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The following online journal entries are from January 1999. They are taken from older version of my website.
"With the start of the new year, I started a new chapter in my life. After living in Maryland and the Washington, DC metropolitan area for twenty-eight years, I decided to make a change, to head for a different horizon, to embark on a great adventure. On January 5, 1999, I boarded a plane for San Francisco. In a matter of hours, I was on different soil and on a new path. Many of the entries from January to March are drawn from my written journal. I hope the best for my journey and I hope you find some pleasure and some power in reading about my travails. Cheers." --from my last website, 1999 |
Saturday. 11:39 AM. I am a little tired this morning. Sarah and I went out last night to The Café. It was a rainy, foggy night -- very typically San Francisco. And I drove. She didn't want to drive. So, I drove her car into the city. My first driving experience in the city. It was fine. A lot like driving in DC. I even kind of remembered my way around. Like DC, we circled in the Castro many times looking for parking. We finally found a spot where Beth said we could park; it was the parking lot of the clinic where she works. The club was okay, again. The music was a bit more fun. Very old house. Screaming woman music. Janet Jackson. Cher. Madonna. It was fun to dance a lot. But, once the bar got crowded, I started to resent people for being so stupid and so shallow. There was very little room to stand much less dance. Again, I think I'm taking the whole SF club scene a little too seriously. And I need to back off and relax a little. I just looked around the club last night and felt totally out of sync. I wasn't a muscle boy. I wasn't a little Asian slender boy. I wasn't a straight-acting, cap-wearing, flannel-shirted frat boy. It is really hard to look at a community and just not see yourself. I need to get back into the mindset that clubs are for dancing and drinking and socializing and nothing else. I don't need to meet Mr. Right or Mr. Right-Now in a club. I have a few of guys who have answered my personal ad through Hotmail and Classifieds2000. They seem like really nice people and I've been emailing them for a while. I don't know if any of them will lead to anything more. I appreciate the opportunity for friendship at least. That definitely is a good thing. Again, building more connections here in SF. I go to see an apartment today. I just applied to get my credit checked. I don't think I have bad credit. In fact, I should have very good credit. I hope the apartment works out. I will then have a place to live by February. That would be most excellent. Tomorrow, I go to El Cerrito. It will be a different city and a different place to sleep. Strangely enough, I've gotten used to being in Pacifica. It will be weird not having Sarah around to bum around with. It will be weird to have to learn the BART system to get into the city by myself. Hopefully, the next two weeks of my pilgrimage to SF will be positive, enlightening, satisfying, and encouraging. I really need some more good stuff to happen in my life.
Sunday. 12:59 PM. It's Sunday. The day is kind of gray and rainy. According to locals, this is January in SF. The temperature isn't cold. It's actually around 60 or so. And the rain isn't very hard. It's very spring-like. According to Sarah, they don't get thunderstorms out here. That's a shame. I love a good thunder and lightning fest. Well, I went to see an apartment yesterday. I wrote all the right people today to wish me good luck on getting the place. Beth, the woman that owns the Pacifica house, referred me to her friend Dave. Dave is 34, gay, HIV+, and used to go to the same CoDA group. (An interesting similarity -- I used to go to CoDA, Co-Dependents Anonymous.) Anyway, Beth called on Wednesday of last week to tell me she had run into Dave at a local coffee house. She works at a clinic right down the street from Dave's apartment. Dave told her that his roommate is moving out at the end of the month. She mentioned to him that I had just moved to the area and was looking for a place to live. In fact, she said that I was a good housemate cause I vaccuumed, cleaned, cooked, baked, and was quiet. So, she called and left me the number to call him. I called Dave and set up the appointment to see the place. I talked to him a bit and he sounded like a pretty nice guy. Saturday was pretty busy. Sarah and I took Laura to the airport. Then, we went down to the Castro. I went to RentTech (my agency) to pick up a credit report to give to Dave. It wasn't ready when I got there. So, we just went to see the apartment. The place is on the corner of 17th and Noe. It's right in the heart of the Castro (the gay district). The rent is unbelievably inexpensive. Dave is a handsome fellow with short hair. He was really congenial and friendly. The room is not large. It's right in the front of the apartment. It has no closet. But, it will have a bed and a little dresser. The apartment is small, old, but has a lot of character. Dave asked me a few questions about my living habits and what kind of person I was. I think it was really positive. I really felt like we connected on some level. He's pretty funky, a little alternative. He has a lot of LPs -- records, records everywhere. His current roommate (whom I didn't meet) is a skater boy. The apartment is pretty sparse. But, it doesn't seem like Dave is a stick-in-the-mud. We are both Tauruses. He's relatively tidy. He's quiet and respectful. He enjoys being home. He has a boyfriend down south, whom he visits from time to time on a month or so basis. So, every now and then I'll have the whole apartment to myself. I told him that I didn't have a job. But, I do have an income coming in from my mother's annuity and my dad will never let me be late on rent. He was glad to hear that I had resources. I think this point will be the only point that will cause some stickling. I told him that I could front three or four months rent. He didn't think that was necessary. He was just glad to know that I had money. The landlord wanted a credit check. So, I told him that I would get one from RentTech as soon as possible and drop it off. I have a really good feeling about the place. It's not the most perfect apartment if you think about it. It's small. It's got no storage. It's in an older building. But, somehow, the place really speaks to me. It makes me feel good. Dave makes me feel comfortable. My instincts tell me that the place is perfect. It is exactly the kind of place that I envisoned myself living in in SF. |
