Fifteen in Five: A life in motion

Fifteen homes in Five years

  (The dream home on Castro)

Since the eviction from my 10 year home on Castro Street in Nov of 2012 I bounced around a lot for the next few years. My primary address was a post office box at 584 Castro Street with Steph. Across the street from my ex-forever home.

(My mailing address for the next five years)

On the morning of the eviction, AJ came up from San Jose and helped Danny and I move all our stuff into the moving truck (with the help of some hired labor). The only thing we left behind was the spinet piano that Jack gave us. I almost killed myself moving that 500lb beast up those 31 stairs, I wasn't about to try it again. Plus, I wasn't getting a deposit back so I figured I didn't need to go the extra mile, risking possible death, in clearing the place out. 

That last night into the last morning was such a weird experience. It was just Danny and I left in the place, the power was off, we lit the place with candles and tap lights. We opened all the interior doors and saw the place as it was designed originally as a one family flat. My old bedroom would have ben the living room, Danny's old room would have been the den and then Mark's old bedroom would have been the only bedroom. The current living room would have been the dining room and the front fainting room would have also been the child's room. All the bedrooms had interior connecting doors that when opened created this very lavish upscale ambiance. What could have been...

I was an amazing home. And leaving it, Danny and I left not only our home in Castro, but we also left the relationship we had made with it. Amicably going our separate ways as friends and exes, he went back to Concord with his family with Comet. After we finished unloading the truck into three separate storage units AJ drove me and Jinx to live with him in his house on 18th street, in San Jose, where I would stay with him for about a month and a half, until Christmas.

(AJ's place in San Jose, the first time)

For Christmas 2012, our friend Chad Fox (aka: fuck-you-Chad-Fox) was going home to Cleveland to see his parents for the holidays and wouldn't be back until the new year. So Danny and I and our two dogs, Comet and Jinx, leapt at the opportunity to stay at his place on Romolo, a cool converted whorehouse in a back alley in North Beach for two weeks over Christmas. Yes, it really did used to be a whorehouse. 

(Chad Fox's converted whorehouse apartment in North Beach)

As I had a well paying job at the moment and wasn't having any luck looking at rooms to rent, I found a posh monthly hotel in the tenderloin that cost me around $350 a week. I moved there from North Beach and stayed there until April of 2013. The downside, no dogs allowed. Luckily Danny was able to take Jinx to Concord with him until I found a place. 

   (The bougie hotel in the Tenderloin)

I realized what I was spending on the weekly hotel would make it impossible to save for a new place if I kept staying there. I started putting my feelers out and seeing if the room rental market had changed at all. And just as luck would have it, my best lady friend and her wife had just made the decision to make the move to Portland. 

No, they weren't taking me with them to Portland, however, they did recognize that they had an extra room. And that a little extra money and time would help them in the move, so, they offered me their spare room for the six months that they were going to use to make the move. So Jinx and I moved into "The Whorehouse" for the spring and summer. This was at 25th and Bryant, in the heart of the Mission District. 

(Steph and Jen's place "the Whorehouse" in the Mission)

This was one of the most amazing and healing experiences of my life. Not only did I have space, I had my dog, a job, room to recover from losing a home and partner at the same time. And I learned what it feels like to be truly pampered. I didn't know this about her until I moved in with her, but Steph... is the epitome of the good southern Baptist housewife. In the sense that no matter what she had going on with her day or night (and she was a BUSY woman). She always made breakfast for us in the mornings. And she always had dinner options on the ready when you got home and the martini glasses chilling in the fridge. She fed me, helped me get into classes, pushed my career forward and helped rebuild my confidence. And then, just like that, they were gone to Portland.

Here is where I had to make the hardest decision. In all my searching for a place, each and every one of them; No pets, on the lease. Already too many pets in the house. Place after place after place, I couldn't get a home or room of my own and keep my dog.  I love Jinx, and still do, but I had to make the better decision for both her and I. So when Jen asked if they could take Jinx to Portland with them and use her to start up their dog walking business. It seemed like the best option.

It was, by the way. Jinx loved Steph from the first moment they met the day Danny and I adopted her from the SPCA. Much more than she ever loved me, she was clearly a lesbian dog cuz she only ever had eyes for Steph. Also, she was in the prime of her life moving to a place where she could spend hours every day outside running with other dogs. So, Steph and I became co-parents and Jinx went to live with them.

