Thinking Big

We first started talking about spending time in San Francisco back in early May, a product of one of my 'thinking big' moments, which usually happen while I'm washing my hair in the shower. My 'thinking big' moments usually consist of me yelling out to Niko, from the shower, 'Hey Niko! Let's say you and me take a transatlantic cruise next week!' or 'Hey Niko! I think I'm gonna leave my job and open a restaurant that serves only soup!' or 'Hey Niko! Screw this city; let's take out a mortgage tomorrow and buy a house in Montauk!'

Niko says I suffer from a rare physical abnormality - my brain is closer to my mouth than most other people's, so I tend to yell out whatever it is I've got on my mind before entirely thinking it through. I don't think I can argue that he's wrong.

So, taking into account my physical abnormality, he responds with the utmost care and sincerity: 'Uhhhhhhh...o-kayyyyyyy...well, the thing is I've got an editing job to work on next week/I love your soup but don't you only know how to make one kind right now?/you know Montauk is really nice but it might be hard to take out a million-dollar mortgage at 26.'

The San Francisco began as a 'thinking big' idea, and I'd honestly expected Niko to shoot it down - as politely and respectfully as possible, of course - just as fast as he shot down my other brilliant and inspired revelations. But the San Francisco idea was different for a few reasons:

1. It wasn't permanent; it was 3 months.

2. The time period made rational sense - we have a wedding on September 29th in Chicago, so we'd head to SF from there; we'd probably need to come back for the holidays, so we'd return to New York at the end of December.

3. It wasn't entirely beyond our financial means. We'd have to bust our butts at our jobs and actually save money (gross), but we could pull it off.

4. It didn't necessarily have to disturb the equillibrium in BK - I could work remotely and not have to quit my job, and we could legally sublet our apartment and not have to give it up and find a place for all our stuff.

5. We've been to SF before and LOVED it - it was the only place we'd ever been to that made us consider leaving BK.

This might have been my most sensible big idea ever, and Niko was down with it.

Holy crap. Well this changes everything. Who am I in the relationship if I'm not the outrageous, impulsive girlie who spits out a wacky idea every day that I know and he knows we're not going to follow through on because we can't or we shouldn't or it's just barely legal or I don't even know how to make more than one soup?!

So what the heck made us love SF in the first place?

It's a fair question, right? What makes two lifelong New Yorkers decide they're going to up and move to a new city? Well, we took an amazing trip to San Francisco in January of 2006 and we've been in love ever since. Jill went out there for work, and I tagged along, which was great, because on of my best buds, Lucas, has lived out there for a few years.

You know, it's not even that we had always dreamed of going out there or anything like that. It was only once we were there that we knew this place was for us. And even at that, nothing so amazing happened on our trip. We stayed in Nob Hill/Chinatown, walked all around, visited Coit Tower, checked out North Beach and the Mission, hung out with Lucas in Noe Valey, I visited Muir Woods and Berkeley, we spent a great night with one of Jill's work colleagues driving all over the city, we saw Robin Williams's house -- I mean, all fun things, but nothing mind blowing. I think it was more that while there, we didn't feel out of place. We felt like we could just plop down right there and be happy.

Whether it's the cool factor, the climate (I love layers, especially shorts with long-sleeve shirts, which is the SF outfit), the surrounding natural beauty, the freakish hills, the shopping,  I don't know. But whatever mix of elements produces that SF feeling, Jill and I really really like it.

It makes me think of an image I saw recently in a post on our friend Gillian's blog, Ultra Fine Flair:

So, while it can't convey what was so special about that trip, here's a slideshow of our pictures from that trip. At the very least, you can marvel at my longer hair and beardless face!

Spreading the Love

So, Jill and I are real-estate moguls. We're wheeling and dealing, talking leases and deposits and sublets and contracts and all that. During the course of our search for a great San Francisco sublet, we came across a small studio that we really liked. It was small, cute, and in Nob Hill, a really nice neighborhood in the heart of the city. Jill and I are psyched. How cool would it be to be moving to San Francisco October 1 yet have a place all lined up in the middle of June? We'd have it made in the shade . . . 

