Better?

(Adapted from a recent Facebook rant about this essay.)

San Francisco in 1992, when I moved there, was a deeply dysfunctional city. San Francisco in 2015, ten years after I departed, is still a deeply dysfunctional city, albeit in a very different way. I personally found the (early) 1990s dysfunction much more entertaining and inclusive than the current very expensive and corporate version. That’s probably because “pot truffles and hashish ginger snaps”, $4000/month studios, and hand-forged artisanal turnips from Bernal Heights are not really my thing.

While the author of seems only to remember the “sadness” that enveloped the Castro in the 1990s, the gay San Francisco I moved to in 1992 was actually a pretty happy place, one that was finally emerging from the darkness and paranoia of the 1980s and beginning to enjoy itself again.

I get that the author is trying to put a positive spin on change and question people’s assumptions about “the good old days” and how they were always “better” but the problem with this essay is that it mostly cites examples that say more about how much more sanitized and pretentious and wealthy the city has become in the past twenty years than about how much “better” it is. It may be a better place for many people, but not for me…not based on this essay, anyway.

I lived in San Francisco long enough that I’m allowed to have an opinion, but I’ve been gone long enough that no one has to pay any attention to it.

Your happy shopping store

Greensboro Daily News, 20 October 1974

On 7 February 1975, Belk opened its new 160,000 square foot department store in Greensboro’s Four Seasons Mall (now Four Seasons Town Centre). On opening day, the full-line department store featured not only the standard clothing and housewares departments, but also a “Sight and Sound” electronics department, a books and records department, a fabric and crafts section, a candy counter, and a Swiss Colony outlet. Continue reading “Your happy shopping store” →

Marriage, affairs, cities, etc.

Once again beating to death that metaphor of cities as romance partners: While Toronto has long been the city I could see myself married to, I’ve decided that Montréal is the city I would most like to have an affair with.

From what I’ve bee am able to determine, many actual Canadians (not just “pretend” Canadians like me) have this relationship with the two cities as well.

I think a big part of what I like about Montréal is that it seems a little more scruffy and a little less”orderly” than Toronto, which makes it much more sexy but perhaps much less appealing as a long-term partner. Not, mind you, that either is really an option for me. But Montréal is just a not quite as clean, not quite as orderly, and a whole lot cheaper. It’s also an older city that grew large much earlier than Toronto did, even though it’s quite obvious that much of its growth was in the 1950s and 1960s as well.

Random encounters with nice people in Montréal:

The nice old gentleman who struck up a conversation with me at breakfast the other day, he with his tentalive English and me with my (very) tentative French. He complimented my language skills (he was being polite, I think) and said I looked “shy” when I spoke French.
The antique shop owner who, when I told him I collected old supermarket merchandise and did a website on their histories, produced a 30-year-old bag for Steinberg’s, an iconic and defunct Montreal chain I was very familiar with, and proceeded to give it to me free.
The lady at the Indian restaurant in an outlying neighborhood who asked me if a certain dish might be “too spicy” for me and was surprised towards that I make my own version of it at home. She gave me free pakoras.

Contrary to what I’ve heard, people are actually really nice and polite here and usually smiling. I think I was a little reserved last time I was here and didn’t interact with too many people because of it. That was probably kind of a mistake.

The next half century

So yeah, I’m fifty now.

I get mail from the AARP. I have abandoned the coveted 18-49 demographic. I’m sure there are places that would already extend me a senior citizen discount. And I’m now officially eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which means I can finally get tax breaks for any façade restorations that would return me to my original appearance. I’m pretty excited about that last part.

Now, a la Buzzfeed (or High Fidelity) here are my ten most unexpected things about hitting the half-century mark:

1. First and foremost, there have been times I didn’t even expect to be here.
Over the past fifteen years I’ve fought off thyroid disease, cardiac issues related to that thyroid disease, cancer, and a pretty crippling depression. I smoked for twenty-five years before quitting in 2003. I had some pretty significant non-medical stresses as well. I lived through it all and I fully intend to continue doing so.

2. I didn’t expect to be living in Greensboro and really didn’t expect to be living in the house where I grew up.
I didn’t expect still to be living in San Francisco either so at least I got that part right. Would Greensboro be my first choice of residence? Probably not. But I’m pretty happy here. I’ve carved out a good life, I live in a reasonably nice house, I have a job that I love (more later), and my low expenses allow me to travel to places I enjoy pretty frequently. Greensboro works for me on many levels. Related: I also didn’t expect to have become such a neat freak.

3. I didn’t expect to have become one of those people who–without fail–brings my own bags to the grocery store.
Those people used to really annoy me for some reason. But when I (1) started paying close attention to how fucking many bags there were in my house and (2) began shopping at Aldi a lot, which (3) got me in the habit, I didn’t look back. Hint: The trick is to keep them inside your car rather than in the trunk so you don’t forget.

