Mmmm. Travel…

Because it’s more fun than thinking about the slightly depressing Mom-related thing I just finished doing, i will now think about travel.

I decided last night that I’m going to New York for Spring Break. It’s been more than a year, so it is way past time. It’s still relatively inexpensive in early March–although not as cheap as in January–and the climatological odds are more in my favor. So yeah. New York. I may run into streamlined ska librarians, craft beer bars in Jersey, and klav kalash with all the trimmings. It’ll be fun. Maybe I’ll actually get the pictures from last year’s trip posted before I go.

And I found out today that I have to be in the Bay Area the last week in June to present at the RBMS Pre-Conference in Oakland that’s held just before ALA. I’m not wild about the destination, but I’m planning to do what I need to do in SF and environs and then get the hell out of there and head for either Los Angeles or Seattle. This should be shortly after I submit my tenure portfolio, so I imagine I will be very much in need of a significant vacation at that point.

I also might drive down to Charlotte to go to IKEA and hit some thrift stores tomorrow but that’s not nearly as exciting, I guess…

No…seriously?

Every once in a while, I check to see what my old hovel might rent for now that San Francisco has moved one step beyond into the era of super, cartoonishly ridiculous rents. Apparently, a unit in my old building (they were all pretty much identical) was on the market just last month for the princely sum of $3200/month.

$3200.

If you’ve ever visited the place, you understand just how laughably insane I find that number. In 1992, I thought it was a little overpriced even for San Francisco at the time, at $800. When I moved out in 2005, rent control had limited the increase to about $935. At the going rate of inflation in the US, it should be renting now for around $1400.

But no.

$3200.

I rather liked my old landlord and I’m glad he’s raking in the money. I imagine there have been some renovations since I left.

But damn.

$3200.

Maybe I should’ve bought property there. It’s not like I’d have to live in it or anything.

The next half century

So yeah, I’m fifty now.

I get mail from the AARP. I have abandoned the coveted 18-49 demographic. I’m sure there are places that would already extend me a senior citizen discount. And I’m now officially eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which means I can finally get tax breaks for any façade restorations that would return me to my original appearance. I’m pretty excited about that last part.

Now, a la Buzzfeed (or High Fidelity) here are my ten most unexpected things about hitting the half-century mark:

1. First and foremost, there have been times I didn’t even expect to be here.
Over the past fifteen years I’ve fought off thyroid disease, cardiac issues related to that thyroid disease, cancer, and a pretty crippling depression. I smoked for twenty-five years before quitting in 2003. I had some pretty significant non-medical stresses as well. I lived through it all and I fully intend to continue doing so.

2. I didn’t expect to be living in Greensboro and really didn’t expect to be living in the house where I grew up.
I didn’t expect still to be living in San Francisco either so at least I got that part right. Would Greensboro be my first choice of residence? Probably not. But I’m pretty happy here. I’ve carved out a good life, I live in a reasonably nice house, I have a job that I love (more later), and my low expenses allow me to travel to places I enjoy pretty frequently. Greensboro works for me on many levels. Related: I also didn’t expect to have become such a neat freak.

3. I didn’t expect to have become one of those people who–without fail–brings my own bags to the grocery store.
Those people used to really annoy me for some reason. But when I (1) started paying close attention to how fucking many bags there were in my house and (2) began shopping at Aldi a lot, which (3) got me in the habit, I didn’t look back. Hint: The trick is to keep them inside your car rather than in the trunk so you don’t forget.

4. I didn’t expect to be making life and death decisions for my parents.
Enough said. When you have to let your dad die naturally and start having the same conversation with doctors about your mom, childhood is pretty much over. The good (or maybe sad) thing is that I’ve already pretty much said goodbye to my mom. That will make it easier when she “really” goes, right?

5. I didn’t expect to be a librarian and tenure-track faculty member at my alma mater.
This one is pretty much a win all the way round. it took me a hell of a long time but I finally found out what I love to do and what I want to be when I grow up. And I found someone to pay me to do it.

6. I didn’t expect to be single.
Yeah, we’ve covered this ground. After years of thinking I didn’t want love, I found it unexpectedly and wound up in what I thought almost right up to the end was the perfect relationship. Turns out I was wrong. I loved him and I don’t regret most of the time we spent together. I do regret getting out of the “habit” of being single because I’m pretty sure I’ll spend the rest of my life that way–and that’s ultimately for the best.

