With all the family drama this week, I managed to miss the tenth anniversary of my milestone departure from San Francisco after thirteen years there. I had originally planned to get all philosophical about it, but the past few days have been really exhausting and frankly I’m just too fucking tired to bother tonight. Maybe later this week. Probably not.

For now, suffice to say that even though things didn’t turn out exactly as I’d planned ten years ago, I still think this move was one of my better decisions in life. San Francisco was over for me; it was well past time to leave. Despite the fact that a lot of really shitty things have happened to me (personal, health-related, and familial) in the past ten years, a lot of really good things have happened, too. I am pretty genuinely happy with where I am and who I am now. And that wasn’t really something I could say in San Francisco.

For what it’s worth, I’m not as fat now either, although I have managed to find some of that weight I lost over the past year or two.

If you’re in the mood, please feel free to relive the cross-country excursion, with all its neon signs, roadside food, and automotive drama.

Random thoughts for a Saturday afternoon in a semi-rural hospital setting:

• Involuntary commitments done through a hospital are much easier than those you do yourself at the magistrate’s office, but they take just as long. And I very much wish this were not something I knew firsthand.
• It takes a special kind of person to be a hospice worker. Seriously.
• It’s in the middle of nowhere and visiting will be a pain, but you gotta love a hospital with its own lake.
• Way too many people who work with dementia patients cannot distinguish between a crisis and a problem and act accordingly. Hint: precious few things really qualify as crises.

The Elwins
So down low (2015)