I really don't know where to start. Wait a minute, yes I do. My freakin' car broke down in SF! I was rounding the final corner to drop my new-found (on craigslist, where else) friend at home, RIGHT on schedule for a pre-5PM ETA to tune into (e:DrChlorine)'s [inlink]radio,76[/inlink] Dance Party Mix-omatic 5000 with time to spare when things went horribly wrong. (Ok, it could have been a lot worse, but the only good thing about having something bad happen to you is you get to melodramatize the story.)

I push in the clutch like I have approximately 5 bazillion times before except this time it's accompanied by a slight yet ominous snapping sound and the pedal doesn't spring back when released. I coast into a mercifully lengthy parking spot thinking "anything really bad would have made more noise than that, right?" Apparently not.

So I had to abandon my car in Bernal Heights. It could have happened at way worse places and times, although somewhere on my side of the Bay and NOT on a holiday weekend would have been nice. But I guess we don't get to negotiate these things.

Anybody know a good mechanic in the city? Maybe I should treat myself to a AAA membership and kick it off with a free tow, if they still do that. Is that considered cheating?

So thank god my ex-roommate answered his phone and not only offered to rescue me but also to loan me his car for the next couple days. I am so lucky. Thanks [inlink]twisted,3[/inlink]Carl!!!

After being briefed on auto-idiosyncrasies, I raced home, tuned into (e:Radio), peed like a race horse like I'd been wanting to do for the previous hour and a half, and things instantly started looking up. Thanks (e:DrChlorine)!

So, my new friend is one of many responders to my posting for a movie watching buddy. (Apparently suggesting I provide the beer while he handles the flicks and remote control was a winning combination.) I could dedicate an entire blog to the responses on this one, and with (e:Paul) not around for the daily dish I just might have to. But not quite yet. Names will of course be changed to protect the perverted - I mean, innocent.

I feel like I'm slowly filling in the blank spots in my life (well, most of them anyway), although it's kind of weird to be segmenting it category by category. But as I wrote in response to another ad in a completely different category, I'm not out to find my "one and only" (although if it happens I'm not going to run screaming either), but I don't want to forgo some of life's pleasures in the meantime.

Uh yeah. We'll see how that one goes.

Welcome to NoCal [inlink]ajay,154[/inlink] (e:Ajay) !

So my ex arrives tonight. He's staying with me until I leave for vacation Monday morning. Yes, I'm going to be on a [inlink]paul,3413[/inlink]boat. Before you get any crazy ideas, it's a 50' sailboat where 11 members of my family (9 adults, 2 kids) will basically be camping on water for 7 days. If you've ever been sailing you know what I'm talking about. It works out to $373 per person to charter the boat for 7 days. Which isn't bad for local transportation AND accommodations. We all still have to pay to get there (Antigua), which is a pain in the ass for me, but I'm not complaining. I'm flying to NYC then tagging along with my brother's family (with the 2 kids) the rest of the way, since it's "only" $450 r/t from NYC to Antigua, which isn't bad. Trust me, it works out better that way and I get to spend some extra time with my bro, sis-in-law and nephews.

Can I not just finish one thought without having to defend myself around here?

So, it'll be good to see Mark and I'm about due to have someone make me change the oil in my car and put air in my bike tires and all the stuff he likes to make sure I take care of. And of course he's already made sure there will be some computer-related project while he's here by convincing me I should save money by buying a 300G internal firewire drive and a case that he'll put together and configure for me so he can give me a bunch of stuff he thinks I should have. After an hour and a half on the phone I finally gave in and ordered one of the half-dozen options he emailed me. Don't ask why, it's just what we do.

The only problem is I was hoping to keep him busy with some non-computer project so I can get some more Oracle time in before vaca, but oh well. Maybe he can use the Mac.

I told him he was so lucky because he gets to help me at the neighborhood yard sale on Saturday. Haha! I am really getting rid of all my crap this time. Everything Must Go! I've been very bad about not weeding stuff out every time I move. And somehow after you've moved stuff enough times, you start to think there must be some reason you've kept it this long. Wrong! I've decided I'm treating this yard sale like a memorial service for my stuff. I'll eulogize each piece to the prospective buyer and wish it much happiness in the next life. All leftovers go to Good Will.

Then we have the monthly pot-luck with the gang Saturday afternoon. This month we're having a BBQ at Crown Beach, same time as the sand castle competition. I wanted Alamedalink to enter the competition, but I can't pass up the neighborhood yard sale. Oh well.

Friday is the BFD music mini-festival that I'm going to with now long-time music bud Larry. "E" decided he would go too, even though he doesn't usually do something that size. Mark and his brother Carl might go too. Ha! That would be interesting. My posse might finally outnumber "E's."

