Category: Home and Domesticity

Irma and the Kids

Great. In March, I lose the roomie and get the place to myself. By April, I’ve already found that elsusive soulmate (hanging around at the Home Depot in Colma, as it happens) and moved her into my home. With her whole damned family…

This is Irma. She watches over me from the window of my office. You might say that Irma inspires all my work. Or then again, you might not…

 

These two live in the kitchen. They do not have names yet. Irma has offered to allow Planet SOMA’s faithful readers to name them. Irma, however, is a control freak and reserves the right to ignore all submissions she hates.

 

More kitchen kids. The two smaller ones also have no names. The older one hanging from the ceiling is Cecil. He likes hanging from the ceiling. I think it’s sex thing. I also think Cecil and Irma are seeing each other behind my back.

30 April 1999

I have a confession to make. I was not completely honest about Irma, the new love in my life, in Wednesday’s journal entry. The truth is, when Irma moved in, she brought her entire family. Please forgive this lack of forthrightness.

See pictures of Irma and the kids.

Should be an interesting weekend when Erik visits my increasingly-crowded apartment. You may remember Erik from such road trips as Minneapolis 1998 and Las Vegas 1998. I hope he won’t be jealous. And I hope he brings me some Count Chocula.


Erik in Pirate Country

In other news, Dan has informed me that Tad’s Steaks on Powell Streets will be closing at the end of June. I’m pretty pissed, because this is one of my favorite dives in the entire city. The rumor is that it will be replaced by yet another trendy pasta joint. Just what San Francisco needs…

Look for a farewell review of Tad’s soon. And look for an epitaph for all remaining reality and grittiness in San Francisco soon afterward. The mochafrappuchinozation of the city continues unabated…

Now I’m off to visit the Smog Check people as I’ve procrastinated my car registration into a minor crisis.

Meet Irma

OK…I admit it. I sat here and watched the entire “Patty Duke Show” reunion movie. It was silly. It was hokey. It was just plain stupid. And still I watched every damned minute of it.

I need a new hobby.

Apologies again for my lack of wordiness lately. I’ve been working a lot and frankly I haven’t been really excited at the prospect of spending even more time in front of the computer.

And there’s someone new in my life. Someone who will stand by me in times of need without questioning my moods or my decisions. Someone who will wait by the window until I get home. Someone who will offer me not only companionship, but also life-giving oxygen.

Meet Irma:

Look for us to start sharing our exciting and environmentally sensitive adventures together very soon.

Happy Birthday, Jeff


1985: Jeff at age 6

My friend Jeff in North Carolina turns 20 today. That’s the age he’s giving. Who am I to argue? I’ve only known him since 1980, so I can’t really say for sure. A big old “happy birthday” anyhow, despite the fact that Jeff opted to pass the milestone in Myrtle Beach rather than San Francisco.

So I’m working my butt off this weekand finding very little time to do much with the site.

For those who are following closely, I have finally moved all the relevant phone lines and moved my office into its new home (thanks to Dan for the assist). Aside from the fact that I can now avoid working by looking out the big bay window, I can also hear it when the trash truck comes.

Ooops.

Having just returned from running my trash downstairs in my bathrobe, I’ll continue babbling about nothing now. OK…maybe I’ll babble about the cute garabage man who let me throw the bag into the truck all by myself. He smiled at me. Awww…

Mistake of the week: frozen chopped collards. Fear them.

Disappointment of the week: no flowers on Secretaries Day.

Frightening sight of the week: the phone tree in my basement as I tried to figure out what line went where.

Furniture and Beer

I’m re-furnishing my house courtesy of Sarah and Brad. So far I’ve added the coolest butterfly chair in the world as well as a drafting table. They’re great…sort of like a surrogate aunt and uncle. Except that they’re both younger than I am. And they have cooler stuff than my aunts and uncles.

Strangely sociable weekend. Went to Jack’s in the Mission Friday night to see Rae and Michael as they visited from Portland, along with Dawson, Paula, Shawn and two other very nice people whose names I now do not remember. There are more pictures. They’re not significantly better than the one above. Dark bars do not photograph well.

On Saturday, I had dinner with the ex-roomie and visited my former sofa. The sofa seems very happy in its new home. It has lots of light and a new blanket and a bigger TV. It also has an adjacent futon with which to pass time during the day. It’s a happy sofa indeed. Dan seems pretty happy too.

Randomly Saturday

Random thoughts generated by a short attention span on a Saturday morning:

  • Eggo frozen waffles really ARE better than store brands.
  • Obsessively cleaning one’s apartment for the first time in over six years can result in the discovery of a surprising amount of money.
  • Supposing I wrote stories about what a hot college jock I am. Think I could make any money selling my dozen recently-unearthed pairs of old shoes at one of those foot fetish sites?
  • Some idiot just called me (on the phone) trying to “get the website for San Francisco city guides”. I have no idea what he was talking about. I have even less idea how he got my number.
  • Does anyone remember the mystical and magical show called “Night Flight” which used to run on the USA Network before said cable channel became flat out useless?
  • Speaking of the old videotape I’m watching from 1988: does anyone else find it a huge injustice that Dusty Springfield will never sing again but that the Pet Shop Boys probably will?
  • I am convinced that the lead singer of the New Radicals does not really sing. He’s merely an adorable boy who’s lip synching to previously unreleased World Party songs.
  • Will I ever have a boyfriend who has a washer and dryer in his home?
  • One more time: why does it cost 25-50 cents more to sell a gallon of gas in northern California than anywhere else in the country (or even the state)? And why is milk twice as expensive here in the largest dairy-producing state? And why is it impossible to buy a decent tomato here?

