10/7/97 - Hot job, hot apt...

10/7/97 - The Crepe House (Polk & Washington)

Ooooo, how proud I am. Today was my first day answering live calls at [the downtown S.F. mental health HMO]. I know, I know, a regular paycheck, and I have a feeling I'll be good at it. But it's hard to be thrilled. This is, at least, where I should have been a year ago.

Can the last year be considered a waste? Of course not. Lotsa...amazing things have during my first year in San Fran, some of which will almost certainly feature prominently in my multi-volume autobiography. So, in the long run, maybe not a professional wash-out.

However, in the short term, I'm working with a lot of black women and a sprinkling of gay men. Lots of "o-kay's" and "oh, no, you didn't's." Not a lot of common ground. Sigh, that's probably unfair [yeah, and tentatively racist. I managed to have a lot of fun with these ladies in the six months I was at that call center], but something in me wishes I could've found something to do with the printed page.

And the rest of life? I can't help thinking about "The Tales of the City" rubric: you can have a hot lover, a hot job, or a hot apartment, but not all three at once.

The lover: Susanna saw me as "smitten" with John. I sometimes agree, and there are moments, just walking down the street, when I just want to clutch at him and hold him. But...I also plot how to break up with him without hurting him savagely. [Typical. No-Consequences-Huntington.] He appears to be desperately in love with me, and I'm terrified he'd go into an irreversible decline if I wanted to end it. [All together now: Eyes rolling in the back of our head.] However, that seeming weakness (dependency?) may be one of the things that drives me away.

[Oh, this is hard, especially considering what a difficult weekend he and I just came off. Nope, I spent too much time thinking about these issues, some of which are, three and half years later, largely unresolved, that I just can't do it this morning. Moving on...]

We've already heard about the job. The apartment? Hot, hot, hot, if a little untidy. That actually brings me back to John. Soon, we'll have to discuss moving in together, and...well he can't move in here, and I don't know who'd win if I was forced to choose between him and the apartment.

[What?! Well, that was a choice I didn't have to make. In June or July of '98, the landlord (Hayley's uncle) decided he only wanted two people living there, so Rochelle sat me down and said I had to get out. By that time, I felt secure enough to move in with him, and here we are.]

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