Sunday is the Haight Ashbury Street fair, then the Eisley show at Slim's that night. I fly out of Oakland bright and early Monday morning. Should be a fun-filled week! Good thing I don't need to pack much for the boat. As long as I bring everything on my section of the provisions list we'll be fine.

So the first time my family went on a sailing trip my grandfather was our captain. He captained ships throughout World War II, and before that Danish square-rigger merchant ships. I'm sure we were the most motley crew he ever had to deal with, but we all survived sailing the Chesapeake for a week, and even learned how to hoist a sail and set a course.

So we planned our first real sailing trip to the Virgin Islands. Pretty gutsy for a 81-year old to take an untrained crew on the "open" seas. Ok, I think they let almost anybody do it, but I definitely learned a respect for the sea on that trip. My youngest brother was only 6. My other brother (our now "captain") had to leave early to register for classes. We sailed around to the airport side of the island and my Dad rowed my brother ashore, beaching the dinghy for a semi-dry landing. My brother walked to the airport and flew to Philadelphia for a long enough layover that my parent's had arranged for a family friend to meet him at the airport to keep him company. I don't know why I'm remembering all this now. I didn't think all that much of it at the time. Little did I know I might have reason to blog about it years later.

My grandmother came along on that trip, and on several more after my grandfather died and my brother took over as captain. I really miss both of them. I should put a picture here. Maybe if I get enough work done before picking Mark up at the airport in 3 hours. After that, I'm outta here until June 23rd. (Barring any unforeseen mishaps at sea.)

Have fun (e:peeps)!

Maybe it's the "big sister" in me but I can't just sit idly by and listen to all this dating angst without offering up some advice. We all know I'm no authority on the subject, so take it with a grain of salt.

So the fear of rejection thing can be paralyzing if it takes hold. If you let your imagination race ahead to how many ways something can go wrong, that's what you end up projecting. Keep it simple and specific. Make it so s/he can accept or decline without it being a big deal. Something like this:

"Hey, I was thinking of checking out that new coffee shop on Elmwood later on. Have you been there? You want to check it out with me?"

"I'm going to see [new movie title] this weekend. I heard it's pretty good. (Don't forget to give him/her an opportunity to say something here.) You want to go see it with me? It's playing at [the local theater].

"Thank god this week is over. I'm going to go chill with a beer. You want to join me?" (Maybe this one isn't for you (e:Jason).) ;-)

Ok, you may think you're already doing this, but let me point out a few nuances. These are specific (but not too specific) one-time invitations. If she says no, she's not saying "no, I don't ever have any intention of going out with you, you pathetic loser." You may still infer that. But that's not what's on the line here, so just get over it. Now she knows you're interested. Maybe she hadn't thought of you that way. If you give her some time/room, she may start to see you in a different light. She may even ask you out next time. Or you can try it again (remember - simple/specific). If she says no that time I would end with, "Ok - let me know if you want to...(whatever it was) sometime. I'm always up for a (you get the idea)." Then leave it up to her.

I would stay away from "do you want to go out with me some time?" type invitations. I know it seems more open-ended and therefore there's less reason to say "no" unless you mean "no forever." But that is exactly the type of ultimatum you don't want to put to someone on the spot. If they would have said "yes" to that you'll eventually get there with my method. But if they would have said "no" then at least with a specific invitation they're just saying no, I don't want to go to the movies with you this weekend. You see what I'm saying? Give yourself a couple practice swings to test the waters. Don't expect to hit the ball the first time.

Something specific that you're already going to do anyway also leaves a place for the conversation to go if they decline. Very important. She can say "have fun!" and/or you can say "I'll let you know how it is." There, back to normal.

I'll never forget when the guy I sat next to in Social Studies asked me to the prom out of the blue. I mean, we had a good rapport, but I never had any inkling that was coming. I probably should have said yes but I was so caught off guard I made up some excuse. People react weirdly when they don't know what to make of a situation. That I can attest to.

Seems like it's about time for another "E" [inlink]twisted,194[/inlink] installment.

(e:Paul) thinks I should "write the book" on craigslist, since he's been privvy to the odd detail here and there. I'm not qualified for that by a longshot. It's only because I've been out of circulation so long and am jumping into the online casual dating thing at a point where 1) I already have a first-hand historical, perspective on "old-school" dating and, 2) I now find myself living smack-dab in the epicenter of the craigslist-style hook-up scene, that any of this is even noteworthy. To me at least. But what the hell. As (e:Paul)'s flyers say, spotlight your life. Even Thoreau knew that.

