Thursday. 4:54 PM. Welcome to July. I have been in San Francisco for six whole months now. Half a year. Technically, according to the deal I made with myself, I can go back to Maryland if I wanted to. I told myself at the start of this adventure that I could bail after six months. But, I had to give it six full months. And now that deadline has been reached. And there seems to have been a stay of execution or maybe a total pardon.

Today, this week, has brought good news. And I hope the energy and the positivity and the prosperity continue to unfold. I am including a letter that I wrote to most of my friends and family about the new changes in my life. The letter is as follows:

Greetings family, friends, and close admirers-- I haven't written an update email in a really, really long time. So, I thought I'd send everyone a warm hello and a bit more news from my corner of the world. I haven't written much mainly because I haven't had a whole lot of new news to tell. The past few months have really been dealing with getting settled, making the transition, discovering the city, and figuring out what I wanted and where I wanted to be. I know that the move was a good one. And I know that I really like SF a lot. I have just been looking for the peace and stability to enjoy what I am doing here. HOME My apartment is great. It's pretty much fully furnished. We're missing a few this-and-thats. And once the details are squared away, I hope to have a little dinner party to christen the place. Our downstairs neighbors are a bit rambunctious at times. But, they don't party too-too often and they've been kind enough to invite us to their weekend bashes. We've been neighborly, but that's about it. I'm not sure how interested they are in getting to know us. We might not be funky enough for them. My roommate Sarah and I are getting along pretty well. We had a couple of ups and downs, but have talked them through. Her girlfriend Tara was in town for about a month-and-a-half. That created some tension. But, we handled it. I was honest with how I felt. They were honest about their feelings. And it ended up all good. Tara returned to school in St. Louis this week. The apartment does seem a bit emptier especially since she took her kitten Sidney with her. I definitely want to get a cat. My poor Ceti, for those you who don't know, is AWOL in Maryland. He got away from my friend's house and is living out Jack London's "call of the wild." I tried to adopt a really great black kitty from the SF SPCA. But, I need express permission from my building to get a cat. I really don't want to go through the hassel. So, I'm looking to adopt privately. We'll see what happens. PEOPLE I have a very small circle of acquaintances right now. One group is the Wednesday night "happy hour" crowd, which we met through on of Sarah's co-workers. We go out to a different bar almost every Wednesday for a few drinks, talk, and maybe a bite to eat afterwards. We've also been invited to several BBQs and dinner parties with the Wednesday group. It's all very unreal sometimes -- like an episode of thirtysomething with pale ales and grilled swordfish. But the company is fun and interesting. I also have a rag-tag group of usual suspects that I see from Espresso Bravo, the coffee house near my apartment. A lot of them come and go and only fate and the lure of caffeine ensure that we run into each other. I get to know mostly the people that work at the coffee house. Many of the people have moved on to other things. A few have remained in contact and I get to see them every now and then. Finally, I have met a few people from online. Hey, it's the 90s. A handful are folks that live in the bay area who use the same talker (kind of like an antiquated predecessor to a chat room) called Paradox (telnet talker.com 4040). And a handful are people who answered my personal ad. So far, no one has become a best friend. But, time will only tell. I hope to meet some people with similar interests. I'm especially eager to find some role-players so I can start gaming again. I really miss that whole community thing. Two people from back East have visited me thus far. My friend Maggie (from the Northern Virginia crowd) was here for a conference for work. She and I hung out, went to dinner, walked around, and even ventured out one night to a gothic/darkwave night at a bar called Big Heart City. The night was gruesomely called "Danse Macabre." It was alright. It was interesting to see the differences between East Coast goths and West Coast goths. There definitely wasn't the mixing of subcultures that we got in DC. Maggie and I had a fun time stirring things up. And, recently, Scott (from my gaming group) visited a week ago. He was originally on a hike from Mexico to somewhere up north. But, he had to cut his trip short due to bad knees. He stopped in Los Angeles. He called me and drove up from LA to visit me. He and his friend Stu and I did a few toursity SF things like Pier 39, Ghiradelli Square (great ice cream and chocolate...awful, hateful, evil lines), the Presidio, Fort Point, Golden Gate Park, and Twin Peaks. It was really good to see him.

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