Unpacked

Finally I have some before and afters of the new apartment to show you. We are about 90% unpacked and about 15% decorated. Please excuse the massively naked wallspace and the unfilled squares of our new book shelf.

The apartment started out a mess. As most just-moved-in-apartments do. Except this time we had guests! Joy! And we lived by maneuvering around stacked chairs and towers of boxes - that I did not do a good job documenting, for about two weeks. Gross.

But now, thankfully, wonderfully, the apartment looks like this:

The kitchen table was the table we had while I was growing up. It's been in storage for about 8 years and I was super stoked to use it once again. Unfortunately the top got a few huge scratches on it during transit, but the yellow tablecloth makes me pretty happy too. The living room rug was an awesome Target find. It blended Kamel's need for neutrals and my need for Bam! Wow! Shizam! And of course my beloved couch that cost 399 and is both leather and insanely comfortable.

One of my favorite parts of the apartment is our entryway. Because we do have a little entryway. That's the old time-y buzzer on the wall complete with a little hook we can move in case we want to ignore the buzzer and a button to let people in. Our apartment door also has a doorbell which is interesting and something I've never seen built in before. The flowers are hiding the place where a wall phone could go. I'm imagining the kind with a separate mouth piece that was then updated to a rotary. In the land of cell phones it is now home to a rotating bouquet of fresh flowers.

This is my favorite little nook in the apartment. That is a painting one of my old room mates painted for me, and that leather chair used to be bright red and sitting in my parent's living room for years and years until the sun bleached it this bricky-pink color. My parents wanted to upgrade to a love seat but wanted to keep the chair in the family, so voila. The book shelf is another target find. It will look better when filled and decorated. These cube things come with a ton of add-ons that you can buy. We opted for the floating shelf, but if you're in need of storage go check it out. The whole shebang cost us under 80 bucks, even the bottom drawers.

Here is our galley kitchen complete with miniature stove and hanging fruit basket. The basket currently holds 1 onion, 1 banana, and 2 green potatoes that used to be yellow. I need to work on that. I've always wanted a cool hanging basket so when I bump my head on it while drying dishes, I choose to ignore the annoyance.

This is Kamel working his photo Magic on our prepped, polished, and staged apartment.

This is me, hiding in the kitchen, while Kamel kept calling out "Lauren! Don't Move!" because there are several frames with my gray blurr shooting through them. Oops.

We have a big photo project planned for one wall and some framing that needs to be done so when we're finished I'll give you an update. And show you the bedroom that was too messy and we were too tired to fix up. But it's really nice too! with our one closet! in the whole place! Isn't that fun? haha....

You should come over one day! We' ll drink wine and look at the ocean.

An Affliction

I have an affliction. The symptoms are distraction and irritability and the sensation I have ants in my pants (that could be the restless leg syndrome, who knows). I am in dire need of an adventure, of travel, of sights unseen, of a vacation. The kind where you go somewhere and do the thing that you want to be doing, maybe it involves some quiet reading time on a balcony somewhere, or perhaps hiking to magnificent vistas - vistas not available at home, maybe some museums, some monuments, sunshine, good wine, that sort of thing.

Vacations are expensive. But what if I can be paid to travel? Paid to explore new places and see new things? All while doing something relevant to my career goals? That would most definitely be... the boss. Last week Kamel and I were tossing around the idea of living elsewhere, having adventures, seeing new things. His 9th year in San Francisco is fast approaching and neither one of us really want to be here for his 10th. I say this now, but in two weeks i'll get an amazing job and want to stay here forever, but at this moment I'm antsy and frustrated and longing for something new.

We did just sign a year lease on a great apartment - an apartment that is currently empty but sometimes we go there anyway to just stand around, take pictures of the same empty rooms we've taken pictures of for two weeks now, and look out the window towards the ocean. We've already decided to keep fresh flowers on the dining room table from the farmer's market and get a fish. These new adventures won't happen for at least a year, after the wedding, etc. But in order to soothe my affliction Kamel and I have generated a list of Must-Dos before 2010 is over.

1.) Charter a boat
2.) Take Kamel somewhere he has never been (he's always doing this for me, it's time for me to show off a little)
3.) Go to Mexico
4.) Go to at least 1 concert
5.) Host a party in our new place

I guess now that I've written them down we'll have to do them for sure. I'm already formulating several plans in order to distract myself from the constant itch to go somewhere new. So many lists and so many goals this year. It's a wonder I have any time to be bored at all.

Room With A View

Yes, that's right, I made a literary reference to a book written in 1908. BEHOLD MY LITERARY GENIUS. But really, let's talk about me more, and not oppressed women in Edwardian England. Boor-ing.

Guess what I did this weekend? In a whirlwind of apartment viewing, decision making, and money spending, kamel and I have signed a lease for our very own apartment! I feel like one of those people who need to take photos of herself holding her keys. But I won't. Instead let me show you the amazing view from EVERY WINDOW IN THE PLACE.


Oh yes. I live right by the beach, on a hill, overlooking the beachy parts of San Francisco. You want to come over, and drink wine, and watch the sunset in my happy apartment now, don't you? I will make you nachos and we'll have a grand time.