Dave and I talked a bit more. Sarah chimed in every now and then to add some more support. We talked about different things we like to do. I told him what my personality was like, what kinds of things I like doing outside, what kind of job I'm looking for. It's really a good thing that Dave knows Beth and that Beth and he talked about me. I think that will be an excellent positive in my favor. He won't be asking a complete, one-hundred-percent stranger into his house. Afterwards, Sarah and I talked about the meeting. We both felt like the "interview" went very well. In fact, we both feel like the place is mine. I really think that Dave will pick me. It just feels right. I want it so badly. It aches when I think about the place. It just seems so cosmically the right thing for me. Sarah and I went to lunch afterwards. We went to a little diner nearby called Orphan Andy's. We've eaten there before. I really miss Plato's back in College Park. So, this little hole in the wall is just the perfect solution. In fact, it's really good. It's technically a "leather" and "daddy" hangout. But, everyone loves going there. It's open 24 hours and the food is pretty good. I really like their fish and chips. How's this for a movie moment? After lunch, I'm standing outside of Andy's. I was trying to make a phone call on Sarah's cell phone to Nancy. But, it couldn't pick up a signal. We guess all the trolley lines above us produced too much electromagnetic interference. Anyway, I'm standing there and suddenly I hear from behind me, "Don't you go to the University of Maryland? You're supposed to be in Maryland!" I turn around and there are two young women standing there looking at me. One woman says, "Yeah, I know you. You're friends with John." I say, "John?" She says, "Yeah, John, who went to Roosevelt." I think and answer, "Oh, you mean Gia-ninh." She nods, "Yeah. I've met you a couple of times. What are you doing in San Francisco?" I told her I just moved to the city. I don't remember her name and I don't remember even meeting her. But, it was an interesting chance encounter. Actually, I was wondering when I would run into someone I knew. It's a small world. And stuff like that happens to me. I took it as a great sign that my karma was in sync. Things are happening that are magical. Coincidences, to me, are always magical things. How many different variables, possibilities, events needed to be just right for me to run into that woman? I think it sheds a good light on the apartment situation. Well, we go back to the rental office. I get to RentTech and my credit report isn't done. They messed up. So, I stay to get it done and they run it right away. So, in a matter of fifteen minutes, I get my report. I open one of them just to check myself. I've never gotten a credit report on myself. Fortunately, my credit is very good. So, we walked an unopened copy to Dave's apartment. I think my earnestness will show Dave that I'm serious about the place. He said that he was going to make a decision pretty quickly. He didn't want to draw out the process too long. So, I might know as soon as tomorrow. I hope so. I really want this place. I really want this place. I really want this place. I'm moving to El Cerrito today. It will be an interesting adjustment. I just got used to living here in Pacifica. But, I need to get out of here. So, hopefully, I'll go to El Cerrito for two weeks. If I get the apartment, then I'll move in February 1. Hopefully, I'll find a job soon. That's the next thing after getting a place to live. I want the apartment so badly. It will be a good place to start from. I'll be right downtown. Within walking distance to every place I like going. It's only three blocks from The Café (which Sarah and I have decided will be our regular haunt). It's a few blocks from a couple of laundromats, a couple of coffee houses. It's only six or seven blocks from Bravo Café, in the Mission, which is the place I really like. There is Muni station right nearby. And the BART station is not that far either. It's just excellent. I have been praying to all my higher powers. I want the apartment. I hope I get it. I'm crossing my fingers. On a different note, Sarah and I went out to The Café again. After getting back from doing all the apartment stuff, we just laid around the Pacifica house. We had a little dinner. We were supposed to go to Bravo Café to see Tobie before we went out dancing. But, we got out of Pacifica late and didn't feel like finding parking for Bravo and then finding parking for the club. So, we just went to the club instead. Dennis, a guy who answered my personal ad, had invited me to go to PollyEsther's -- a big, chain of clubs that specializes in 70s and 80s music. I wanted to go but it was located in the heart of downtown (meaning parking is near impossible) and the cover was going to be high. So, Sarah and I just went to The Café instead. I had a better time last night than I did on Friday night. We both danced a lot. It was good. We talked to a couple of people. Sarah was doing better at chatting people up than me. It is still an interesting phenomenon as to why people don't approach me. I can't figure it out. Sarah can't figure it out. In fact, most of my friends that have ever gone out with me can't figure it out. I just don't know what it is. I look around the club and I see people who are of the same attractiveness as myself. They are with people. So, if it's not my appearance, then what is it? I am still the only punk, multi-colored hair boy in the whole place. Maybe that's it? I don't know. It's a little exasperating. Anyway. I'm just trying to keep myself from building too much expectation behind the whole apartment thing. But I want it so bad. I really do. |
journal
© 2001 Edmond Y. Chang. All original material. All rights reserved.
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