Driveby post

[blamebrampton]

Because it's 2 and I was up after 4 last night watching tennis after the Grand Prix. Oops.

On the train this morning, two people from a publisher I used to work for chatting loudly about someone I vaguely knew.

"Yeah, he's moved from Sydney to San Francisco. So he's gone from the gayest city in the world to the gayest city in the world."

Never a truer word spoken. Back fine, camera bought, cats adorable. More later.

Comments

[norton-gale.livejournal.com]

Hopefully I'll be moving to the gayest city in the world in less than one year! *fingers crossed*

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I'm jealous! I've only been to SF once, when I was nine, but I remember loving it even then. *fingers crossed for you*

[norton-gale.livejournal.com]

I've wanted to live there since my first visit in childhood, and if my husband gets a residency there, my dream (and his) will come true.

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

How exciting! When do you find out?

[norton-gale.livejournal.com]

He will interview in December, and hopefully we'll find out early next year. :)

SF is so beautiful and vibrant (have you been there, Brammerita?) I feel excitement in the air every time I go there, just like when I visit Manhattan. It's super-expensive, so our place will be small, but we'll be in the city and that's what matters.

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

I really hope he gets it!

Just out of curiosity, how expensive is super-expensive? I've heard that before but I don't know the figures, and for some obscure reason housing cost really interests me. :)

[norton-gale.livejournal.com]

A quick look at Craigslist shows prices from $1900 to $2400 (and up!) for a 2 bedroom apartment.

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

Thanks! That's about the same as here, that's interesting. *files away info in housing nerd part of brain*

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I have indeed! It's one of the three cities in the US that I know I could live in (the other two being New York and Berkley). I have my suspicions about Boston and Seattle, but am yet to visit them.

I do have to say that although there are more gays in SF, there is a higher concentration in Sydney, so the man was not really wrong. And both cities are bloody hilly, though I;ve never met a street in Sydney I had to walk down on a series of diagonals, as I did one winter's morning in SF.

[norton-gale.livejournal.com]

G loves Berkeley: it's where he attended college.

Seattle is loads of fun, but the weather is dreadful 8-9 months out of the year. I lived there for about 8 months in 1990 during the grunge explosion.

Boston... well, it's not a bad place to live, and there's a lot of great things about it, but frankly I find it kind of boring. I wouldn't want to stay here forever. Hope you visit, though!

[snottygrrl.livejournal.com]

[*is affronted*]

it is not dreadful. not anymore than SF and the perpetual fog is dreadful. just takes getting used to. the bluest skies there's ever been are in seattle. song says so [*smirks*]

not really affronted, but i did grow up there and love it dearly. i now live in the third windiest city in the world. i prefer the rain :P

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

What are the first two windiest? (I may need to avoid them). Still working on the Bath to-do list, week has gone spac, in the next few days!

[snottygrrl.livejournal.com]

winnepeg and chicago. both much colder, too.

bath is filling up fast, but i haven't a good sense of brighton. go to the lanes i guess. i only have a day there. so should be able to occupy myself.

do know there is an exhibition in leeds while i'm there on hollywood armor. drats and double drat. weta will have a bunch of stuff there and i won't get a chance to see it [*pouts*]

[norton-gale.livejournal.com]

Nothing beats the summer in Seattle... I just couldn't take the constant darkness in the winter, being a Southern California native. And I did love living there: all those hills, and so many things to do. :)

[snottygrrl.livejournal.com]

oh, well the darkness is latitude, not weather, and definitely something one has to get used to.

but isn't boston as far north? aren't the days just as short?

[norton-gale.livejournal.com]

Boston is as far north. But it's the cloud cover in Seattle that made it dark, I thought. There were months when it looked like 3 in the afternoon all day.

[snottygrrl.livejournal.com]

true. the clouds certainly don't help. guess if you grow up there you don't really notice it that much. [*shrugs*]

[absynthedrinker.livejournal.com]

As a former denizen of the gayest city in the world I will just tell you there is truly no city "GAYER" than San Francisco I promise.

[arcanetrivia]

Word! (although I'm south of there a bit)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I've only visited SF, but I have to say that it is a fair comment on the man's behalf, the concentration of gay in Sydney is proportionally higher, and for SF's Castro, Sydney has both Oxford St/Darlinghurst and Newtown/Erskineville.

That said, SF has the better clubs by a mile, and Sydney's police liaison relationships have gone screaming downhill in the last five years (I blame two leading church identities who are doing their level best to make homophobia fashionable again.)

Sydney has more gay-friendly bookshops and a broader distribution of clubs, with a real need for more organised SF-style politics.

My current theory is that SF may actually be a little gayer, but Sydney is slightly more lesbian.

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

Great to hear that your back is fine! *hugs* Ooh, and camera - which one did you end up with?

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

The Canon G9, I will be posting on why I think it might be right for you shortly!

[deensey.livejournal.com]

Heh, that's a pretty good assessment.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

We need a much gayer state government, though, California is putting NSW to shame.

BTW, you're great and your work is poo.

[deensey.livejournal.com]

California does put NSW to shame, even with the Terminator at the helm.

Also, WTF is with the Telegraph today? The devil is in those transit workers.

Love you. Hot chocolates tomorrow night?

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Yes! Also, have the day off and am going shopping with Collette in case the urge to not work strikes you.

Missed the Tele, you'll have to tell in detail. I am wondering why Mx suggested the strike could be lethal.

[deensey.livejournal.com]

Oh man. THE DEVIL WAS IN THE TRANSIT WORKERS FOR SUGGESTING THE STRIKE.

And here I thought the telegraph thought catholics were boy-touching papists.

Oooh, Colette is in town?

Also, I am at work, but I think I could be convinced to leave early. When and where?

[meredyth-13.livejournal.com]

*drive by loving*

Give me SF any day. ;)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I liked both. The food is better in Sydney, I am afraid to say, but there was 'more' in SF. Sydney's geography is better and wilder, though, while SF's architecture is streets ahead.

[elsa12790.livejournal.com]

Just butting in to say that Montreal's pretty gay, too, at least in the areas I hang out in (Plateau, Mile End, Outremont, Quartier Latin). I was out with my kids last night and it was just so nice to see lots of couples holding hands, out on dates, etc. Not that it's the job of gay people to enlighten my kids or anything, but you can talk to them as much as you want about these issues and until they see it around them, it's just words. Compared to our white bread, suburban, heteronormative regular life in the States, Montreal is like a vision of what you'd want the world to be (except the winters! Now that I only come here in the summer, I conveniently forget about some years not putting the winter coats away til June).

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I hear that! Canada is the Undiscovered Country for me, which is ridiculous since half of my besties are Canadians. I know what you mean, though, there are some things you want kids to see as normal, because the world is a better place if they are.