That funny little kitchen window thingy will be where I serve you food. And where I eat my cereal and gaze out onto the ocean as the fog lifts and the sun peeks out, starting its day too. It's so cute, you could spit right? Just not on the hardwoods.


This is the dining zone, where my childhood dinner table will reside. It's round and seats four. My grandmother has been storing it for me since I was 19 and now it will finally have a resting place. Huzzah! Behind where I am taking this photo is the living zone where kamel will store his TV and his couch (which I think has an ugly cover on it - hopefully soon to be rectified) and his DVD collection and his original star wars, epsidoe idon'tcare movie poster that's signed by the artist. Somewhere in the apartment will be a lightsaber, and a clone trooper helmet, side by side with my art purchased in france. Isn't combining lives fun?

More pictures will come in a few weeks once we are packed and then unpacked and set up.

So many highfives were exchanged about this apartment. We totally win.

Transition!

(Imagine the title being sung out fiddler style)

Now that that's been clarified... hello friends! Sorry I have been absent. There was the packing and the driving and then the deep breath taking and all of that took about a week. But here I am! In San Francisco! Again! It feels like yesterday! Because it practically was!

The drive started out bleak. Except for Kamel who was a ball of excitement.


He was such a trooper with packing up the car. He Tetris-ed the shit out of it. And my poor little car was weighed down with all my clothes, and most of my room accoutrement. We were victorious! But like I said day one was bleak:


I was sleepy and crabby and Kamel did most of the driving and all of the cheerleading because really? I was moving back? And leaving all my people? And heading into the unknown? And wait a second didn't I have time to slow down and take a breath? No. Push ahead, grab life by the horns and all that. Let's do this thing.

After a lovely night at the Shilo Inn and some surprising great small town food thanks to the recommendation of our amazing Shilo Inn front desk lady ... things began to look up.




The bleakness turned into sunshine turned into excitement at my do-over. I get a do-over at San Francisco. Not that my first try was bad. It was a huge learning experience, it was about getting my master's degree, about figuring out how to balance work and life and learning. It was really fucking hard.

So far I've been applying for more work, had an interview for a job I don't want, have had time to edit other peoples' work, trying to finish a book so I can start another, and will be continuing work on my next novel.


I know, right? I'll keep you posted.

Seattle to San Francisco and Back Again

Here is the news: I'm moving back to San Francisco. Some people - including grad school friends - were all "about time!" and other people were all "WHY?!" And here is my explanation... It all has to do with hindsight my friends. Hindsight is funny because in the moment it means nothing. When you are making decisions it is no where to be found it is only AFTER you've spent thousands moving, spent time and stress trying to re-establish yourself in a new apartment, different city, different job, that hindsight is all "dude, you messed that up."

I've never really made a mistake in the process of my life before. I look back on decisions I've made, things I've done and sometimes I think "If I were to do that over again this is what I'd do", but most things happen for a reason, and it all works out in the end, right? I guess in your early twenties those two cliches become a mantra. This time, though, I feel like I did make a mistake. It's not unfixable, it's not the end of the world, but I'm calling it how I see it.

Here's what happened: I wanted to take a break from scrambling for what I wanted, from filling out applications, from running the race. My last semester/year of grad school I was exhausted from working full time and going to school full time. Exhausted through every cell in my body. Eternally tired. You get the idea. So I decided to not fill out all those applications all over the country for composition professors and to move home, get a food service job and write. I wanted to focus on being a writer and publish. Well it didn't exactly work out that way. Writing didn't happen like I thought it would for various reasons (no desk, no space, no motivation, and again that tired thing), I ended up working long hours in a very physical way which made my days off about scrambling to get my life errands done and trying to work out a routine that took 6 months to only 1/2 figure out. Plus I was just becoming more and more broke with the threat of my expensive loan looming in the future. Future meaning due in March. Realizing that I needed to get a job that paid more I started hunting on craigslist, on company's websites, etc etc. Nothing I saw inspired me. I want to use my education, I want to do something I'm interested in, passionate about, something relevant to what I know and how I am. And the best I could do in seattle was an admin at an insurance company? To say the least there have been tears of frustration over this. There were very very few opportunities in the writing section of craigslist. Nothing really relevant. Blog from home? I already do that. Translate Japanese? No. So on a whim, just to see what other cities were like in this category, I checked out the writing section in San Francisco's craigslist. And the comparison had me floored. And mad at myself. Here is a side by side comparison:


Not only were there more jobs, they were relevant. Publishing, marketing, editing, the list goes on. I had a full on what the fuck have I done moment. Why wasn't I more patient after graduating? Why didn't I look around longer? I left a writing community, a support system of professors with connections, and apparently a wealth of job opportunities. So I'm moving back. I don't have all the answers and I'm lucky that I don't have children or real responsibilities so that I can make mistakes and fix them without a lot of repercussions. I'm moving without a job lined up - though I am applying all the time, and without a lot of money. But thankfully I have people there who will help me. And it's all an adventure, right? Take the plunge and see what happens. It's San Francisco - Take Two.