Homeless Hangout

So the SF Public Library's main branch put $6 million into a facelift. The improvements seem nice and all, but the library is still disgusting and overrun with homeless junkies and crazies sleeping at the tables, making out (seeing this is what drove me to join a private library), and shaving and shooting up in the bathrooms. Nearly all of the reader comments on the news story mention this- so it's not just me being cranky.

Many of the improvements seem to speed up flow of people checking in and out- automatic check-in machines, speedier book check-out, and displaying more of the popular first-floor fiction books. Taken together, these improvements reflect user demand to spend as little time possible in the filthy, well-lit place for books.

It seems to me like the taxpayers just chipped in another six million bucks to avoid dealing with the homeless problem.

The war on ants

When it rains, ants invade my apartment through the kitchen and/or bathroom windows. In fact, I can predict when it's going to rain because suddenly there are ants everywhere. They've been particularly obnoxious this year, and I only have to have the window open for an hour or two for them to invade. How they do it, I don't know, but the day after I have the window open, there are hundreds of little tiny ants forming a line along the sink or bathtub. It's like they see the open window and hurl an egg through it.

So I'm on day three of trying to kill off the ants from my latest infestation. I just wipe them with a sponge into the sink, trying to avoid using stanky chemical spray for as long as possible. I noticed that a lot of them seemed to be hanging around the blender. Then I figured out that they were creating a home inside the blender where the motor is.

That's prettymuch the opposite of awesome, but it's not the first time my small appliances have been infested. In Boston many years ago, a family of cockroaches had taken up residence inside my answering machine. And while my answering machine just had to go, at least I can wash out the inside of the blender and drown the ants.

Who wants frozen margaritas?

Cintra takes down carrots

Cintra Wilson, who is motherfreaking hilarious, makes fun of the SF store Carrots in her New York Times Critical Shopper story.

The piece was awesome, but I couldn't disagree more with this statement:

Babylon by the Bay, with its delirious views, voluptuous palm trees and cherry vintage tram cars, is truly the pinup girl of American cities, to the point of having the unintentionally surreal gloss of TV dramas set in the ’40s: it’s all a little too clean. The cars are straight from the O.C.D. collector’s garage; the Victorians have had cosmetic procedures; even the trees look moussed. San Francisco now looks like a Las Vegas luxury casino called “San Francisco.”

Clean? Seriously? Yeah it's very pretty, but this city is filthy, usually smells of urine and human feces, and is the place where personal hygiene goes to die. Maybe she was here when it was raining.

Wild Kingdom

This terrifying spider was on my ceiling. Now, just its guts.

Thwarted by Ikea

My futon couch/bed frame broke for good just before I went away on all my travels. I've had it for about 8 years and it was really comfortable up until a couple of years ago. The extra-thick mattress finally lost its shape, so after that point it's been just a regular sucky futon instead of an ultra-deluxe futon. Still, it's a futon.

So as soon as I got back from Idaho I set about getting a new one. I still like having a dedicated office, which means that I'll still be sleeping in the living room. But I thought at least I'd get a nicer frame. I found one at Ikea that's more of a fold-out couch that looked good and had an optional cover to make it look even better.

The problem is that the frame, good mattress, and cover all come separately. I went to the store once to try it out- it looked great and they had them in stock, so I came back the next day with a rental car to buy it. By this time, naturally, they had sold out of the mattress but still had the frame and the cover, both of which I bought because they assured me the mattresses were coming later that day and would be available the next morning. I was looking forward to my third trip to Ikea in as many days.

Meanwhile, I still had to my old futon to contend with. I disassembled the frame and put it out by the trash cans. I kept the futon inside leaning up against the wall so I could still sleep on it. Coincidentally, my new neighbor Brian moved in and to make room, they were throwing out some old mattresses. We decided we'd go in together on 1-800-got-junk for a pickup.

Now we're caught up to this morning. The junk collectors collected the junk and left. Then I made sure ZipCar had the big car available for rent. Then I called up Ikea to double check the mattresses were there and in stock.

So, as one would expect, the story ends with me waiting "three to five days" for more mattresses to arrive at Ikea, while owning a useless new couch frame and cover and having no old futon mattress to use in the interim. So I'll be sleeping on the floor next to part of a couch for the next week or so.

When I try to fight squalor, squalor always wins.

Health Care for Everybody! (Eventually)

San Francisco opened enrollment in its universal health care plan yesterday. The press releases tauted the July starting date, but now that it's July it turns out the plan is only open to people who already use a couple of particular free clinics. Then it will be open to people who use all free clinics, then not until January will the plan be open to people like me who just can't afford health insurance but aren't checking in to SF General every week. So basically the plan is not covering anyone who isn't getting free health care already.

