i'm sore.

I’m sore all the time. Literally all of the time.

These hills are a bitch, man.

I haven’t been shy about the fact that this moving around the world for a year thing has taken a significant toll on my work out regimen. I say work out regimen as if I had one and it was interrupted.  In actuality, moving around pretty much took my disdain for working out and gave me a 9 month excuse to ignore it. (Real talk though I can’t join a gym for 10 weeks and do I look like a person that runs outside for fun LOL)

Truth be told I have always LOATHED working out. It’s really a shame. I HATE running. My high school lacrosse coach called me “Wheels” because it appeared like I magically put on wheels for lacrosse games because I NEVER ran during practice.

Sorry I don’t see the need to exert myself unless I can win something. I was kind of psychotically competitive like that in the sense that during the game I was like Superman and any other time I was like Clark Kent if Clark Kent had an affinity for the couch, tv, and wine.

These aren’t qualities to brag about, by the way. But this is the hand I have been dealt.

The thing is that I like shiz like zumba and all that where I’m working out but I don’t really realize it. I walk on an incline at the gym so I don’t have to run.

That’s the ironic part.

Suddenly my gym workout is my reality. Walking on an incline. Walking on an incline everywhere I go. Walking on an incline against my will. Walking on an incline because it’s literally my only choice.

But at the gym I got to hold on to the top of the machine.

I live in Nob Hill right now.

Here is the description of Nob Hill in a very funny moving to San Francisco guide.

THE HILLS ARE TOO STEEP.

Every morning I make my way directly downhill to work. Sounds easy, right?

IT’S NOT! Somehow, downhill manages to hurt almost as much as uphill. After a few blocks it feels like you have little jello legs and there’s a slight tremble like at any moment they might just break into 100 pieces each and your upper half will just roll down to the bottom of the hill.

I see ladies with BABY STROLLERS and wonder why they are attempting to kill their child in front of me.

Then I finally get to work, sweating like I’m experiencing withdrawal from something. Something serious.

When it’s time to go home…I put on my sneakers. I bring my sneakers to work every day because it’s just not an option to get back up to my apartment any other way. Have you seen anyone climb up Mount Killimanjaro in heel boots? Don’t think so.

The first day I made the worst mistake of my life and I walked right up California street. This will mean nothing to most people but it’s probably the steepest way I could have gone. I have since maneuvered a very precise route that makes the hills manageable, but still.

I’m not cut out for this stuff. Halfway up the hill everything burns. The pain. The horror. I have to STOP! I HAVE TO! I have to as a 60 year old (obviously local) man passes by me with ease. But as every fiber of my lower body aches and I’m huffing and puffing and I’m just stopped on this block.

Obviously, everyone knows. Everyone knows I’m some kind of newbie that can’t keep up and I stare at my phone as if I’m lost or something and just NEEDED to stop and look at it to figure it all out but in reality I have stopped because I think my heart might pop out of my chest and onto this street corner.

Then I see a cyclist SOMEHOW pedaling directly uphill and all I can think is “You’re an asshole.”

That’s really rude but come on, HOW THE HELL is that happening.

Ass.

Then a cab pulls up because HE KNOWS! He’s seen my type before and he’s like a shark following a tired little seal and he wants to take me and my money up the two final blocks to my apartment.

I keep going. But now I’M SWELTERING HOT!

It’s 60 degrees out and I’m burning up so I take off my jacket and I’m the only girl in a tank top, jeans, and sneakers (seriously? ugh) and I have my headphones in but I am probably (definitely) heaving.

This. This moment. This visual. Is the exact opposite of cute.

Eventually I make it to my apartment and I fall on the floor and stay there until I’ve come back to life and now I’m cold.

Summer in San Francisco.

P.S This has a whole new element when you are walking home from happy hour. It’s one that I can only assume is bad for you. As my roommate Katie exclaimed one day as we huffed and puffed up the hill: “I feel like I have beer in my veins.”

Katie and I went exploring last weekend. We ended up walking 4 miles all over the place…up and down hills. We even stumbled across the set of The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which was very interesting.

All of this seemed fine at the time, but alas, in the morning I awoke and felt like I had been HIT BY A CABLE CAR.

We spent the day whining and crying and moaning and literally to even put one foot in front of the other burned like the fire of 1,000 fires.

