So I gotta lot of books, yeah? And a lot of knickknacks of a Halloween-y flavor. And VHS tapes that I forgot I had, as well as the DVD collection that I knew I did have. What I ain’t got at the moment is shelf space, nor really floor space upon which I can place shelf space, aside from the fact that I can’t at the moment afford to buy any shelf space. It’s a quandary, I tell’s ya….
Mostly unpacked, mostly settled, still have niggling questions that need answers, but all in all still walkin’ and talkin’. So this was what happened so far: got the gig to be Resident Manager at a Nob Hill apartment building, signed the contract with the owner/management company on the first of September, paid rent for the month, and not even six hours later got notification that the building went into receivership, it was now owned by Teh Bank, and my contract was null and void. Neat! I paid to squat in a Nob Hill apartment. So the bank dumped my building plus several dozen others on a new management company, and after ten nerve-wracking days, I signed a contract with them, only the terms are slightly different and fundamentally in my favor, as in I do odd jobs and such for the company for about forty hours a month and I get to stay in the place rent-free. But I’m more of a “representative” for this new company that I’d like, what with me interacting with the unwashed masses on a much-too-regular basis, and no one’s ready to provide me with company-approved information, such as vendors or budget or procedure. So I’m still kinda sitting on my hands over the whole thing, but I’ve been assured it’ll work out by next week. M’kay….
The apartment itself is rather nifty in an ohmygadsthisplaceisold kinda way. The elevator went out three times in the past month, the lobby door lock suddenly became unscrewed and fell apart, and the flooring is something this side of what the Imperial Japanese used to call a “nightingale floor”. And the trash truck comes by the bedroom window at five innagaddamn morning every Mon/Wed/Fri, with the street sweeper on Thursdays. The heating for the place is steam heat, and two of the three radiators have been removed from the place, but not the piping in the walls, so something mysteriously thermal occurs nearly every morning roundabout five innagaddamn morning right in the corner of the bedroom, a very distinctive rap rap rap, as if some morning visitor gently tap tap tapping on the wall, or perhaps a game of handball by a pair of enterprising rodents, I dunno. There are also distinctly warm spots on the walls and floor of the place, where the steam heat piping continues to radiate without aid of a radiator. If I wasn’t a science-y minded fella, I would have some strong thoughts pertaining to hauntings….
Aside from that, been taking a few walks around the neighborhood. I’m close enough to the Ritz-Carlton that I can throw beer bottles at the lobby doors, and the Official Top of Nob Hill is only a couple of blocks away. Just down the hill another two blocks is Chinatown, a bit more is the Tenderloin. It’s a picture-taker paradise, I tell’s ya, and I mean to do just that tomorrow. The basic plan is to wander around and take pics of the kind of stuff that one doesn’t see in the tour books, but still adhering to my age-old guideline of mostly shooting stuff that isn’t people. So gird your loins for a mess of pics involving architectural brick-a-brack….
I do have cable, and have been watching a mess of Iron Chef and Tony Bourdain, and not much else. When did Cartoon Network suddenly start sucking so badly? Sci-Fi Channel I knew was gonna be a sad thing, what with the name change, but cripes, it’s like they just got really lazy at Cartoon Network. I guess that’s the state of things, I get to get 300+ channels of programming, and it’s all pretty worthless. S’okay, I got other things to do. Like write, ho ho. No, really, I got stuff that I have in the back of my head, I just gotta get my writing muscles back in shape. Which is why I’m poking at this now. And, of course, I still have the Photography Project to complete….
