Skipping Town

A city! A real city! Living, as we do, in suburbia, I’d almost forgotten how much I love a big city. I remembered this weekend, as we traveled to San Francisco—a mere two hours from our apartment. We drove over the Bay Bridge and found ourselves in the streets of the city—with skyscrapers hovering over either side, high-end shops sharing ground-floor space with delis and coffee shops, and people (people!) walking everywhere, briskly ascending the many shockingly steep hills. A city! With the exception of European cities, San Francisco was the first city I’ve ever felt to be New York-like in spirit. It had a vibrancy, a liveliness, that felt familiar. We heard a variety of different languages everywhere we walked. There were people waiting for public transportation. There was a Chinatown with shops full of souvenirs and rice bowls and lanterns and luggage. There were neighborhoods full of good restaurants; museums; stores; parks. People were picnicking on the lawn of a park, waiting for...

Hello. I'd like to introduce myself, Margo, and my fiancé, Andrew. We've undergone some great changes in the past few weeks. Once urban-dwellers and world-travelers, we've moved to suburban California. After an uncomfortable period of adjustment, when Andrew's face paled at the sight of the office park where he'd begin working, we seem to have settled in just fine. This week, we made a big shopping trip to a Wal-Mart Supercenter. The air-conditioning inside was phenomenal. The prices were ridiculously low. The aisles were wide, our cart almost too big to push. There, we bought a small grill. Last night, Andrew grilled us bratwursts on our small deck. We're considering buying a used SUV. Andrew actually wore a polo shirt to work today, rather than his standard long-sleeved button-down. ("I look like I work at Best Buy," he said doubtfully.) Who are we??? It is officially the New Us. Truth be told, grilling was perfectly pleasant, the northern California...

It's always this way, isn't it? With freelancing, I mean. There were a few weeks of nothing--finishing up one project, but nothing new coming in; and now, suddenly, I'm scrambling to organize myself enough to get started on several new things. It's the blessing and the curse of freelancing. But I've given up the temping idea (though they've bothered my references and perhaps will still manage to find me the *perfect* assignment) and have spent the past few days sending resumes out en masse for freelance work. Two good things have come through--both steady and well-paying. One of them is even interesting (and they contacted me even though I realized yesterday, to my horror, that there was a typo in my cover letter, which extolled my attention to detail. That's the problem with trying to work at Panera.) Anyway. The other big news is that…we bought a table and chairs! It makes all the difference. It really does. And today we're getting internet service ho...

Another Saturday night and I ain't got no furniture I could go buy some, but we might not stay Now how I wish I had someplace to sit down I'm in an awful way.

It occurred to me recently that I have done more driving in the past three weeks than I've done in the past eight years. Strange, no? But true. I rarely drove when I lived in NYC, save for the occasional driving I did during visits home. And I never drove in Spain--all the cars were stick-shifts, so Andrew was the designated driver for all of our explorations. But here, there is no option. I must drive, every single day, heaving myself in and out of the car, holding my breath as I ease into our unreasonably difficult parking space at the apartment complex, maneuver along the roads as I drive Andrew to work, drive myself to Panera to use their free wi-fi, drive to the mall. Andrew, in casual conversation with one of his co-workers this week, mentioned that he hadn't had a car in New York. His co-worker was flummoxed. How did we get groceries? How did we do anything? How did we live? How could we stand going to the grocery store more than once a month? I forget sometimes that ha...

Here’s a little something I’ve learned in the few weeks I’ve been back in the U.S.: it’s not so fun to stay at home all day here. There is nothing blissful about morning coffee, about long, sunny afternoons, about sitting down at my desk. There are myriad reasons for this. First, I don’t really have adequate coffee-making paraphernalia right now, and there is no splendid terrace (kitty-corner from La Pedrera!) on which to sip it. The long, sunny afternoons here (once spent strolling down Passeig de Gracia! Walking to the port! Browsing through a museum!) are dulled to an unrecognizable blur here in our suburban, air-conditioned apartment. And I don’t have a desk to sit at yet. Any “settling in for the day” takes place on the floor. All of this, clearly, is a far cry from the pleasures of working from home in Spain. And so I had the thought this week that perhaps it’s time to find an office job—just for a little while, just until we know better what our plans are, just to bring in a lit...

OWKWS [OOK-wiss]: A phrase added to any run-of-the-mill statement of possibility that indicates that statement’s current impossibility . For example: “We can buy some serrated knives—owkws” or “We really need to buy a roll of paper towels—well, owkws” or “It’ll be great once we don’t have to sit on the floor anymore. We can get chairs owkws.” Its translation, of course, is “once we know we’re staying,” and we’ve been saying it so much over the past week that I finally just abbreviated it. We have many, many things we would like to buy, including but not limited to serrated knives and internet access and a jar of salt and table and chairs, but it simply does not make sense to purchase these items until—yes—until we know we’re staying. And so our unfurnished, haphazard, chair-less state continues, broken up pleasantly by swims in our pool and our plans for our next weekend trip.