7. I didn’t expect to have reconnected with so many old friends.
That’s a big win too. Being coupled often isolates introverts from their friends as we have only so much ability to be social an the partner gets first (and sometimes the only) crack at that. Some old friends, a surprisingly high proportion of whom live in various corners of the state of New York, have made life much more bearable over the past few years. They may all never know quite how much.

8. I didn’t expect The Simpsons to be in its twenty-fifth season.
Come on. Did you?

9. I didn’t expect to have experienced such a rebirth of my interest in music.
I really got out of that whole indie thing for a lot of years. Strangely enough, I think it was my fascination with all things Canadian that got me interested again, first with francophone Quebecois pop and later with the (mostly anglophone) indie bands on CBC Radio 3 and other places. I’m pretty immersed now, I go to shows, and I find a lot of the more disposable 1980s technopop that used to still be a big part of my life long after its “sell by” date had passed to be virtually unlistenable now.

10. I didn’t expect to have experienced such a rebirth of my interest in cities.
This is a big one that makes me happy too. After thirteen years in San Francisco, I was still fascinated by cities but approached them warily. Turns out that either (1) my hatred of SF was the root of the problem and it was geographically specific, or (2) I like visiting cities a lot more than living in them. Probably a bit of both, but now I do mostly urban destinations where I stay in the city rather than the ‘burbs and use transit or my Adidas instead of the car. And I love east coast cities.

And my three biggest random and pithy observations:

I don’t feel fifty. Most people tell me I don’t look it or act it either. I think that’s a good thing. I’m not sure.
Sometime over the past few years, I lost my sense of adventure and of wonder at the world. I’ve found it again. I’m glad.
Rock and roll is better than sex and drugs, and each can exist independently.

Happy birthday to me. Last week, that is.

Nine years ago this week…

…I announced officially that San Francisco was over for me. It came as no surprise to anyone who had been paying attention. I’d made it abundantly clear for several years that I had come to despise the place where I’d once planned to live the rest of my life.

Most of what I wrote at the time still holds true. I don’t regret having lived there and I don’t for a second regret getting the hell out when the time came. I came to know a lot of what now defines me while living there; I was very much shaped by that environment. But nine years after leaving (and three years after my last visit), I still don’t really care if I ever set foot inside the city limits again.

As predicted, it’s LA and other non-San Francisco parts of California that I really miss now, as well as “the lack of overt religion and the cool, foggy weather.” I have, as I’ve mentioned on a few occasions, realized that what I believed was a distaste for urban life was actually just a distaste for San Francisco’s version thereof

It’s interesting that many of my friends there have also left the city. It’s even more interesting that two who remained (my ex and my ex-roomie) were originally among the most vocal members of my circle in their distaste for the place. They’ve both managed to make lives there and good for them. I couldn’t do it.

Life hasn’t been all peaches and cream for me back east, but I stand by my decision.

Smoke this…

This will become more of an issue in coming years as Prohibition falls around the country: Why is it that people who would howl in protest if anyone lit a cigarette within half a mile of them think it’s just fine to smoke pot anytime and anywhere?

I support reform of drug laws. I’m pretty much in favor of decriminalization, legalization, or whatever is appropriate as long as the process recognizes two things: (1) that marijuana is an intoxicating substance that affects things like driving, work, parenting, etc.; and (2) that smoking marijuana is still smoking and should be just as unacceptable in public or other smoke-free spaces as smoking cigarettes would be.

For reference. those of us who don’t do either–while we very well may support drug law reform–would prefer not to be personally exposed to whichever burning substance you’re inhaling today. That’s pretty much the definition of a smoke-free environment. (And yes, at this point I acknowledge that I smoked cigarettes for years and was less than discriminating about where I did so, something for which I am now incredibly sorry.)

I think that’s one of the things that has irritated me so much over the years about marijuana advocates: the smug self-righteousness–especially common in Northern California, where this first became an issue for me and where smug self-righteousness is nearly ubiquitous–that suggests that just because marijuana has been unjustly penalized for years it should now be smoked by everyone, everywhere, whenever the spirit moves. Marijuana is not the “salvation of the world.” It’s just another recreational drug that may or may not have some health benefits for a small percentage of the population and should probably be legal. It’s also one that produces a foul-smelling and harmful cloud of smoke just like cigarettes do when ingested in certain ways.

