i’m coming up on my 2 year anniversary living in san francisco. the city is a lot of things to me–charming in a traditional way, still culturally happening, trippy, dystopian, and a catalyst for a lot of personal growth in my life.

i’m seeing less and less of it, though.

it was a big deal for me to escape suburbia and flyover america and to find a city teeming with people who are into the same weird shit i am, things i’d only known from behind my computer screen. and SF continues to offer plenty of its unique brand of what excites me about city living.

but my conception of where i fit in here has broken down, and i’ve withdrawn to spending most of my time in my stuffy little apartment. how can i show my face in the arts communities when i’m just another parasite, a flyover state transplant who writes code for a living and drives up the rents and ubers too much and postmates too much? how can i claim to be anything but a parasite when i let those insecurities reinforce themselves and keep me from patronizing the scenes i care about?

then i can be worryingly flippant about my own career sometimes, because being a techboi isn’t cool, right? i love my job but when a stranger asks what i do here in the city it’s not uncommon for me to fuzz the details.

i just need to get out more again and stop living in my head