One of my writer's organizations finally expanded their health care plans outside of NYC so I called them up. For any of the plans I can afford, there are discounted doctor's visits and prescriptions and then rates for all sorts of different hospital and emergency care. The thing is they all have deductibles and maximum pay-outs. If I understand it correctly, a trip to the emergency room would involve a co-pay on each part: the ambulance, emergency room care, hospital bed, and services. If you add it all up, you've got several thousand dollars' worth of bills. I only have a few thousand dollars in my savings account, so I would be broke after a hospital visit after paying a couple hundred bucks a month for the privilege. The alternative is not having health insurance and having to declare bankruptcy from a hospital visit anyway. Either way, I'm broke at the end.

Both options are just terrific.

Oh, the things that I'll do!

Rent-a-cat leaves in one week, and I've already started making plans for what I'll do when he does. Actually, I've been making this list ever since he got here.

• Buy more plants. He eats the ones I currently own.
  
• Put art back on the walls. If you've ever been here, you know my interpretation of "art" is pretty loose. But anyway, anything hanging on the walls with thumbtacks has since fallen down and been stored, as Rent-a-cat feels obligated to remove all thumbtacks from walls.
  
• Air the place out. I have only been able to open the two windows that Rent-a-cat can't jump out of for the past several months. And though it's not completely stanky in here, it could use a good refreshening.
  
• Get the carpet cleaned. The carpet was nasty before the cat arrived, but with him trying to drag his butt along it as toilet paper it's just unthinkably unsanitary now. This time there's no Rug Doctor from Safeway- I'm calling in the big truck with super suction power. I'll also look forward to not having to run to the bathroom to block Rent-a-cat from doing the carpet wipe from now on.
  

Rich Geezers

I try not to read any more about how the Baby Boomers are screwing over the world, but it just keeps coming up. In USA Today:

The growing divide between the rich and poor in America is more generation gap than class conflict, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal government data. The rich are getting richer, but what's received little attention is who these rich people are. Overwhelmingly, they're older folks.

Nearly all additional wealth created in the USA since 1989 has gone to people 55 and older, according to Federal Reserve data. Wealth has doubled since 1989 in households headed by older Americans.

Not so for younger Americans. Households headed by people in their 20s, 30s and 40s have barely kept up with inflation or have fallen behind since 1989. People 35 to 50 actually have lost wealth since 1989 after adjusting for inflation.

Props to people like Anya Kamenetz of Generation Debt who are trying to fight the good fight for the people getting screwed by the older generations. I think I'd just dynamite the AARP.

Note to Self

I read most of the current New York magazine article on children's self-esteem. It's about how praising children's intelligence actually makes them lazy and unwilling to try things at which they might fail, whereas children praised for their effort work harder and do better.

(By the way, after reading that summary sentence, you can skip the article. I was about 3,000 words into it when I realized it was just repeating that thought ad nauseum.)

I only read the article because I hate children, and know that the self-esteem nonsense has been creating monsters out of them for decades. If you've ridden public transit, surely you've seen it too: the stupid (and/or poor) kids scream endlessly about how great they are when they can't even form coherent sentences, arguing over their inherent perfection. The smarter (and/or richer) kids air their unearned entitlement whenever possible, spouting banal nonsense to each other (as opposed to at each other like the poor kids), then perking up and throwing around statistics when impressible adults are around.

Aside: I also believe that the basic wrongness of hip-hop music is due to self-esteem training that began in the 1970's and 80's. The person doing the heavy lifting is the anonymous guy making the beats, who is rarely also the person talking over them. The one rapping about how great he is is usually unoriginal and untalented and learned the value of high self-esteem in the public school system. It's not that all rappers are without artistic merit, but almost anyone could have a hit album if Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, or the Neptunes were making the beats and producing it.

But back to my story- after all, what is blogging if not talking about oneself incessantly, like rappers of the internet- I realized that I was a test case for the praising intelligence versus praising effort.

I always got straight A's in everything until college. My brother was a B and C student. I'd bring home a report card and it would always be the same old thing, but if my brother got a B+ in something then they'd fall over themselves and we'd all go out for sundaes at Friendly's to celebrate. I think there was some reward system where we'd get 20 bucks or some portion of it for good grades, and they'd fluff up my brother's portion to encourage him, whereas to me they mustered all the enthusiasm of paying taxes.

But here's the real rub: My parents once told me when I was in 7th grade or so that they thought my brother was actually more intelligent, and I was not as smart but just worked harder. So rather than praise me for good grades they insulted me. (Note: is it any wonder I hated my parents?) This didn't result in me throwing myself off a bridge, but it drove me to try harder and get smarter and further prove that my parents are stupid hicks.

In the end though, my brother developed a work ethic in college and is the married one with a couple of houses whereas I stew in adolescent squalor. But I do work really hard at it.

1906

I never knew my little cottage apartment was so historical.

Today I was speaking with the property owner, this kicky woman who's 80-something years old, drives a big-ass gold Cadillac, and micro-manages everything. We were discussing the possible carbon monoxide poisoning in my apartment (she says that it's all good and legal, but she'll put in a carbon monoxide monitor anyway) and she gave me a little more history of the place.