(Liz and Shelly's place on Church and 14th)

After they moved to Portland I moved to Liz and Shelly's place at Church and Market for three months. I knew them from chorus and acting class. And I had just done Steph's first play with Liz. When that three months was up, I still hadn't been able to find a permanent place of my own in SF. They had only agreed to let me stay for a short time, and I didn't want to inconvenience friends that had offered help. 

So I found an SRO in the mission and moved in. If you're not familiar, SRO means Single Renter Occupancy. They are essentially cheap, low frills, single person rooms with shared bathrooms in the hallway. Much like a college dorm, no closets, a bed, a table, a chair a mini fridge and a microwave. You won't find an SRO that you would want to stay in. They aren't known for being nice places. The are mostly filled with homeless people, drug addicts, crazy people and people barely hanging on. I didn't feel like I was in that situation, but there I was renting a room. 

(The scary shady SRO at Mission and 16th)

This was in December of 2014. I was working every day, taking the Bart to Mission and then spending the nights anywhere other than the SRO. Luckily this place was just a few short blocks from my storage unit, which I had set up with a chair and table so I could go hang out there and cull or read. I can't tell you how many back and forth trips I made from the SRO to storage and back. 

(The nicer SRO in North Beach a block from the Transamerica building)

Oh, the other fun thing about SRO's is that in order for them to maintain their status as an SRO in SF, no one can stay for more than three weeks at a time. After three weeks you have to check out and you can't check back in for seven days. So I found a much nicer (and more expensive) SRO in North Beach and I and bounced between the two places for the next few months. There was a week in there that I stayed in Berkeley at Don and Jeff's dog-sitting while they were on vacation.  Another week or two in Portland with Steph and Jen both babysitting Jinx and Steph while the latter recovered from surgery. Then when I got back, in late Mar of 2015 Larry Turner generously offered me his spare room for a month so I could help out around the house and watch the kids in his Balboa Park house. 

(Larry and the kid's house in Balboa Park)

Right around the time I was at Larry's I got the job at Nextdoor. With that I was finally able to afford a deposit again. and in June of that year I moved to downtown Berkeley, to live with Rev. Annie and her family and rent out the room of her son who had just left to college. They had the most amazing backyard, and pet's that were so much fun. It was a wonderful home that I was warmly welcomed into. We cooked for each other, had game nights and all in all I was able to get my feet back under me.

(Reverend Annie's home in downtown Berkeley)

Around December of that year I started looking at places back in the city, so I could cut my commute time and cost down a bit and because I could afford to find a place that better fit me. I put an ad on Craigslist about myself and what I was looking for in a place and out of some sort of cosmic alignment, a woman named Angie reached out and said she might have a spot for me. 

(My room with no windows and bright orange walls)

The spot was a converted garage in her Glen Park home that had two bedrooms with big closets, a shower bathroom and a kitchenette. The only downside as she pointed out was that there was only one window in the entire place, and it was in the bathroom. The room was painted white and neon orange, so surprisingly, it didn't feel dark. It was perfect for me. And the kid who was living in the front room already felt like someone I'd known for a while. Ruben was a fun guy and I enjoyed living there. I stayed for nine months. January to September of 2016. 

(The house in Glen Park. I lived behind the big red doors)

While working at Nextdoor I had been saving up so that I could join SAG and by the beginning of summer of that year, I'd done it and I'd joined SAG. This was the last step in my San Francisco plan to advance my acting career before moving to LA. My managers at Nextdoor even said I could keep my job and go fully remote. So in October I moved out of Glen Park and moved back to San Jose with AJ and commuted in to the office two or three days a week for two months and in December of 2016 I made the move. San Jose to Hollywood, Los Angeles. 

(AJ's place in San Jose, the second time. His unit was actually in the back of the building)

During the four years between the eviction and the move to LA, I had slowly over time, gotten rid of so much stuff. I moved out of a four bedroom house and filled three 6x10 storage units in 2012. And by the time I started packing the U-Haul towards LA I had less than 20 boxes, a couple suitcases and a bunch of art. I had winnowed down so much that I was really surprised by how little I had left. 

Then out of nowhere, in the week that I was moving, I was reminded that I still had my three piece red leather sofa set and Grace was ready to buy her own so I could take it with me. And then Nextdoor also moved their office that week and they said we could take anything we wanted (and they hoped we would) so I got a couple IKEA pieces, a standing desk, two armchairs and an ottoman and a heavy duty microwave. SO wherever I was landing in LA, I had a full set of furniture. Except a bed. 