This weekend, loathe to spend too much time sitting on the floor in our furniture-free apartment and determined to see more of California, Andrew and I decided to take a road trip; so Saturday morning, we set out for the coast. We were quickly out of the suburbs and into farm country—and then into territory far wilder. When we hit Route 1, it was really just us and the road. Route 1 meanders along the coast, with not much around except state parks. My idea of the California coastline was of sunny, sandy beaches and lots of sunbathing blond people—an idea that was proven absolutely and wholly incorrect. In reality, the northern coast is cold and foggy, rocky and wild, with more sea grasses and brush than beach towels. Sometimes the fog hovered just over the water, so that driving along the roads above it was like being above the clouds—more like flying than driving. We stopped for lunch in Bodega Bay, at a little seafood shack called The Boat House. The sign outside advertised BBQ oyste...

One thing I love so far about CA is Trader Joe’s. It sounds funny to say that pretty much the only thing I really like so far about the West Coast is a grocery store, but so it is. I was familiar with Trader Joe’s before this. There was one in Dayton, and one opened in NYC just before I left, so I’ve had occasion to try some of its offerings in the past. But it seems different here, and cheaper. I’ve gone twice now—there’s one not far from this apartment—and feel overwhelmed whenever I go in; there's so much to choose from. It’s the perfect store for this stage, since many of the products are pretty much heat-and-eat. For people without too many cooking utensils and not even a bottle of olive oil or jar of salt, it’s ideal. And the big news of today’s excursion to Trader Joe’s is this: I walked! Despite popular belief, it is possible to walk from the apartment to Trader Joe’s. Granted, the walk is less than scenic (i.e., along a busy highway), but there are sidewalks, and two inter...

Here’s the good news: we’re out of the MDPOE. Thank goodness. We couldn’t wait to leave that place, so we packed up our stuff and checked out Tuesday morning before I drove Andrew to work. Goodbye and good riddance to that soulless place. Now we have a new home, in Citrus Heights. It is a truly lovely apartment, one we very well may have chosen even in another city. It's a studio, but larger than a NYC studio, and there's a fireplace, a nice little deck on which we're permitted to put a grill, a pool, and a 'clubhouse' with exercise equipment, a sauna, and a pool table. It is nice to have our suitcases in one place, to know that housekeeping isn’t going to knock early in the morning; yet I hesitate to unpack completely, since we may be leaving soon. And though it’s definitely a good thing that we’re here instead of in another hotel, a new set of problems have arisen that almost drove me to a breakdown Tuesday morning in Target. The main problem is this: this apartme...

Oh my. I just went out to the bank to get a money order for our new apartment-signing tonight, and even though I'd carefully written out all the directions, I accidentally wound up on the freeway. "Noooooooo," I screamed as I was swept up into the traffic. I maintained my old-lady speed of 40, got off at the first exit and, after calling Andrew, managed to get home. I HATE DRIVING. No, let me amend that: I hate driving in a new place. I don't know what's wrong with me: I just cannot get the lay of the land here, road-wise. Andrew already knows what roads are parallel to which others, how to get to Target the back way, etc etc. Meanwhile, on the sheet of directions I've been keeping I have to write down everything, even which way to turn out of the MDPOE's parking lot. It just does not make sense to me. What I wouldn't give for a metro map right now--now that I can decipher in a heartbeat. I have to go pick Andrew up at work in a little while; let's...

Last night I had a horrendous dream that took place here at the MDPOE. It involved bugs (I found a small black bug right before going to bed, so that's understandable) and a grisly murder. I woke up completely freaked out. There is a very strange, bad energy here that I cannot wait to escape from. Happily, we will be able to escape soon, since we were approved for our new apartment in Citrus Heights. We'll move in tomorrow. And though we'll be sleeping on an air mattress and continuing to eat from plastic silverware and paper plates until we're more sure of what's happening, at least we will be in our own place. Progress!

So, it was another day at the MDPOE. We tried to spend as little time here as possible. Fortunately, our housing situation seems to be looking up: we dropped off our applications for the studio in Citrus Heights, and we might be able to move in as soon as tomorrow or Tuesday. And we may be able to live there for as long as four days! (Seems incredible, but true, that we could very well be heading back East this weekend.) A few bright spots of today: we discovered a Trader Joe's just across the street from our potential new apartment; and we stopped into a few stores today to get the lay of the land for our wedding registry, which we'll tackle this coming weekend. It's nice to fantasize about devilled egg plates and cheese boards and coffee makers--and having a home to go with them. Andrew starts work tomorrow, which is exciting but also sad; since his classes ended in March, we've spent pretty much all day, every day, together, save for a few days when he was in Jackson...

