybe some day I will go back once I'm sure there's no danger of me trying to move in with a bunch of 22 year old dudes, work front desk jobs, or otherwise look to punish myself in any way.


Me with Goethe in GG Park in my mom jeans, our last weekend in SF