When I was a little girl - a very little girl - I used to tell people we were moving when we were just going on vacation. This seemed to cause great confusion in the neighborhood and frustrated my parents, but as far as I was concerned it was a lot easier to say "we're moving" than that more cumbersome phrase, "we're going on vacation," and anyway, going on vacation still involved physically "moving" to someplace else so I steadfastedly refused to be cowed by their limited syntactical preferences.
Anyway, this comes to mind because in theory I'm on vacation right now, the beginning of my bar trip, and I've managed to start the process of moving.
This spring I fomented the plan of packing up and driving back to the Bay Area where I would at least get some temp work for a while (although of course I'm still entertaining the prospect of actually acquiring a real job) and then study for the February California bar, all the while giving myself some breathing room to decide what I want to do with my life (and where I want to do it). So then I got to thinking about where I might like to live while executing on this plan. I've lived in Berkeley, and I like it there a lot, and I've lived in the South Bay, which except for the awesome biking terrain, I didn't like so much (not cosmopolitan enough for my tastes at this stage of my life). I've never really had the desire to live in San Francisco proper, but what about Marin County? But I've never lived in Marin. I've been to Marin, and for a brief while I worked in Marin, but it was always a place I went home from. So since this is all a temporary move, I decided it would be a good time to try it out.
One thing that has me concerned about Marin, however, is the traffic. So I wanted to live somewhere close to San Francisco, where I suspect I'll be working. And then I decided, as long as I'm entertaining fantasies, that it would be nice to live somewhere with a view of the water.
OK, that's the wishlist. But was it doable?
On this trip out to California, induced by the Turlock stopover, I ended up with a few extra days in the Bay Area. I decided to use them to find a place to live so that when I drove out at the end of the summer I'd have someplace to drive to. Little did I realize how hard a tast this would be given my limited geographic preference. There were very few listings for the area at all, and it also dawned on me that people would probably want a year commitment but I wasn't sure I could give more than 6 months. Then lo and behold I saw a listing for a 6-month sublease. To make a long story short, I went by yesterday to meet the person, saw the place, met two out of the three other roommates (the latter I am assured neither smokes in the house nor has a crowing alarm clock), and signed the lease. It was practically kismit as everyone's timing worked out so that this could happen, not just the timing of the lease (I only want those 6 months), but also that it happened that my brief time in the Bay Area happened to correspond with her day off so we had hours and hours to work all this out.
And worked out it is. I am so massively relieved to have gotten this done I can hardly fathom it. It means I can completely enjoy the rest of my vacation, go back to Boston and take the time to properly organize and pack up my life, and then not have to worry at all about what awaits me after my drive back west. It's decadent...
It was of course a little weird to rush into the decision - I pretty much saw the place and decided to commit on the spot, which is a little more spontaneous than I'm normally comfortable being. But I'd basically decided that as long as there wasn't something horrible about it necessity dictated this kind of speedy course of action. The only significant downside I did discover is that there's no on-site laundry, but the laundromats aren't too far away and I can usually get away with doing it only twice a month. Otherwise the room comes completely furnished (necessary, since I'm only bringing a carload of stuff), it's clean, it's quiet, and the kitchen even has a dishwasher! (Huzzah! I've only been promising myself that my "next" apartment would have a dishwasher since four apartments ago...) It's right by a bus stop, it's an easy bike ride from the ferry (I'll need to get myself a commuting bike), and that water view? Right outside my window: the room is on a houseboat.
By the way, in case you are wondering what happens to a houseboat in an earthquake - it shakes. Around 8pm when I was meeting the roommates, the houseboat lurched in a way unlike how it apparently rocks in the wind. It really only floats during high tide, so when it was resting on the bottom and the bottom shook with an earthquake, so did we. It was if Marin County was saying to me, "Welcome back to California!" with a geological wave...