Well, here we are in our new "home" away from home, a studio efficiency in Extended Stay America, a long-term-stay hotel. The ESA--or, as I prefer to call it, the MDPOE (Most Depressing Place On Earth)--is truly awful. We are, as I described yesterday, in a tiny hotel room that's called an efficiency because of its tiny kitchen. We're here for three nights, before we--hopefully--move into our new apartment. Outside our window are a parking lot and a freeway. However, we got a very cheap rate on Priceline, and it's close to Andrew's job, so we are accepting the trade-off. Last night, we went to see a light movie to take our minds off all this, "License to Wed," which we thought we'd enjoy because it's about a wedding but which was awful. We were hungry afterwards, and the only place open was the In N' Out Burger, a fast-food restaurant. Immediately upon entering, Andrew and I both felt the hairs on the backs of our necks stand up--that six...

It's clear to us now why we can't seem to figure out this city: it's hardly a city at all. In fact, what we now know for certain is that we've entered a suburban hell. Today we drove to Roseville, where Andrew will be working, and realized with horror that he'll be working in an office park. Few things, for me, are more depressing than an office park. Freeways wind around the area, which has no sidewalks but an abundance of malls, fast-food restaurants, and shopping plazas. "This is hell," Andrew declared as we drove around (only one of us can be pessimistic/freaking out at a time--a vow we made some time ago that just might make it into our wedding ceremony). "Things could not get any worse than this." We had driven to Roseville to try to find (still) an apartment. Within an hour or so after emailing the Dorm Room guys that we wanted to sublet their place, we decided we should instead try to live in Roseville so Andrew's commute will be easi...

Today, a new day, has begun. It is 108 F outside. We have been slavishly feeding the meter all morning yet still got a parking ticket. We quasi-decided to take the "dorm" apartment in Davis, yet no one has returned our calls, suggesting that the apartment has been taken. We're back to zero. Let's hope things improve. We're supposed to check out of the Hyatt tomorrow.

The search for an apartment continues, after a brief hiatus on the 4th. Things are not looking good. There are no short-term leases, the month-to-month rentals we've found have been too expensive or come with roommates, and we've given up on finding a furnished place altogether. We're facing two complications: 1. We don't know if we'll be here longer than three months. 2. We don't even know if we'll be here past next week, since the Spain/New York job is once again in the mix. At this point, we're pretty much ready to wash our hands of the whole Sacramento experiment and hightail it back East. Nothing is working out the way we expected. We still don't see anyone on the street, and there's no "downtown" like we're used to; no shopping strip, no big bookstore, and we still haven't found a grocery store. But I realize now why no one's outside: it's the hottest place I've ever been--over 100 each day; it's hard to br...

Today we set out to find an apartment. The search did not go well. We tried several areas--downtown Sacramento, Davis, Roseville--but didn't find a neighborhood that seemed like it could be a home. The problem, too, is that there are very, very few options for a short-term furnished rental. In Davis, we found one apartment kind of in the middle of nowhere that seemed to promise a Valley of the Dolls-style nervous breakdown. We visited another apartment and were shown around by a kid who must have been no more than nineteen; it was his college apartment and he was leaving for the summer. It was like being inside a dorm room, complete with a foosball table. The two apartments we saw in a complex in Sacramento were nice enough. However, in the first, I found an enormous cockroach in the bathroom. In the second, there was a giant millipede in the sink. Needless to say, these little treats did not bode well. So we're back to zero, and tomorrow is a holiday so our search won't re...

Working on a West Coast time zone is just ridiculous. I just had a 6am phone call with an editor in Dubai, who was ending his work day. (I'm still on East Coast time, so I'm wide awake.) Long story short--I was just offered a super-cool writing job that I'm not sure I'll be able to take, since it requires a physical presence in Barcelona. As of yesterday morning, I would have had to decline the project. But who knows now? I may be working on it next week. This situation keeps getting more and more layered and intense.

We're in Sacramento. We arrived last night, bags in tow, to one of the smallest airports I've ever seen; then took a cab downtown, which was like a ghostown at 9:30pm. We checked into the also deserted Hyatt and looked at a list of restaurants in the neighborhood; few were open past 10pm, many just until 9. Fortunately we found a P.F. Chang's open till 11. Only three other tables were populated. But guess what: we might not be staying in CA. Yesterday morning, just two hours before we left for the airport, Andrew got an email that seems to confirm what an ambiguous phone call Friday evening suggested: he'll be offered another job, one he may prefer to this one, one that not only will be based on the opposite coast but will take us back to Spain temporarily. As I predicted, we were at the airport and Andrew was frantically trying to call the woman in Spain; there was the possibility of not getting on the plane, of buying a different ticket. He was unsuccessful, so we got...