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Thursday, 1 September 2005
Moving ::
In late July I realized that my studio apartment lease would be up at the end of September and started thinking about what I’d like in a new place—how about no shared walls with neighbors so as to be able to use speakers instead of headphones a little more? How about in the foothills or mountains, or a little closer to San Francisco? Or what about in Santa Cruz?
I poked around on craigslist and was happy to see a small but steady stream of studio and 1-bedroom cottages, with rents ranging from 100 to 150% of what I’m paying now.
Santa Cruz was out; as much as I like it because it reminds me of Ithaca (ha!), that commute to Cupertino is tough, let alone going to San Francisco or to V’s in San Mateo.
When August arrived, it seemed time to see some places in person. I was excited about the location of the first one I looked at, in a rural atmosphere not far from I-280, 15 miles up the Peninsula, but the place was miniscule and expensive for its size. I also decided I didn’t want to be paying two rents for two months and would wait another month to look seriously again.
Last week I looked at another couple places and confirmed my instinct that I didn’t want to be any further south/east than I am now in Sunnyvale—traffic gets worse and the neighborhoods are older, denser and bleaker (fewer trees). The new listings for places in the foothills/on Skyline, up the Peninsula, had dried up. I started to consider staying where I am until spring.
There are 3 routes to work from here. 8 or 9 days out of 10, I’ll just drive 5 miles on major avenues across Sunnyvale to Cupertino. If I need to stop at the post office, it’s lunchtime and the city streets are crowded, or I feel like driving on the freeway, I’ll take a longer (but equally fast) route on 3 freeways.
Once a month or so I drive through the center of Sunnyvale just for a change of scenery. The first time I did that, maybe 6 months ago, I saw a beautiful big old house for rent and had my first daydreams about moving. Tuesday I took that route again, looked at that house and wondered who was living there now. Late Tuesday afternoon an ad for a studio cottage in Sunnyvale popped up on craigslist. It’s maybe a quarter to half a mile from that big beautiful house. I went to see it two hours later and liked it a lot; there’s a separate bedroom, washer/drier, and private patio, all of which seem like luxuries—for $50 a month more than the studio in the complex. I’ll find out Thursday if I got it.
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