Ten years after

Ten years ago this weekend, four thousand same-sex couples in San Francisco engaged in what could best be termed as mass civil disobedience. We realized we were making history on some level, but we may have underestimated the impact. I think we all pretty much knew that our weddings would not stand up to the inevitable court challenge but we may not have recognized that we were on the lading edge of what would become a national trend. Ten years later, same-sex marriage is legal in more than one third of the fifty states and is recognized in various ways in several other states. The United States has seen a dramatic shift in public opinion on the issue, and in many ways the conversation began in earnest on Valentine’s Day Weekend, 2004.

Now (as then) I do not see same-sex marriage as the top issue facing homosexuals in America. The fact that employment and housing discrimination are still legal in most of the county remains a far more pressing problem. But marriage is an issue that has facilitated the discussion and has helped to mold public opinion on the issue of equality in all areas. The same-sex marriage debate has made us re-think our own opinions on marriage in general–and made many of us wonder if it is an appropriate option at all. My own take has pretty much always been that I would prefer that government not be involved in marriage at all and that individuals be permitted to enter into whatever sort of consensual familial arrangements and contracts they wish. But I feel strongly that if marriage is an option with benefits for heterosexual couples, it must also be available to homosexual couples.

What a difference ten years can make…

Like it’s 1998

The funny thing about this article is the way it suggests that the wholesale gentrification of San Francisco is a new trend. I could have written essentially the same piece in 1998 just substituting “lofts” for a couple of the “high rise” references. San Francisco has been a lost cause for much longer than the past couple of years.

More random stuff for a Monday night:

Me. Camper Van Beethoven. 10 January in Chapel Hill. I’m not counting on being reunited with my crush.
New York the following week for a workshop followed by a weekend in the city seeing some old friends and soaking up the urban. And the cold. Which is probably why the hotel rooms are all so cheap.
The first ice of the year is a possibility tomorrow morning. My enthusiasm is minimal.

There are eight million stories

My new obsession this week is Naked City. I’ve been recording it off MeTV and now I have this (probably ill-advised) urge to buy the complete series on DVD in November.

It’s no big secret that I’m a sucker for old cop shows, specifically the ones that were shot on location in interesting urban areas, like The Streets of San Francisco (probably the best of the genre), Adam-12, Homicide, Cagney and Lacey, etc. Aside from being entertaining of their own accord, I love that they provide such a time capsule of what these cities really looked like at a specific time in the past, with diners and neon signs and dumpy furniture stores…and not an artisinal cronut stand in sight. It also helps that Naked City seems pretty consistent in its geographical accuracy; when they say they’re at Second Avenue and East Fourth Street, they really are. It’s always kind of a crap shoot on other shows.

Naked City is especially interesting, though, because it aired a good ten years earlier than most of my favorites and during a time when filimg on location was really unusual for a weekly TV series. It also has a sophistication that was lacking in most dramatic series of the time (it shared a creator with Route 66). All of this is making me wonder if it might actually be worth owning. I know you’ll be on the edge of your seats till November so I’ll let you know my decision as soon as possible.

Best roadtrip(s) ever

Twenty-five years ago this week, I was embarking upon what was at that time the most epic roadtrip I’d ever made. My friend Jeff and I ventured northward to New York and ultimately to Boston on a on-week urban odyssey that in many ways changed the way I looked at life and was the start of my urban transformation. Thinking about that trip as I plan a more modest one for this weekend, I decided it was time for a “top five best and most life-changing road trips ever” list. And here they are in chronological order:

New York and Boston (August 1988)

This is the trip outlined above. Jeff and I left in the evening, stopped outside Richmond, and arrived in New York the next day for three or four days at the Hotel Chelsea, which was at the time a quite inexpensive and wonderful option. Then we did three or four more nights in Boston with my friend Margo, after which we drove home with an overnight stop in DC.

Significant aspects:

This was my first non-family trip to New York so it was my first crack at urban nightlife. It was also the trip that made me realize I was a thoroughly urban sort and that my current home in Charlotte didn’t qualify.