Well, it didn't work out. In order to take the place off the market, we needed to provide at least a month's rent right away. In the grand scheme of things, this isn't a ridiculous demand. In fact, most landlords require first month's rent and a security deposit equalling another month's rent. Jillian and I, being big spenders and poor savers, didn't have this cash lying around. I guess we knew this and didn't really want to think about it. We asked this nice landlord in SF if we could pay with a credit card or, you know, our good word, or even better, our good looks, but no dice.  Once we have cash in a few months, we can see if the place is still available, but chances are it will have already been snatched up by some ugly, mean people. Sadness permeates the land.

As often happens in these situations, it turns out to have been a blessing in disguise. On closer inspection, the apartment really seemed kind of small, and there were no windows looking out to the street. Now if you've seen our Bay Ridge place, you know we've got lots of windows and really great views. I don't know if we could coop ourselves up in a tiny SF hole in the wall, never seeing the light of day unless we scurry out onto the sidewalk. So look at that -- we're lucky, lucky I tell you, that we didn't get the apartment of our dreams!

Despite our change of heart, we didn't like have our choice made for us. It's like how you'd rather dump someone than be dumped, or how when you're playing basketball, you always enjoy playing offense more than you do defense. As fate would have it, however, we were soon given the opportunity to walk the walk. (In a side note, I was recently copyediting a manuscript where an author wanted to use the phrase "walk the talk." When I pointed out to him that this, um, made no sense, he refused to listen to reason and insisted on keeping it in. Being an editor will make my blood pressure rise and temple veins swell with frustration. Breathe, Niko, breath.) 

We had posted our apartment sublet on craigslist, though we weren't sure if we were going to have any interest. We really like living in Bay Ridge, but do people living in New York for only a short period of time really want to live in Saturday Night Fever territory? I mean, for those looking for the quintessential New York experience, we're a bit far from the main action -- not quite the boondocks, but definitely the outskirts. But lo and behold, we had a lot of interest!

Our main prospect has been a couple, both of whom are medical students doing internships or fieldwork or something or other at various Brooklyn hospitals. They sound like really nice people, and they need a short-term place for the exact time period that we'll be gone (October through December). Ah, but there's a hitch. Our dream tenant, our shining medical students, can't afford first month's rent and deposit right now, but they will be able to pay it in a few months. Could we find it in ourselves to accept the $300 nonrefundable deposit, a promise of future payment, a signed lease agreement, and the permanent home address of one of their parents, so we know where to send the men with baseball bats should they flee town on us? Are we that magnanimous? Are we that generous? Are we that in tune with the ebb and flow of the universe?

Yuck -- my own medicine tastes terrible!

Look, you can't treat others well if you don't treat yourself well, and you can't treat yourself well if you don't treat others well. A general openness and compassion and good will are necessary for general happiness. We'd love to have a deposit and firth month's rent -- we really would. With that in hand, we'd have the cash to perhaps get our hands on our own dream SF apartment sooner rather than later. But that's just not how it's gonna work out this time. I don't know why or how or if anyone or anything is responsible -- but in this world system, at this time, this go 'round, in this instance, our job is to learn patience and compassion and empathy.

We told our dear medical students, "No problem." And you know what? It really isn't a problem. We want to wrap ourselves in a warm blanket of security and certainty -- in mid- to late June, we want to everything wrapped up for our October 1 move. We're scared, anxious, and unsure. But doesn't that contradict the nature of the journey itself? Aren't we going to experience something new, take a chance, shake things up a bit? Well, once you get in that game, I feel you have to accept its rules. If we want rock-steady stability, we should just stay where we are, not move anywhere, and not do anything risky or fun ever again.

So great creator of the universe, take note of our actions, and please plop squarely in our laps a great SF sublet with great views and kind landlords willing to be flexible with deposits and first month's rent!

California here we come (in October)!

So this is the very exciting, super-duper fun-time first post - yay! Niko and I decided to start this blog because, in a few short months, we're packin' up and headin' west to San Francisco for three whole months!

The aim of the blog is to document our experience of this BIG adventure, from the search for the right BK subletter to the deposit on the SF sublet, from the pre-flight jitters (that's my area of expertise) to the glorious touch-down, from our first night to our last in one of the greatest cities in the world, and everything in between. Niko and I will both be posting, and I think his will be more well-written than mine, but mine will be cuter :)

I'm keeping this one short, but I'm sure we'll be posting a lot in the next week or so - that's how everyone gets about blogs, right? It's like all you think about the first week you have it?


My love, Jill