I live in an in-law cottage. That's a mini-house built in the back yard of an existing property. The house in front is a three-unit building that survived the 1906 great earthquake and fire in San Francisco. This is odd because almost nothing else did.

Anyway, because of the severe housing shortage after the quake they relaxed building codes and allowed all these in-law cottages to be constructed. So my little house was built in1906. I guess I celebrated it's hundredth birthday last year by shampooing the carpet.

According to the owner, when these cottages fall apart they aren't supposed to be rebuilt, as they were temporary structures. But the owner of this one got lucky:

In the 1989, just before that earthquake, there were same gays living in the apartment and one of them in a fit of gay drama lit the bed on fire and burned part of the house down. The owner was worried that they would make them tear down the whole unit because of the law, but as the damage was mostly cosmetic and the building inspector had a lot of more important work to do in the wake of the 1989 quake, he stamped his approval for repair.

So the owner gutted the building, redid the kitchen, and super-insulated the walls and ceilings for the first time. This explains why I hardly ever have to use the heat, and why it's a freaking sauna in the summer.

Neato!

People are so stupid

I love love love this! About two blocks from my house is an abandoned armory building that has sat empty for at least the ten years that I've lived in San Francisco. The outside of it had broken windows, graffiti, skate punks using the steps as a ramp, passed out bums on the sidewalk, and lovely trash and feces adorning the abandoned area.

Then the company Kink.com bought it for 14.5 million to build a giant porn studio inside it.

Nobody in the neighborhood would have noticed what was going on had not the Chronicle run a big article about how great it was that finally someone bought it.

Now there are protests outside it- apparently 50 people in the rain today. From the looks of it most of the protesters are Mission District Latinos- a particularly insular and hilariously myopic community.

"This is oppressive and inappropriate for our community,'' said Sam Ruiz, executive director of Mission Neighborhood Centers. "It's not OK to promote acts of degradation and violence. We don't want this kind of stuff here.''

Another protester carried a sign that said "Why not a recreation center for youth?"

Apparently they are unaware that:

1. Pornography is perfectly legal, and here it would be filmed indoors where they'd never see it.
   
2. There are (I believe) at least three youth/community recreation centers in the Mission already, plus several art centers.
   
3. There are at least two other porn studios in the Mission.
4. Latino gang violence over drug dealing turf plagues the neighborhood, and that the real prostitution, crime, and homelessness in the neighborhood are caused by the drugs sold and not by $500-an-hour bondage actresses.
   
5. You can buy a hooker or crack outdoors, day or night, within two blocks of the Armory building.
   

Ghetto Living Today!

I was out doing errands today and decided to go the Walgreen's at 16th and Mission Street instead of the non-ghetto one at Church and Market in order to facilitate multi-tasking.

When I arrived, there was a crackhead shoved up against the front door of the drug store with two security guards behind her, and a crowd of people who'd just stepped off the bus watching her give the typical shoplifting crackhead defense:

"I DIDN'T TAKE NOTHING! THAT IT OVER THERE. I AIN'T DONE NOTHING! LET ME GO MOTHERFUCKA! NO! NOOOOOO!"

all while trying to push her way out the door.

Usually this tactic works, because it's a lot of hassle to stop, search, and arrest a screaming crackhead. As someone who's witnessed this scenario dozens of times (it must go down 10 times a day at that particular Walgreen's), I was glad to see the security guards drag the crackhead into the back office and wait for the cops to arrive. You could still hear her screaming throughout the store.

When your quality of life is constantly being lowered living near these stupid junkies, it can really put a smile on your face to see them being dragged off to jail. I had the most lovely walk home, and I almost felt like I was skipping through the sunny meadow. Except by "sunny" I mean schadenfreude and by "meadow" I mean a sidewalk full of passed out bums and dog feces.
Skippedy Do Da!

One Tan Man

I just got back from vacation in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I was intruding on the vacation of Chris and John from Boston, as they own a condo there.

Chris and John really know how to relax. Each day's agenda:
Wake up at 10:30ish, enjoy coffee and a recap of the previous night.
Start drinking beer at noonish, bust out the bong.
Poolside cocktails or a trip to the beach? A tough decision.
Dinner out on the town. Fondue me, baby!
Gay bar, followed by gay club, often followed by a nightcap at the gay stripper bar on the way home.
3AM time for bed!

The whole time we were just hanging out and quoting from Bubbles and Desiree and Brenda Dickson, and from a Long Island couple sitting behind us at dinner one night. Not getting to the east coast much these days, I forget how ridiculous New Yorkers can sound in bulk.

Vacationing is a good time to reflect upon one's day-to-day existence with some perspective. I decided that perhaps I'm living in a bit too much squalor, and made a sturdy resolution to get a new showerhead.

Hey, I didn't go to philosophy camp. I was just there to party.