It’s been a day and I’m limping at work. I assume people look at me and have that feeling like “Jesus. Put it out of its misery” like when you see half alive road kill.

But, thankfully, I’m fully alive. The first week living here I was consistently sore and I guess this is just the life I have signed up for until I finally get fit enough to do this with ease. I aim to be the person that everyone thinks is an asshole because I’m just jaunting up the hill having a casual little chat on my phone without sounding like a car in the process of breaking down.

The bright side of all of this is that I’m assuming this is why almost everyone here is in pretty good shape and in pretty good moods: everyone is literally, CONSTANTLY releasing endorphins.

Which is good news for all of us because:

Future husband: call me.

xo tay

i moved (again)

to San Francisco. If you didn’t notice. Which you probably did because I upload a stupid amount of photos of this beautiful city because I just gotta be real and say that I absolutely love it out here.

(beer is good too)

It’s not a secret that I wasn’t the biggest fan of New York City…and I have tried to assess why without being rude and offensive to the people that live there and love it. And, actually, the exact reasons why some people love that city are probably why I hate it.

In short:

1. I didn’t like that I could live in the same city as my college bffs and be a 45 minute subway ride from them. The place is too damn big. (Positive spin: city so big with so much happening that you can do literally anything, anytime. Like actually.)
2. The people were pretty mean, guys. Like, not everyone OBVIOUSLY. I made some incredible new friends while being in the city (hi roomies,) and some of my best friends live there and are not mean at all. But, in general, the vibe of most people around me was pretty damn rude. And when people are rude to me I get rude. When people bump me in the subway I get angry. Long story short: NYC makes me a pretty big z-ing bitch okay! (Positive: some people can just deal with this without it affecting their entire being. I’m not one of them.)
3. The work culture was very high stress. In my opinion, unnecessarily so. It’s kind of a city where people brag about how shit their lives are, and that, somehow, means they have won the conversation. (Neutral point: there are people like this in every city…but I have moved around quite a bit in the last year just felt it to be rampant in this one.)
4. I talked about the subway in my last post. And, like, come on. What do you want me to say. It’s hot and slow and people touch you like, a lot. (Positive: ………sorry. No.)

That’s the short of it…and it’s not like I’ve never been to NYC before. I’ve been many times, and I always thought I was going to end up there one day, and I was okay with that. But, something changed after I experienced San Francisco.

You all know I lived here in the Fall (October-December,) and I just fell in love with the place. I think one of the biggest things is that the people here ARE NICE.

They ask me what my name is (and remember it!!) They ask where I’m from, what my story is, etc etc. And I’m not talking about colleagues I’m talking about cabbies, and people in line for a grilled cheese. There’s a cable car guy that waves to me every morning on my commute. The vibe here is just…nicer. One of the closest things to an on the street argument I have seen thus far is when two people bumped into each other and they BOTH profusely apologized!

This is not to say there aren’t mean people…and I will probably yell at one one day, but by my third week in NYC I had probably yelled at 35 people and tweeted a snide, offensive remark about 40 others. (Only a slight exaggeration.) And I’m celebrating week 3 here and all I want to do is see more, do more, and talk more.

So, I think living in San Francisco was just the nail in NYC’s coffin. All I could do was compare, and in my mind there was a clear winner. I think if I never came out here I would have been okay in NYC (maybe a tad bitchier,) but I think I would have been happy eventually.

But, I’m back here. Across the country from my friends and family, which is definitely the worst part of this whole situation. But, I wake up in a city I want to explore and if luck will have it I’m hoping to stay.

This is my last quarter. My last internship! Mid September I will graduate and finally emerge into the real world after my extra 2 years of school. It’s so weird, but a very welcome idea for me.

I want to settle! I want a bedroom. I want a bed and kitchen utensils that are MINE! I want to break a wine glass and not feel the guilt that I broke someone else’s wine glass but instead just the crippling sadness that I broke my own beloved nectar of the god’s glass.

So, send me some good job hiring vibes people.

I’m going to keep updating. I’m sorry this one was kind of a snooze but it’s just my reintroduction back into the ~city by the bay~

I’ll soon be tackling topics such as San Francisco’s Summerless Summer and the fact that these hills might actually be the death of me. Also: garlic fries. What is the z-ing deal with garlic fries.

Until then,

xo tay