Lucky for me, Chris had a bed that I could buy. Who is Chris you ask? Why, you've already met him. Chris was introduced in my blog post Roommates: A Home on Castro. He was the first roommate I picked when I got the landlord of that house to make me the sole tenant on the lease. Chris was one of my favorite roommates of all time. Nothing phased him, he was like a total stoner, unless he smoked pot, then he was moderately active. He was a friend who I missed and he had a room in his place on Hollywood Blvd. 

(Hollywood Boulevard here I am! The first floor to the right of the door)

Chris and I technically shared that place for seven months, December to June of 2017. I say technically because for the first couple months he was there off and on as he was seeing a new beaux and they spent a lot of time at his place. In March, AJ decided he was ready to leave the bay area and go back to the beach in So Cal. So I asked Chris and he was happy to let AJ have his room as he and his boyfriend had decided to move in together.

So while he gave his notice to the landlord, we all hoped that the landlord would just sign a new lease with me as I was already living there. Unfortunately, the landlord was trying to retire and places are easier to sell if they don't already have tenants so he declined and AJ and I started looking for a place to live. 

AJ, being from LA drove us around to all the neighborhoods that he thought I'd like. He planned on moving to Palm Springs, so we were really only looking for me. WeHo: too expensive, Silverlake: nice but hipsterish. Then he saw an ad for a place in Koreatown and figured it was a nice old brick building, in the miracle mile and we might as well take a look. We came to see the place, it was on South Gramercy Pl and was a beautiful old brick building with white trim. We went to the call box and rang. And rang... and rang and rang. No answer. We waited for about 30 minutes and no one ever answered. We got back in the car all huffy and at that moment AJ happened to look up. 

(My current home on South Gramercy Place)

Across the street from the brick building was another tall old concrete apartment building. Steepled rooves with rod iron spindles and weathervanes, with trees and an awning and plants creeping up the outside front walls. It looked like a building you'd see off the park in New York. And on the side of the building was a sign that said apartments and gave the phone number. We looked at each other and I called the number. 

"Hello, who's this?" a raspy lady with a smokers voice and a New Yorkers attitude asked. 

"Hi, my name is Shane and I saw the sign on the building and was wondering if you had any available unit's that I could look at."

"Yeah, fine, come up. I'm on the fourth floor, Peggy."

She buzzed us in and we went up to her apartment. Miss Peggy is who the word "spitfire" was made for. She was an eighty something, tough as nails, no bullshit type of lady who'd been doin this since before I was a twinkle in my daddy's eye. She took us through two apartments, the two bedroom and the one bedroom. While the two bedroom was nice, AJ wasn't planning on staying, so we looked at the one bedroom and as soon as I entered the living room I saw that beautiful old brick building across the street through trees that reached just up to my windows and I saw all the delicate wainscoting on the living room wall, I knew I was home. 

I must have gasped or something, cuz AJ snapped his neck towards me, looked at me and immediately went into negotiation mode. Surprisingly there was no need. 

"I don't do any of that new fangled internet shit. I ain't gonna run your credit. If I like you I'll rent to you and that's the way I always done it. I like you, you want the place? Done."

We filled out the paperwork, I put down the money and she gave me the keys. It was done in less than 15 minutes. I finally had a home again. From November of 2012 to June of 2017, just under five years,  I had lived at fifteen different addresses. I spent five years desperately clinging to the city that I loved so much. The City that had given me life and opportunity and dreams and joy. San Francisco is not only the place I spent the longest portion of my life, it's also the place I mean when I say "home". And it will always be thus.

(the view from the top of Dolores Park, aka, the gay beach of SF)

Broke-Ass Stuart was right in his poem "Rent Control is a Golden Handcuff", he says:

"Living in San Francisco and having rent control has become a sort of golden handcuff if you ever need to leave, or get evicted, you have to essentially trade in your San Francisco citizenship. The Visigoths are at the gate and they will gladly take your place."

There is a word in Welsh that I always felt best describes how I feel about San Francisco. "Hiraeth"; it is a homesickness or longing for place that no longer exists or only exists in memory. 

(Took this on the corner of Market and Noe on one of my trips home)

In June of 2017 I moved into my current apartment on Gramercy Pl in Koreatown. Here, I decided that I would unpack, put the art up on the walls, and stay for a while. It's been six years so far. That makes this the second longest home that I've lived in after the ten years on Castro. And I've made so many amazing memories here and hope to make many more. 

(Take a tour with me!)