So, the company was nice enough to hook me up with a temporary apartment out in California while I wait for my stuff to arrive from NYC. I already have an apartment up in San Francisco, but I figure I may as well stay in the temp apartment until my bed arrives. I feel a little foolish paying rent in San Francisco this month, especially since I'm also paying my last month's rent on 3rd St. Now that I think about it, I'm paying rent on two apartments in July and I'm living in neither one of them.
I arrived at the temporary apartment last night and it's like a scene out of Disneyland. It's this gated community (they actually brag about that on the brochures) in Foster City on the bay. There are gates everywhere, actually. And you get a little clicker thing that opens the gates. Feels like a prison or something, but it is designed to keep other people out.
There is a Starbucks and a few other stores in the little community. But really, is community the right word? I suppose so, if community means "a group of people having ethnic or cultural or religious characteristics in common." Everyone there is white and well-off. Lots of nice gars in the garage. Ugh.
It is seeing environments like this gated village that make me really miss East 3rd St and Avenue D in Manhattan. I don't know -- I like people. Lots of different people everywhere. I don't like looking like my neighbors, or speaking the same language as everyone else. I like feeling like an outsider. I've never been any good at being an insider.
Now don't get me wrong -- I think that's it is very cool that they set me up with a comfortable temporary apartment. I'm very lucky to have the kind of support I do, and I definitely don't take it for granted. But what scares me is that there are people that choose to live like this. Is it really living? Are they really real? Are these the same people that back the war in Iraq and don't care if the U.S. does away with our freedoms, simply because they never considered exercising their freedoms in the first place?
Oh, and there is a T.V. in the apartment. Two of them, actually. But I couldn't bring myself to turn it on. Not even for Sportscenter.