Update

So here I am. Three weeks into my new job. Four dates from match.com. Two random makeout sessions. One feeling of contentment at a new life taking shape.

I love my apartment. 18th and Valencia is what I imagined when I imagined my perfect idea of living in a city. I have more than 10 coffee shops in the immediate 6 block radius (and not a single starbucks or other chain). I have two restaurants below my apartment and many of the best ones in the city in walking distance. I can walk to seven bookstores. I have an amazing park 5 blocks away, and every morning and evening after work I walk Sake over there so she can romp off leash with the other dogs.

I've gotten into a routine -- I generally wake up slightly before 7 and look out the window directly across from my bed. If the sky is an intense blue with a little stain of orange, it's time for me to wake up. Not blue yet? Rollover and try to continue to sleep. Then it's up, get dressed in sweatshirt and old shoes that can get wet from the newly watered lawn. Sake and I head out and I stop at Faye's Video Store and Coffee Shop for the best latte in the world. Skim milk, splenda, large, double shot of espresso. MMmmmmmmmm. Then on to the park.

I drink my coffee and look at the skyline and the people practicing tai chi and settle into the day -- often I have to move my car about and race the parking ticket people to get it moved before street cleaning. Then it's back to the house, putter about, clean, pay bills, get dressed for work. And then my bike ride -- 20 minutes down mainly bike paths and I'm at work. Every so often I've ended up out late with coworkers and left my bike at work -- then I can take the J-Church train directly from the park to the front door of Current TV on 2nd and King with only one switch at Embarcadero.

It's amazing. This city is a lefty's wet dream. So far I've gotten a compost pail for the kitchen (the city does curbside compost pick up), I've joined the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, The SF Tenant's Union, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. There are little organic grocery stores and bodegas everywhere. Probably the best grocery store I've ever gone to -- The Rainbow Co-op -- is right on my path to work.

This morning I finally put up curtains, hung my clock, and assembled one of the bookshelves. The storage cube arrived last weekend and my stuff is almost all put away. A large trip to bring things to the Community Thrift Store to donate unecessary items, the purchase of one tall, immense bookshelf and the arrival of my couch and I'll be ready to call it done.