Peace at last! And happiness, and time on my hands. But more of that later :)

By late Thursday night, I still hadn't really begun to pack, even though I would be moving on Saturday. Oh yeah, I'd carted tons of stuff to Goodwill, and thrown out a lot of old clothes, but almost everything was still in its place. The culprit was not, as you might expect, laziness, but rather just plain old lack of time. Specifically, work was the culprit. There was no getting around the requirement of finishing the software demo, that was going to be presented at our national conference, by this week . And I did mention I also just came off seven business days of training, didn't I?

So the past few weeks have had the air of bouncing from crisis to deadline to crisis - call it Keith's patented "just-in-time" way of life. After an almost sleepless night Thursday, my alarm clock woke me at 5.50 a.m., and, with the help of my one sane neighbor Jim, I left some familiar objects on the street for a pickup by the Salvation Army. The neighbor who has been my main cause of grief happened to be leaving with one of her girl- friends (first time I've seen her with any adult except one out of a great assortment of men), and she cast very calculating glances at the furniture. I hoped the attached signs saying "Salvation Army only" would keep her away from them! But when the Sally Army finally called around noon, some mean freak (probably the down-stairs neighbor) had slashed the sofa, and someone else had taken the chest-of-drawers. It's a great neighborhood I was leaving! So great, of course, that I could rely on somebody taking the sofa even in it's slashed state (especially after I turned the slashed cushion upside-down!). And of course, by the evening, it had vanished as if it had never been.

Do these look familiar?

Actually, the sofa probably doesn't look familiar to you since I've had it's offensively suburban pattern hidden by a black throw for the past year. Or rather, "sofa-bed" - it has been temporarily redesignated as a sofa - otherwise the Salvation Army wouldn't have picked it up, don't ask me why!

My landlord, Adam, has been surprisingly decent. He came over on Friday, gave me my security deposit back (before I'd even moved out!), and even bought the custom curtains and blinds I'd installed in the living room and kitchen. It turns out that he too has had enough of this cursed place, and he's going to sell it. Don't blame him! By the way, it turns out I was right about what had happened downstairs - some form of child abuse, and the poor kids have been put in a foster home, while the mother was arrested (and subsequently released). While I feel badly for the kids, it has been a very quiet week since they left.

I have gotten rid of so much stuff, and it feels great! I'm not a materialist, at heart, and the accumulation of stuff just for its own sake has never appealed to me. So to get rid of all this stuff I don't need and never use feels very freeing. It's almost like coming out of the closet again :)

After the massive discards and give-aways, I thought that it couldn't take too long to pack. But it took me three hours just to deal with my home-office alone. Part of that was spent in untangling all the darned computer chords!

It was a very warm day on Friday, and the long hours took a real toll on me. I had barely slept the night before, and by seven o'clock, when it was finally all done, I was wiped out.

Finally - all packed!

In the warm evening, I drove over to the Castro to pick up some dinner. It was one of those very rare San Francisco evenings were there wasn't the barest hint of a chill to the air, and it was a treat to drive through the warm evening in my open jeep wearing just a t-shirt.

The movers were due to come first thing in the morning. It took me a while to tidy up the last-minute things, and take bags and bags of trash down to the basement. But then, suddenly, there was nothing left to do. So I stood at the living room window and waited for the movers, amusing myself in the interim by watching the club goers lining up in their tank tops at the End Up across the street. I was thinking, jeez don't these guys have anything better to do than line up to get into a beer-stinking club on such an early, gorgeous morning. But each to his own.

Waiting for the Movers

The movers were just great - two hunky black guys of about my age, and a spectacled white kid in his early twenties who was surprisingly shapeless and nerdy for a mover. They were friendly, and smiling and organized, and did a great, smooth job. All I had to do was direct operations from the sofa :)

The movers in action

By ten thirty, everything was packed. Although I've loved the physical space of this apartment, the mental stress of living surrounded by such noise and squalor is something I won't miss!

