madbaker | The Year of Living Dangerously

(Okay, not. I just liked stealing the title.)

It's a new year and it's been about twelve months since we moved from the suburbs to San Francisco, so it's retrospection time. And grades, in the style of The Book of Ratings, but with less humor.

Things I have learned:

1) I still like our upstairs neighbors. (And vice versa, I'm reasonably sure.)

I’m very happy about that, because I've been friends with the curvy one for 15 years or so. I was pretty sure that this would be the case; but you never know when you go into a joint living situation. The relationship might be a bit dicier if we were actually sharing living space – as it is, each couple has its own flat – not due to their personalities or quirks, just because I'm somewhat territorial and there are very few people that I've been able to live with.
Grade: A

2) My commute isn't that bad. But commuting sucks.

I know, I was spoiled for ten years as I had a maximum distance of five miles. Yeah, yeah, blah blah blah. I have no reason to complain but I'm going to anyway.
More seriously, commuting is a drain. Going home takes 35 to 45 minutes on average – doesn't sound like much, but it adds up. Wear and tear on the car, gas, and just the exhaustion of dealing with idiot drivers along the way. Special events like the jack-knifed big rig this morning, spilling barrels of cooking oil and diesel on the freeway this AM and reducing driving speed to a crawl. When we lived 1.5 miles away from work I could get home, futz a bit and relax, and still have time to start something ambitious for dinner if I wanted to. Now it takes longer to de-stress and that puts a crimp in life overall.
Grade: D+

3) Having a 90-year-old Edwardian building is much nicer than a 15-year-old townhouse. The Eddy has a lot more character, high ceilings, feels like more of a real home. There are just as many repair issues, sadly – a different sort, but still. And in the townhouse, we had tons of storage and counter space. That's at a premium here.
Grade: B

4) Homeowners' meetings. Before: every eight weeks, annoying bureaucracy, arguments, and the psycho-hosebeast neighbor as president. Now: every week (mostly), the four of us over dinner and a bottle of wine.
Grade: A+

5) We have a lot of friends in the South Bay. We don't see them as much (if at all) because it's a haul. Going from a 30-minute drive to over an hour makes it near-impossible to get together on a weeknight. Even weekends are tough; the additional effort involved in the distance has kept us from some parties or open houses that we happily would have attended before. (We don't expect them to make the same effort, either.) It sounds somewhat petty, but there it is.
Grade: C-

6) In a somewhat-continuation of #5, I miss Silly Card Game Night.
Grade: D

7) Living in San Francisco isn't that bad, overall. We've done some things that would be significantly more difficult if we were living outside the city – going to the museums fairly often, hitting plays or shows (like Eddie Izzard). The Ferry Building farmer's market is quite good. And we have parking where we live. Our neighborhood is safe (I've accidentally left my car unlocked overnight, with the keys sitting prominently on the driver's seat, and nothing happened. Fortunately.)

However - I loathe looking for parking in the best of situations, and I' not wild about wasting time waiting for a bus. I'm sure the pollution aggravates my permanently-damaged sinuses. Having constant freeway noise across the street is less than ideal. And let's not bring up the homeless presence.

Both my wife and I are burb-kids and I don't think we'll live here for the rest of my life. It's been a decent experience – not the best, perhaps, but I don't regret doing it. Which, I suppose, is a good way to summarize the whole thing.
Grade: B