What Goes Around Does So Because It Is Strapped To A Car Roof
I arrived in San Francisco in speedy fashion yesterday, after pausing to take the photo on the bottom in my mother's car port before I left. It would've been a better picture, but although my camera still takes photos, the LCD, you may recall, was smashed by a roller coaster, so I couldn't preview it.
But there you have it: the trike, once again traveling via car roof. Oddly, there seem to be more insects in California than along the New York-Maryland corridor. In May, the trike rode all that way with a minimum of splattage; yesterday, the mesh seat back and even the frame got a nice coating of bug protein.
And, once more, I am in an small Econolodge room. I have to open the closet and roll the trike partway inside it in order to sit at the desk, and this is the dingiest example of this particular motel chain I've stayed in. But I wasn't willing to go the "residence hotel" route without first checking out the hotels in question, as they can be the abode of freaky junky psycho killer child-molestin' wackos. In my wanderings today, I found myself at the intersection of Sutter and Larkin, which is where one of the hotels I found via craigslist is located. I had the phone number on my GPS, so I called, and Chris, the resident manager, showed me around the place. Rough around the edges, to be sure, but Chris had a good vibe and was concerned with keeping the freaky junky psycho killer child-molestin' wackos out. The neighborhood seemed decent enough. The rooms with private baths were all taken, so I'll probably finish out my stay here at the Econolodge, and see about staying at the other hotel between Thanksgiving and Christmas, or after the New Year if I haven't turned up a sublet or something else.
The effort of all this is interesting...sure, I moved to New York, but that was a gradual process. In New Jersey, I started in Lawrenceville, then moved north to New Brunswick, then further north to Jersey City, just across the water from Manhattan, and then finally to Astoria in Queens. I could job- and apartment-hunt easily. Here, I'm all on my oddy-knocky in a city I don't live anywhere near, with the bulk of my possessions three thousand miles away. It's a different game.
But the debilitating anxiety that often whomped me when I stayed in motels during my trike trip hasn't appeared. Many cups of chamomile tea helps, of course, as does an absence of caffeine and alcohol. But the primary difference is, obviously, situational. I'm getting to know a new city, trying to bring down Big Change upon my life through acts of Will! I spent the morning doing jobhunt-related tasks, and trying to understand why so many staffing agencies do not comprehend the phrase "I am looking for projects in San Francisco only." When it was time to get outside, I spent the afternoon hoofing it around town, learned to eat udon with chopsticks, and eventually happened upon the aforementioned residence hotel. This was a good and serendipitous thing, because my To Do List includes seeking out the hotels I'd found on craigslist to see whether they'd be viable options. At $184 cheaper per week than the Econolodge, I'd say that the one I toured today certainly is. I'll check out the others later on.
Finally, I wrote 1,600 words of my NaNoWriMo attempt last night, which is 1,000 fewer than I'll need to average per day if I'm going to meet th 50,000-word target by November 30. But it was fun, and I'll try to do it again this evening.
And that's all I've got to say about the things I've said.
