2002-06-30 - 10:47 a.m. heart & soul All last week, MUNI issues forced me to ride the "limited" bus to work rather than the express, tacking an extra 10-15 minutes onto my commute each morning... until Friday morning. I settled in for some hardcore daydreaming on my way downtown, but, instead, was treated to the non-stop jabbering of Landlord Guy and his co-worker. Landlord Guy was in his early 50s (or late 40s?), and talked in a voice loud enough for the back half of the bus to hear. He and his co-worker boarded the bus the stop after mine and sat directly behind me. He apparently owned a 3-unit building and had finished some remodeling. He'd last rented a 2-bedroom flat in that building for $2800 a month, down from his initial asking price of $3100. He had a second unit he was about to place on the market, of similar size and remodel status, and was asking his coworker how much she thought he could get for it. They both agreed that $2800 was the bottom of the barrel price, and that he should consider asking $3000 for it, since, after all, it *did* have nice window coverings. I wanted to vomit as I sat there and listened to this conversation. It sickens me to think that, if I were to be evicted from my existing rental, I would be in a situation where I'd have to spend $1400 to SHARE AN APARTMENT. Unless, of course, I was OK with spending $1400 a month to rent a studio apartment as a friend of mine is now doing. This amounts to well over half of her take home pay...she incurs huge amounts of credit card debt to pay for the concert going and beer drinking she can't give up but can't afford on her salary. In most places, $50k a year is a good salary. Not here. By my calculations, in the next 2 years I need to either marry someone who is making $125k+, or need to find a new job in the $150k range to create a comfortable cushion to keep from living from paycheck to paycheck. Alas, I desire neither of these two scenarios. Landlord guy, if he takes in $6k a month in rent, should be able to pay off his building in about 15 years -- if he's paying himself $3k a month rent, he could do it in 10 years depending upon his loan rate. Or, if SF property values continue to go up at double-digit rates each year, he could sell at a profit in 5 years. The focus on money seems to be what keeps people going...a big change from San Diego. I'm in no rush to move back there, but would appreciate living somewhere that encourage my creativity, passion for living, and enthusiasm, rather than living in a City where you are only as interesting as your shoes or purse or other material "proof" of your monetary worth. That's the end of my rant. Am I falling out of love with my City? That's a question I'm not prepared to deal with today. I've confessed my strange infatuation with some of these evil dating TV-shows that crop up on late night TV (which I watch when insomnia strikes)...I realize now there are actually a few I've never seen...If I had TiVo, I'd record a bunch of these and have a white trash BBQ as a good excuse to watch this trashy TV, eat my special white trash dip, and get tipsy on cheap beer and my kick ass sangria. Hmmm...there's still time to make this a reality for 4th of July festivities... Unfortunately, even with drinking lots of beer, I don't think my former favorite past time (flirting with cute boys) will rear its charming head (uh, no pun intended, of course)...It appears I've lost my flirting gene. Friday night, after several glasses of red wine and a few pints, my girls night accomplices noted that I was pointedly *not* flirting with my cute bartender. They decided it must mean that I'm smitten with someone else. We shall see. Nothing else to say on this matter other than I should find a new bar I like. Soon. This morning's Chronicle gave me an idea about what to do with the books my favorite local bookstore doesn't want...can't wait until I find my first book that's been set free...Of course, we could always just create a book exchange public diary and allow diarylanders to trade books with each other that way... This day is slipping away and I really have to make some headway on writing an evil training manual for work, and want to get out to enjoy the sunshine and grab a bite to eat w/a friend...wish me luck. any comments? (0 so far) previous - next recently on almostgoldsf... in defense of an email box I came to do battle with SPAM - 2008-05-17 hello 2006 - 2005-12-31 Happy Thanksgiving - 2005-11-14 bon voyage - 2005-11-05 October already? - 2005-10-09