April of 2019

I spent the month of April wrapping things up with a few clients, putting most of my obligations to various peoples in Frederick to rest, and packing up my tiny apartment.  Turns out that with the exception of a single desk it all fit in one van load.  It's not a very big van either.  I probably should have made an extra trip (see photo).

I had dropped an old friend off at the airport earlier in January.  She was fleeing Altoona for greener pastures out in San Francisco with not much more than the clothes she was wearing and a couple suitcases.  She had called me a few times since, telling me about how the work was greener though the rent was untenable.

She and I had, on several occasions, both lived a tenuous, often nearly homeless, existence during the recession, however.  Not having a place to live doesn't scare either of us too much these days if there's good work to be had.

I should say, for everyone who doesn't know, that though the economy is doing a hell of a lot better now than then, much of the rust belt of Appalachia still suffers.

So she said a few times that I ought to come out and try my luck.  I told her that I had cheap rent, a new job starting at the college (I was officially a professor for 3 hours and 15 minutes according to my one and only pay stub), and plenty of enjoyable side gigs going.

I told her that if she asked me a year ago, I might have, but things were finally looking solidly positive, and I'd be something of a fool to just drop it all.

When it all more or less dropped me, I figured if I was going somewhere else anyway, it might as well be San Francisco.  Everything had all come apart around about April 1st, so I gave myself that month in Frederick to wrap things up, and, on the morning of April 30th, I left