The search for the perfect apartment has concluded ... for now. That is, I've found a new place. Whether it's THE perfect apartment is another matter. In fact, it's far from perfect - but it's good enough to last me another year until I can afford to buy a place next year.

In some ways, this search has been going on for seven and a half years, ever since I moved to San Francisco. And searching for the perfect apartment is kind of like searching for the perfect boyfriend - neither exist, but with each change you close in on what it is that works and doesn't work (or you could interpret this as becoming harder and harder to please!)

In early December 1992, I toured California for two weeks, ostensibly on vacation, but also scouting out the job market - what market there was. The recession was at a peak in California, and few companies were hiring. Luck was with me, however, as I happened to call home to Philly to chat with my roommate, and he told me that a letter had arrived inviting me for an interview at a company in Berkeley the next day! I'd brought my one and only suit with me just in case, so the next day, I drove over to Berkeley, winged the interview, and got offered the job that very day! I can't describe to you how excited I felt driving back over the Bay Bridge to the city, on that beautiful December afternoon, knowing that everything had fallen into place - this was to be my new home. I still had a few days before my return flight to Philly, just enough time, I hoped, to find an apartment to move into when I came back.

Over the next few days I got to know the city pretty well, and met a lot of people too. I could only afford a room, really, not a whole apartment, so I was obliged to look for someone who needed a roommate. And I found it the second to last day, when I climbed the stone steps of a moderne building on the top of 17th street. The guy seemed like a sweet one - even kind of cute, and the place was well-kept, if a little "high gay". My room was small, but I could see the Golden Gate Bridge! So I plonked down my $500, told him I'd be back in a month, and that was that! I headed home to Philly, gave notice, packed up and moved across the continent at the beginning of January.

Jeez I was young, looking back. Twenty seven. It rained the first forty days I was in California, but it didn't hold me back. I was out at bars frequently, making new friends, and getting educated in the ways of San Francisco. By April, I had a boyfriend, and by May, things had turned a little cool with my roommate. He was a nice enough guy, but we had absolutely nothing in common. Moreover, every Thursday night, like clockwork, he'd come home late from some leather bar and bonk someone noisily and at length in the room next door. In the end, however, it was my roommate that asked me to move out! He naturally resented the way that I was never home, and that, to me, the room was just that - a room where I slept - and not a home.

I found a new roommate situation fairly easily, as I recall. And this was a place where I was jointly on the lease! It was a beautiful, parquet-floored Mediteranean-style apartment near the Castro. Strangely enough, though, I still hadn't really cottoned onto the need to have a rapport with my roommate. Again, we had nothing in common. In such a situation, the little things start to become big things. He was always nervously humming, in a tuneless way, and it got on my last nerve! And those beautiful parquet floors - unfortunately, the apartment above had them too! So you can guess what the noise level was like whenever they were home. But the final clincher was that I was growing much closer to my then boyfriend and we decided to get a place together, just round the corner.

To think that I was only paying $375 per month in this new place! Jeez Louise. It was the first time I'd ever lived with a boyfriend, and it was a novel and unsettling experience at first. I'd come home from work, and really wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. I guess you could say I had "space issues". I was so used to doing my own thing, and now there were two of us. But things worked - for a while. The apartment was small and pokey, and I hated the way our next-door neighbor would trot past our living room every day, grinning in at us as we watched "Twenty-Twenty" (my boyfriend's choice!) Naturally enough, it was our eventual breakup that led to my moving out of there a year and a half later.

I spent a month in a furnished sublet in Russian Hill before finding my next apartment - my first alone! It was a great, perfectly maintained apartment right in the Castro. It seemed so expensive but now, at $975 including a garage, what a bargain! I remember when I first saw the apartment. Of course, as it always seems to be, it was the ugliest building on the block. But the view, which spread out over the local hills and neighborhoods, was splendid, and it was a comfortable, warm little place I could call my own.

Living in the Castro was an interesting experience. Every little thing became a cruising encounter - I mean I couldn't even go to the hardware store without running a gauntlet of eyes. It was quite wearing, in a way. You don't want to be "on" all the time - sometimes you want to go out in your carpet slippers. Well maybe :)

I lasted there three years. In the end, what prompted me to move was the noise from my neighbors. I was becoming increasingly aware how important peace and quiet was to me. My downstairs neighbor was a crazy Argentinian straight guy who hammered on the ceiling if I even dropped a seat cushion on the floor. And a young Japanese couple moved in upstairs and commenced to jump around excitedly all the time.

By this time, boom times were arriving in San Francisco, and the rental market was shooting sky-high - I faced sticker shock! So I settled, again, somewhat reluctantly, on finding a roommate. I found a beautiful (expensive!) share on top of the so-called "Swish Alps" - a gorgeous, quiet neighborhood above the Castro, with, again, magnificent views. And I even got my own little office space with it. But I guess I kept on making the same mistakes - again, nothing in common with my preppy, somewhat uptight roommate - I don't know how many times he instructed me on the correct way to fill the dishwasher. Besides, my office space was rather in the open - not the best thing for my cam "performances"! So, on the move again.

And you all know where I ended up - in this large, beautiful, but cricket-infested apartment, with my noisy white-trash neighbors! How I could have considered this location, right across the street from a club and two freeways, when I know how sensitive I am to noise, is beyond me now! But it's nearly over. So where am I going to? Well - it's quiet! It's on the top (22nd) floor of a high-rise in the Financial District, with awesome views of Telegraph Hill and the Bay, and a little balcony. Great location - a fifteen minute walk through downtown to my office, a couple of blocks from the Embarcadero, close to North Beach - I'm excited!