4. I didn’t expect to be making life and death decisions for my parents.
Enough said. When you have to let your dad die naturally and start having the same conversation with doctors about your mom, childhood is pretty much over. The good (or maybe sad) thing is that I’ve already pretty much said goodbye to my mom. That will make it easier when she “really” goes, right?

5. I didn’t expect to be a librarian and tenure-track faculty member at my alma mater.
This one is pretty much a win all the way round. it took me a hell of a long time but I finally found out what I love to do and what I want to be when I grow up. And I found someone to pay me to do it.

6. I didn’t expect to be single.
Yeah, we’ve covered this ground. After years of thinking I didn’t want love, I found it unexpectedly and wound up in what I thought almost right up to the end was the perfect relationship. Turns out I was wrong. I loved him and I don’t regret most of the time we spent together. I do regret getting out of the “habit” of being single because I’m pretty sure I’ll spend the rest of my life that way–and that’s ultimately for the best.

7. I didn’t expect to have reconnected with so many old friends.
That’s a big win too. Being coupled often isolates introverts from their friends as we have only so much ability to be social an the partner gets first (and sometimes the only) crack at that. Some old friends, a surprisingly high proportion of whom live in various corners of the state of New York, have made life much more bearable over the past few years. They may all never know quite how much.

8. I didn’t expect The Simpsons to be in its twenty-fifth season.
Come on. Did you?

9. I didn’t expect to have experienced such a rebirth of my interest in music.
I really got out of that whole indie thing for a lot of years. Strangely enough, I think it was my fascination with all things Canadian that got me interested again, first with francophone Quebecois pop and later with the (mostly anglophone) indie bands on CBC Radio 3 and other places. I’m pretty immersed now, I go to shows, and I find a lot of the more disposable 1980s technopop that used to still be a big part of my life long after its “sell by” date had passed to be virtually unlistenable now.

10. I didn’t expect to have experienced such a rebirth of my interest in cities.
This is a big one that makes me happy too. After thirteen years in San Francisco, I was still fascinated by cities but approached them warily. Turns out that either (1) my hatred of SF was the root of the problem and it was geographically specific, or (2) I like visiting cities a lot more than living in them. Probably a bit of both, but now I do mostly urban destinations where I stay in the city rather than the ‘burbs and use transit or my Adidas instead of the car. And I love east coast cities.

And my three biggest random and pithy observations:

I don’t feel fifty. Most people tell me I don’t look it or act it either. I think that’s a good thing. I’m not sure.
Sometime over the past few years, I lost my sense of adventure and of wonder at the world. I’ve found it again. I’m glad.
Rock and roll is better than sex and drugs, and each can exist independently.

Happy birthday to me. Last week, that is.

In which I nag about Greensboro history

This is a really great post and I love anything that will push locals to know more about the history of there they live. That’s always been important to me wherever I’ve lived. But there are a couple of factual issues I must address because I’m OCD that way. I’m posting this here where a maximum of twelve people will ever read it because there doesn’t seem to be a comments option on the article (EDIT: There actually is a comments option but it doesn’t show up in the mobile version and also involves Facebook platform apps).

It’s kind of a stretch to suggest that Glenwood was ever the “center” of high-end shopping and social activity in Greensboro and to compare it to Friendly Center. Glenwood was, at best, a nice streetcar suburb with a small neighborhood shopping area, most of which still stands (albeit in some disrepair) along Grove Street. Similar districts still exist on Tate Street by UNCG, at Walker and Elam Avenues, and other areas. It was more analogous to today’s small shopping center with a grocery store and a drug store (think Golden Gate, for example) than to a major shopping area like Friendly Center. There was, I believe, a popular recreational area in Glenwood as well.

Also, the downtown bypass was not really a precursor to the Greensboro beltway; they were both planned around the same time and were to have coexisted. The one downtown just got funded and constructed several decades earlier. If I’m not mistaken, most of it was built more or less as planned, with Murrow Boulevard feeding into paired one-way streets (Fisher and Smith, then Edgeworth and Spring) to create a surface-level “loop” bypass. The part that was not constructed (and it’s probably a good thing) was the southern leg that was to be built as a major expressway, running parallel to Lee Street all the way to the Coliseum area. This part was scrapped for lack of demand and funds in the 1970s. The big mound of dirt and awkward traffic pattern at Lee Street and Murrow Boulevard live on as a reminder of the interchange that would have been there.

Last but not least, it’s “O. Henry”, not “O’Henry”.

So ends my unsolicited history lesson for the day…