Today I took my Camry to the gas station. Time for a fill-up. As usual, the pump asked me to put in my zip code, as a way of ensuring that I am the real McCoy and not some despicable ringer with a stolen credit card. So I entered the zip code that I’ve had for the three decades — after all this time the numbers more or less punch themselves in — and then looked in blank amazement as the pump had the pumpish equivalent of a hissy fit and told me that it wouldn’t give me any gas, no way, uh-huh, nada, zip, bupkis, and would I be so kind as to step over to the kiosk and speak to the attendant.
Then I remembered. I have a new zip code. Although my actual move is yet a few weeks in the future, I’ve gotten the ball rolling with most of the necessary address changes. I’ve always been proactive. Besides, as of August 12, 2015 my legally-defined primary residence is a fine contemporary Mediterranean right in the heart of Brentwood, California 94513. The bank considers Brentwood to be my home now, and so do I, even if I continue to hang my hat in San Francisco for a bit longer. The die is cast and the Rubicon is crossed. I was 94114. Now I’m 94513.
It’s embarrassing that a Chevron gas pump knew it better than I did.
Which gets me thinking about how much I will miss living in San Francisco, as I become a commuter after so many years spent in these 49 square miles.
Frankly, I won’t miss it one damn bit. But there are some things I won’t miss more than others.
Wind Chimes
I have had a charming, responsible, and altogether fine neighbor to my immediate south for the entire three decades I have lived in my current house. Everything about her is exemplary, from her tidiness to her fine cooking (which she shares sometimes) to her quiet life to her adorable dog. But I will not miss her $@#$! wind chimes. She’s potty for wind chimes. Upon my heartfelt pleading, she did away with one particularly egregious specimen that sounded like two saucepans being flung together. But several others remain. Every time there’s a puff of breeze I brace myself: more dingy-dingy. Her wind chimes are metal, not bamboo, and are pestered with particularly nasty overtones. I can’t really gripe about them. She tolerates my stereo system, after all, and even though it’s a super-duper audiophile system that I use to play high-quality music, it’s still got to bug her sometimes.
It has bothered me so much that I wouldn’t have bought a house in Brentwood with a wind-chime-toting neighbor. I checked before I bought. Carefully.
My Zip Code
Although 94114 is a “cool” zip code by San Francisco standards, I have never liked it. That’s because I tend to remember numbers by their scale degrees. Try singing “94114”, just try: it sucks big time. Those two “ones” right there in the middle create a rhythmic trainwreck and, furthermore, the stupid thing has absolutely no harmonic outline worth remembering. That wan “4” at the end renders it ending on either a predominant or a dominant seventh chord. Creepy.
But 94513: now there’s a nice little tune for you. It creates a respectable perfect authentic cadence, albeit one with a slight anticipation of the ending tonic with the “1” in the penultimate position. Musically it has it all over 94114—just as Brentwood has it all over San Francisco as a place to live.
Gray
Maybe it was romantic once. I doubt it. I told myself that it was oh so cool that San Francisco is so gray. Cool gray city of love and all that. But dammit, it’s gray. The skies are gray. They lighten up midday and then just as often go right back to gray in the early evening. I’m sick and tired of waking up in a dank, cold, and gray house. I want to wake up with sunlight, with color, with birds that twitter merrily instead of huddle miserably on a chilly and damp tree branch.
Close Encounters with Bicycles
San Francisco is not set up for bicyclists and motorists to share the roads. That’s especially true when the cyclists tend to ignore the rules of the road, as they do here. I don’t mind bicycles in the abstract—in fact, I’ll probably buy one for myself once I’m settled in Brentwood, where there are bike paths galore. But I do mind dealing with careless and arrogant bicyclists on crowded city streets.
The Castro District
This is a vow. The day I move to Brentwood for good I will never, ever set foot in the Castro District again. Ever. Fortunately I don’t have any friends living there. A few in the hills above, but that doesn’t count.
OK; I’ll stop there. I haven’t even mentioned the big-ticket items, but need I? Stepping over urine puddles and/or human excrement, cringing away from whacked-out lunatics and drug addicts, trying to drive two blocks while maintaining my composure and/or sanity, shying away from aggressive activists brandishing clipboards, paying ultra high prices for everything, putting up with casual everyday rudeness, etc. Besides, I ranted heartily about all of that in an earlier posting. No: right now I’m looking forward to abundant morning sunshine, a singable zip code, no bicycle terrorists, no wind-blown dingy-dingy, and above all, no Castro.