Ok, so where was I? Right. So last night I issued my first-ever booty-SMS (as (e:Paul) put it). Oh, I may have skipped a few chapters in the "E" story, but I'm sure you can fill those in. Anyways, I really didn't have high hopes because it was very last-minute and in typical twisted fashion I had downplayed and back-handed the invitation to the point where you'd only pick up on it if you wanted to and if you didn't want to no response was necessary. So anyway, lo and behold he shows up where I am at 11pm, we greet, catch-up and order beers before the rest of the entourage starts to arrive (he rarely travels without one).

So I quickly notice one member of the entourage, an attractive brunette who I've never met before, seems to be with him. At least, she still thinks she is at this point. I'm definitely reading in meaning where I have no idea what's really going on because I didn't line up to get introduced. And I know why I didn't but I don't know why I feel like that. Oh well, I guess I still have some acclimating to do.

Anyway, so much for this installment.

(e:jason) - I think you hit the nail [inlink]jason,143[/inlink] on the head about requirements and restraints. Very insightful.

p.s. - this may have be my new theme song:

Had lunch with my neighbor today. We ran into each other at Burger King (no comment) a few months ago and decided we should make a monthly date of it. We picked 1st Wednesday of the month, but I forgot to call her to confirm this past Tuesday so she thought I forgot about her or was too busy with work. I thought we'd done this enough times I didn't need to confirm. I felt badly - partly because then I had to find my own lunch. Anyway, we had our make-up date today.

She is the cutest little 82-year-old you'd ever want to meet. And she always picks the healthiest thing on the menu and somehow I always seem to pick the least healthy thing. Don't get me wrong, I love healthy food. But apparently I also love unhealthy food. I think it was totally random, but the Centers for Disease Control once called me for a phone survey and the questions were all about how often/recently I had practiced unsafe gastronomy and let me tell you apparently it's lucky I'm still alive.

So she had the vegetable omelette (using Egg Beaters), substituting fresh fruit as the side instead of home fries. I had the eggs benedict (it's not my fault you can't poach Egg Beaters), also choosing the fresh fruit as a nominal nod to health consciousness - or giving in to peer pressure, I'm not sure. I sure was sorry I didn't have those home fries to sop up all the artery-clogging hollandaise later though. The really weird thing is I already had 2 eggs for b'fast. So after four eggs what's a little hollandaise sauce?

Oh - the home of the whopper is not now serving eggs benedict. We decided to go crazy and branch out by going to the local diner where Eunice had a 2-for-1 breakfast special coupon. Which is why we had breakfast for lunch.

I really don't know why I'm posting this. Later.

Welcome "back" (e:Jason).

(e:Paul) and (e:Mike), I'm so sorry for your loss. One of my first impressions of (e:strip) (before I knew anybody here) was from (e:Terry) and (e:Matthew)'s journals about canning tomatoes with your Nonna. That slice of life struck home and sucked me right in. Even though I never met your grandmother, I feel like I know what she what was like from the stories and pictures and even hearing her voice. And seeing how much you love her.

I know how hard it to lose someone who is still full of life. It's much harder for those left behind. But for someone as independent as your grandmother, I can't help thinking how fortunate she was to live such a long, incredible life right up to the end.

It seems weird to be writing this publicly, but since I really only know you and your grandmother through the site maybe it makes sense. Anyway, thanks for sharing your Nonna with (e:strip). It's a privilege to know her.

Hey, (e:Jasonsback), no you didn't come across as dismissive [inlink]jason,134[/inlink] it was just me being overly defensive. sorry.

Of course you would be welcome in San Fran any time. As long as you promise to look me up while you're here. I'm an excellent tour guide.

Ok, afterthoughts. You are absolutely right about banks being "more than willing to give people these huge mortgages." I am living proof of that, having bought my house here and refinanced two years later (30-year fixed both times) with absolutely no documentable income. Ha! I should have bought that 3-family for sure.

Anyway, I also wanted to say my post (below) should NOT be used for financial planning purposes. It's all philosophical crap with my own real life examples thrown in. I'm the last (e:peep) anybody should look to for financial advice, even though I did learn some good lessons the hard way. Oh, maybe just one tiny piece of financial advice about the mortgage interest tax write-off. That only works if you have an income to write the mortgage interest off your taxes against. So paying mortgage interest, not making any income, and taking a business loss all in the same year = very bad idea.

Ok, well I think I really am done here. And I am so sick of typing these days I'm going to take a vacation from recreational blogging and try to cultivate some friends I might get to talk to in person some day. So the N. Cali contingent will quietly slide into the Pacific now and the rest of the country can heave a sigh of relief and go about your business. Nice knowing you.

Before I get into this, no place on earth is so sweet that you should give up at least half your income just to have a roof over your head.