My New Old Home

Today’s revelation: moving sucks, even when you’re not the one moving.

Actually, Dan got out in near-record time, with a big boost this morning from his mom and dad who probably would rather have spent their vacation in San Francisco doing something else.

Now all that remains is the fallout. This is a great time to do things like completely vacuuming all the floors for the first time since 1992. I need to rewire some phones. I need to get an additional line installed. And I get to sort through all my collected crap as I decompress it to fill more space.

And a sofa and some chairs might be nice…

I’ve already reclaimed the kitchen, even though I have plenty of skillets and cake pans but not a single saucepan. Last night I mopped parts of the floor I’d never even seen before. I’ve cleaned up all the strange 60’s dishes I’ve been picking up in thrift stores and keeping in the basement until I had room for them. I’ve moved the crock pot out of the cabinet.

All in all, I think everything will work out OK, although the whole thing still feels a little weird.

Living Alone

Wow. As of Thursday, I’ll be living completely alone for the first time in almost ten years. This is a strangely creepy feeling, although I didn’t really expect it to be.

For those of you who just joined the saga, I’ve had the same roomie for pretty much the entire 6 1/2 years I’ve lived in San Francisco. He’s buying a house, and I’m too damned cranky to break in someone new at this point in my life. Prior to moving here, I’d “re-nested” with Mom and Dad in Greensboro for three years while I went back to school.

Which means, again, that this is my first time completely alone since I left Charlotte in 1989. I’ve always preferred living on my own. I’m just a little bit out of practice.

For the next few weeks I get to deal with all the minor irritants like getting the utilities switched over to my name, and passing around my new phone number. I have to buy pots and pans and some more dishes, which is a shame since I have a lot of them in storage back home. I have to get a sofa and a desk, and a few lamps. I’ll be losing one of my favorite ashtrays.

The big benefit, of course, will be all the extra space. I’ll be able to store things. I’ll have an actual office and a guest room (sort of). I’ll be able to walk around the house in my skivvies. I’ll be able to watch porn with the volume turned up without fear of embarrassment. Should I ever have sex again, it can be really noisy sex involving multiple rooms.

It’ll be strange, though. I’ll keep you posted…

At Age 34 1/2

Seven realizations upon hitting the ripe old age of 34 1/2:

  1. The minimal lighting in most bars has additional benefits beyond the obvious factor of making all patrons “look better”. The darkness also allows you to pretend you don’t see people you’re avoiding for one reason or another. In addition, it allows you to pretend not to recognize people whose names you may have forgotten. Design feature or happy coincidence? Who knows?
  2. There are no bargains in malls. Ever.
  3. It is much easier to keep the kitchen clean if you wash three or four dishes a day rather than letting them “soak” for three weeks until everything you own is completetly disgusting.
  4. IQ testing might be a great idea for San Francisco drivers.
  5. I will most likely never eat at any of the SF Chronicle’s “Top 100 Restaurants”, and I don’t really feel that I’m missing anything. I’m not inclined to believe that a $25 pork chop is really five times better than a $5 pork chop.
  6. Sunshine and warm weather are tremedously overrated.
  7. I am now resigned to the fact that I will never be featured on an episode of A&E’s Biography. Note to friends and relatives: those compromising photos, videos, and anecdotes will probably never be particularly valuable.

Change Gotta Come

A lot of things on my mind right now. Things that will most likely affect my life for some time to come. Most of them have to do with the basic question of where I should live. Of course, this basic question brings up lots of other, more complex ones, including the ever-present “what should I be when I grow up?” I hate that one…

On the home front, it’s highly likely that my roomie of over six years will be leaving soon. This is a pretty strange thing to contemplate. When you live with someone for six years, it’s almost like a marriage, but without the added drama of sex or snoring issues.

I’m not about to break in a new roomie a this stage in the game. Which means, of course, that if I stay here, I’ll be paying all the rent by myself. I haven’t yet determined if I can really afford this, or if I really want to make the sacrifices (extra work, fewer toys and road trips, etc.) it may require.

But if I move, where should I go? Despite my growing distaste for San Francisco, I’m not sure I’m quite ready to leave the Bay Area. Do I stay here? Do I move across the bay to Oakland or Alameda? More and more I find that I like the East Bay better than San Francisco in many ways. If I’m going to stay here long term, that’s where I want to be.

Or should I just use this as an excuse to get the hell out of here completely? I know I’m going to do so eventually. It seems a little redundant to pack up and move across the bay if I’m just going to move someplace else in another year or two anyway.

And, of course, if I do move someplace else, just exactly what the hell am I going to do when get there? There’s also the reality that once I move out of this rent-controlled place, I’ll never be able to move back into San Francisco.

At the same time I’m excited about having this whole apartment to myself, I’m also scared of the implications. I’m unnerved by the questions forced by the issue.