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May 06, 2005 - 5:11 p.m.

Evicted

I am sorry I haven't written this week, but I think I have a really good excuse as I am about to be HOMELESS.

OK, so that's not really true, at least not totally true. We got a notice this week that our landlord wants us to "temporarily vacate" for 90 days while he romodels the bathroom and kitchen.

San Francisco has some pretty strict rent control, for which I am grateful. We have the right to reoccupy the unit at the same rent, adjusted slightly for improvements, when the work is done, and the landlord has to give us $1,000 each for relocation expenses, and there are all sorts of other proections in place to keep us from getting unlawfully evicted.

But the rules are as byzantine as they are helpful, so the week has been a flurry of visiting the Tenants Union, drafting letters to the landlord (who is a nice guy, actually), and figuring out where the hell the four people, three cats, and attendant stuff will go from July through October (longer, if the construction goes over).

Luckily, I have awesome housemates and awesome friends, so things have been going as smoothly as one can expect in this situation. I have already had two offers to take in Iggy for the duration, one from a very cool coworker and one from the lovely Ms. Fu. which will make finding a sublet easier. And Fu may have even found me a place, if I need it. Bartleby and C have been great about tracking info down and helping to write letters, and we have mostly reaffirmed that we all like living together and want to keep doing so if possible. We've lived together for more than seven years, so that is something, right there.

I am trying to take the attitude that this is a good thing. Maybe even a fun thing! It will make us get rid of stuff that we don't need, and we get to have the adventure of living somewhere else for a few months. It'll be like a vacation!

And yet. I am this strange combination of completely wired and totally exhausted. At best, this will be a huge hassle and probably an expense. At worst, it might mean the end of the home we've put together over the years, if all this remodeling is a precursor to selling the building or something. It's not a very fancy home -- we live like college students, only slightly neater -- but we like it, you know?

Gah. Well, no use worrying about any of that now. Now, I am going to go home and do some laundry, because that is what sexy things like me do on a Friday night.



Oh, and it doesn't really feel like that huge of a deal, but as of today, I've been sober for 180 days straight.

It doesn't feel like such a big deal because it hasn't really been that hard, lately. There have been moments, here and there, where I briefly think that I would like a drink. But then I think about it, and how I would feel, and what the consequences might be, and decide that I really don't. Like, this week a glass of wine might have been nice when we got the eviction notice. But I needed a clear head to deal with it all, so I didn't have the wine.

I wish I had something more insightful or brilliant or inspirational to say about it than that, but I don't. I haven't been going to any meetings or seeing any therapists or anything like that. I've just been not drinking. It wouldn't necessarily work for everybody, but for now it's working for me.

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