Goodbye San Francisco

Dear San Francisco,

It’s taken me a while to muster up the courage to sit down and write this letter to you. We’ve been through so much together in such a short time.

I was eager and excited and you opened your arms to me. I fell in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you. You were beautiful, mysterious, cultured.

I adored the beauty of your Bay, the unfolding drama of your endlessly foggy days, the bustle of the FiDi with its canyons of commerce. How I tripped the light fantastic in the Mission, the very gay Castro, SOMA and even snooty Nob Hill. I smoked it up in the Haight and did something illegal in Golden Gate Park, but we’ll keep that to ourselves.

Paying in monthly rent what the U.S. government shells out annually in foreign aid to Africa was expected. Living on cured beef and Folgers to save a few bucks was ‘artsy’. I traveled on MUNI to save the masses, to save the environment, to ‘spare the air’.

I helped the homeless, befriended the trannies, and was constantly shelling out spare change that I didn’t have to your numerous poor. Together, we rocked. We fought against ‘the machine’, the Man, the materialistic, middle America.

And then everything started to change.

Smelling urine on the streets and in the MUNI station wasn’t cool anymore. The hordes of tourists on Fisherman’s Wharf was getting annoying. Sleeping on an air mattress because I couldn’t afford more furniture bothered me and stiffened my back.

I realized that paying $1840 a month in rent should include more than just one bedroom, no garden, and a bathroom you can’t turn around in; that paying $300 for a PG&E gas bill when I live alone - and don’t even have electrical appliances - is outrageous.

I’m sorry. I cheated on you. I started flirting with someone in Vegas.

They offered me stability, a monthly wage, a promotion, and a chance to live in a decent sized house with a fence and a garden, and at a decent, honest rent.

My beloved ‘Frisco. I’m all packed and ready to go. Yet, I felt you should know why I chose to go. Things aren’t what they were in your glory dot com days. Instead, now, in your dot gone days, working as a freelance copywriter is dangerous. Eviction looms. The credit card company smiles. It’s difficult. Your job market has all but dried up and employment opportunities in your ad industry were few and far between.

So I have accepted an Associate CD position with an agency in Vegas. Sin City has nothing on you babe. But she has a job for me. I stuck around and tried. For three months I tried, you must know that. I called agencies and emailed Creative Directors and recruiters to the point where restraining orders were issued. I did it so we could try stay together.

My true love, I’ll miss you ‘Frisco. But you’ll meet another. You’ll make new friends.

Until then, wish me luck in Vegas. I’ll need it.

Love always,

Ethan