Last photo from Harrison Street

At the high-rise, my new address, the front-desk was all ready for me. I was disappointed that they didn't laugh when I walked in, carrying my two laptop bags, and joked "checking in ..." But they're fearsomely well organized, and I got my "new resident package" just in time to see my moving truck round the corner and head to the back of the building. It took about an hour to get everything up to the top of the building on the freight elevator. And it was done. I was here!

As I walked over the sky-bridge to the Embarcadero Center to pick up a lunch from what will undoubtedly become my new food-to-go restaurant of choice, my spirits began to soar. And throughout the rest of the afternoon, evening and even this morning, they continued to soar. I feel so lucky to be living in such a beautiful, beautiful location. This really is a cool neighborhood - the ultimate combination of views, and convenience. Right down town, yet peaceful (I haven't heard a single sound in twenty four hours from a neighbor), a neighborhood filled with shops and restaurants (there's a Starbucks right down stairs!), the beautiful, restrained elegance of the tree-lined streets, plazas and walkways (I can't wait to get out and photograph my new neighborhood), and the endless, ever-changing blue view from my balcony. And Saturday - wow! The most beautiful, Mediterranean day you can imagine. If it was like this here in San Francisco every day, this city really would be an irresistable paradise.

Looking out on paradise :)

I got this place by pure lucky chance. I was getting worried - it was mid March, and I still hadn't found a place to live, and I was being turned down on applications. I walked past this complex and knew that I couldn't afford a one-bedroom here. But I thought that I could maybe afford a top-floor studio. However, what were the chances that one would happen to be available right now? And what were the odds I'd get it if tens of others were competing for it? But something was smiling for me that day - a top-floor studio had become available just that day, before the rental agent had had a chance to advertise it anywhere - and it had my name on it!

Towards the end of the afternoon, Brett came over with a bottle of chardonnay, and we spent several hours just sitting outside in the warmth, chatting, and watching the people on the Embarcadero (I think I need a telescope - some of those shirtless skateboard boys ... woof!), and the changing misty horizon as the sun started to hide itself behind Russian Hill.

Brett (he doesn't like his smile I guess :)

When I came back to the apartment after Brett and I had had dinner, the warm air was still flooding in through the open door to my balcony. Outside, I let my eyes drink in the view - the lights strung across the Bay Bridge, a brightly illuminated ferry forging a twinkling wake through the Bay, the lamps shining out the windows of the piles of apartment buildings stacked on Telegraph Hill, and the wink-wink of the lighthouse on Alcatraz.

The ambience of sound here is so different from where I was. I still get traffic noise - from the Embarcadero below, but not as insistently as I did from the traffic on the freeways and the six-lane road beneath my living room at the old place. The more obvious sounds here are the whir and ding-dong of the occasional street-car on its new route to Fisherman's Wharf, and the heavy chug chug of passing ships, with the occasional ship's bell or horn.

I woke at dawn, and I don't need to tell you how beautiful it was. The sound ambience had changed to that of morning birds - starlings, sea-gulls, even what sounded like geese, and the thwacks of tennis rackets from early morning players at the tennis club below. As the red streaked across the Berkeley hills to the East, I sucked in the morning air with an enormous, grateful pleasure.

Later, I went for my first run - nothing to it. Just run out the door, head East, and I'm on the Embaradero, in the sunlight, curving round to Fishermans's Wharf, dodging tourists, then through the tourist section and out onto the commercial fisherman's wharf, where a semblance of the old fishing industry gives a touch of everyday normality. The joy I felt in turning back at the end of the wharf, and seeing Russian Hill above me glowing in the sun, while two sea-lions (I'm not kidding) bounced in the green water by the side of the wharf!

This high won't last, undoubtedly. But right now, more than ever, I'm aware more acutely than usual that you make your own joy. Luck counts too, but you can't get lucky if you're not out there looking for it.