[inlink]jason,132[/inlink]

Well that's a matter of opinion, since money is meaningless except for what it can get you. (Unless you're into money purely as security, that is.) Only you can decide what you want to spend it on, though. I don't see it as such an absolute. For instance, would it be worth it to you to cut whatever you spend on housing now in half by moving to South Dakota?

Anyway, the smartest financial move I ever made was to buy my first house (a two-family for $144k in Medford MA) which seemed like a huge stretch at the time. I got a first-time buyer loan where I only had to put 5% down and could add 75% of the projected income from the rental unit to my actual income to qualify. That scared the b'jesus out of me. But I quickly rented the downstairs apartment to the bonny Sullivan brothers and even carried them for more months than I care to admit when they ran into financial trouble. And the tax break I got on mortgage interest brought my actual housing costs down close to what I had been throwing away in rent. Instead of throwing money away that house turned into the best savings plan I could have picked.

The (second) dumbest financial move I ever made (let's not get into the first dumbest) was to NOT go through with buying the 3-unit Victorian on Haight Street when my offer was accepted the same day I got laid off a mere seven months after transferring to San Francisco. I played it safe and invested my real estate nest egg in the more conservative option - my little California bungalow here on the island hideaway of Alameda.

I guess I could have been even dumber and not bought into the market then at all, given all the uncertainties. Really played it seemingly "safe" and continued to subsist in the rent-controlled flat I shared with two other roommates. You can live pretty cheaply if you can get into a rent controlled apartment where at least one tenant has been on the lease a long time. I was paying $503/month to share a 2-bedroom 2-bath full floor Victorian flat with two fireplaces, double parlour (the master tenant's suite), living room, kitchen and sun porch with two other roommates. I was the only one with a "real" job. Until I got laid off, that is. Move to California, become a degenerate. ;-)

Wait a minute, this isn't the story I wanted to tell! Where was I? Oh yeah.

So there are a whole lot of factors involved in the cost of living comparison, many you have no control over (property taxes, for instance). It doesn't pay to get hung up on whether the things you can't change are right or wrong. It is what it is, just factor it into the equation and decide if the resulting scenario is worth it to you or not. Trying to nickel and dime every piece of the equation as if you could plug them in somewhere else might be interesting but in the end we only get to live in the real world, unfair as it might be. I learned that the hard way.

What can I say, I'm really not trying to talk anybody into anything. I just know I spent way too much of my life deliberating over things that in the end were not important. I'm also old enough to really know my time is limited. And for me, waking up every morning in a place where the weather is typically a joy not a battle, I have 450 miles of Bay trail and the Pacific ocean in my back yard, a city that is an international tourist destination across the Bay, local fresh produce year-round, cultural diversity, great housing stock, liberal, creative, individualistic friends and neighbors - that to me, as the credit card commercial puts it, is priceless. But that's just me.


View of the city, the ocean, the wilderness from Marin Headlands approximately 35 minutes from my house.

Too bad I'm not a better photographer. Maybe (e:Matthew) can come out and take some pix that will do the area justice. I'm officially retiring as Bay Area promoter.

The 2BR 1BA house [inlink]ajay,351[/inlink] next-door to mine just went on the market for $549k. ;-)

I don't know why nobody's heard of Alameda - it's only 14 miles from San Francisco and 39 miles from San Jose. It's not exactly cheap here, but it is somewhat insulated from the feeding frenzy. Catching up fast though. A good earthquake would fix that. (Doh!)

Another creative solution is to go in with another party to buy a two unit building together and form a tenancy in common. That's become very popular out here lately. There's even a website to help match you up with potential partners. I've thought about it as a way to buy in the city, but it's bad enough I'm pseudo-dating complete strangers maybe buying a building together would be going too far. Personally I'm all for starting an

e:commune

and getting a few (e:peeps) to go in on it. About 24 of us should do it. ;-)

On another topic, here's what should be happening tomorrow:

I should be taking advantage of the free ferry ride for bike commuters on bike to work day and meeting (e:j3sse) at our old work place at 101 Pine Street with just enough time for a cuppa at Torrefazione Italia before catching the premeire of Episode III at the Metreon then lunch at that hole-in-the-wall Thai place I can never find without him, effectively turning bike to work day into play hooky day. But somebody had to move to Buffalo. Oh, and we both got laid off. Doh! Ok, I'm done with this post.

Oops, one more thing - I'm supposed to see Episode III with "E" [inlink]twisted,194[/inlink] on Monday. His company is treating everybody and they can take a friend. I haven't heard from him in almost 3 days though. Maybe we 'broke up' and he forgot to txt me, haha. Or maybe he's just busy getting ready for E3 on Thursday. In any case, I guess playing hooky two days would have been a bit much. But I still think that's what should be happening.