The Virgin Post

Hello please?

Is anyone out there?

As the title might have led you to believe, this is in fact my very first attempt at this phenomenon known as "blogging" (who came up with that ridiculous name?). At the moment, it looks like I'm just writing an e-mail, but soon I hope that this will be transformed into something that looks like my friend Cat's blog (www.catincairo.blogspot.com) though not black (I preferred black, but Cat's is black and I don't want people to think I'm just copying her), and with a few less camels. Though we do have the zoo down the road...

So, yes, Brent and I are indeed writing from San Diego, California! Well, I'm writing... he's at work, which is a fairly common theme of late, hence another reason for me to start a blog! Now while you may not think that this is as exciting or exotic a locale as we've been in the past, San Diego is certainly a foreign setting to a Canadian (a somewhat unwelcome one), and a small-town Vermont boy (who tends to forget that he is actually a California native, and from a larger city than this!).

After a midnight arrival, we woke to be assaulted by the bright sunshine, prolific palm trees, planes zooming overhead (the airport is virtually downtown, so when you arrive you feel like you're living on a runway), and high-speed freeways zigzagging across town. However, there was no time to hide under the covers, Brent had to be at work in 48hrs, during which we had to rent a car, figure out the city, find a lawyer, and lease an apartment that we could move into in 72hrs when the moving truck would arrive from B.C.!

Amazingly, Brent made it to work, I found us an apartment and we signed the lease 15min before the movers arrived at our new address. One week later we had cell phones, gym memberships, a land line, cable, internet, half a dozen pieces of new furniture, a window-box garden, and a somewhat stocked pantry. Tomorrow is our two-week anniversary, and while I'm still not ready to post interior photos of our apartment, (they'll be coming once we can get the mountain of cardboard boxes out of the living room), I think we're settling in pretty well!

It helps to be living in the best neighbourhood in SD of course. Hillcrest, as our friendly bank teller put it, is the "Gay Mecca of San Diego" (caveat: this is not meant to have any reference to Islam!). While we have many gay friends (some of whom I hope are reading this), this is the first time either of us have lived in a neighbourhood where sexual preferences are roughly equal - what a refreshing change!

Finally, one of the transitions of moving to a new place is often to look to confirm previously-held generalisations (i.e. stereotypes). These often provide some shallow comfort in the adjustment process before one is ready to accept the extreme complexity of human beings, and admit that no generalisation is absolute to any group, be that a nation, culture, ethnicity, race, or sexuality. So knowing and expecting this, we have started recognising some of our stereotypes of living in southern California, and/or of living in a majority gay community:

Stereotype 1. Urban/Suburban Southern California has been built around the automobile.

The common response of San Diegans to learning that we don't have a car (yet) is to: a) laugh, or b) remind us that we are in San Diego.

Stereotype 2. Gay neighbourhoods (or a community home to an open majority of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and families) are: very friendly, ueber-trendy, reasonably well-off, health-conscious and politically progressive.

Hillcrest, by means of justification, is a mix of upscale condos, beautiful little character homes, and has more fancy wine bars, boutique stores, European cafes, and exotic restaurants than you can shake a stick at! And our neighbours have been extremely friendly! E.g. we went to a garage sale on the weekend where the owner offered us mimosas, then borrowed a friend's truck, drove us home (via another garage sale for us to pick up a microwave), and helped us carry our new purchases inside!

Stereotype 3. "Everyone" gets work done.

I am referring of course to the cosmetic variety... While standing in line at a drug store on our first morning, a young couple in front of me started discussing the woman's recent Botox injections. When who should walk over, but the guy's friend -Mr. Botox! Mr. B had just opened up a new Botox clinic and was offering it for much less than the $900 the woman had paid for hers! Much networking and future wrinkle-less scheming ensued. Unfortunately, in addition to a general prevalence of blonder hair, darker tans, rounder breasts, and smoother skin, we also find San Diegans who are a bit too addicted to their plastic (or toxin) FYI - it is very difficult to maintain eye contact with someone who's face looks like it's got saran-wrap stretched over half of it.

Stereotype 4. Californians are obsessed with little dogs.

Whether it's model-esque women teetering in heels, with over sized shades, and Gucci bags with little furry heads poking out of their thousand-dollar Burberry purses, or the plethora of little dogs outfitted to match their flamboyant owners parading through Hillcrest, San Diego is a heaven for pampered pint-sized pooches. In Hillcrest alone there are more doggy beauty parlors than gyms!

Stereotype 5. California loooooves yoga!

While I have yet to check out San Fransisco or LA's yoga scenes, San Diego (and Hillcrest in particular) seem plastered with yoga studios, yoga fashion, and eclectic Buddhist decor with not-so-enlightened price tags! Perhaps the astronomic expense to practice yoga is supposed to lead practitioners into Buddha's fasting-induced enlightenment?

Well that's all from me for now (sheesh this got long - I'll try to keep future posts a bit more modest in length) - time to go see if this posting stuff really works!

Till next time,

Jen

p.s. Now that I've told you so much about here, I better include some photos for those of you who haven't seen them on facebook yet...

p.p.s Ok, I tried with the photos, and no matter how many times I fix the spacing it never works out right on the preview screen - I give up!