Why I Decided to Move to San Francisco
A short demonstrative anecdote.
When I was down in SF apartment hunting, I stayed at a hotel with a Starbucks next door. This was convenient because I was not taking vacation time, and would run downstairs, get my coffee and muffin, come back up to my room, slap the Do-Not-Disturb sign on the door and work for the rest of the day. (While constantly scanning Craigslist apartment ads.)
This is not the reason.
Because I was hitting the Starbucks between 7 and 8:30 A.M., and it was in a fairly central place (with a BART station right nearby), the place was usually very busy with the morning commute rush.
This is not the reason.
On several occasions, I'd walk in and have to figure out how much of a line there was and where it ended. More often than not, a fellow customer would ask, "Are you looking for the line?" and when I answered in the affirmative, would explain clearly where it was, "It's a little further back...", "it's about five feet up a little more...", whatever made sense at the time.*
As another blind friend said when I told her, "that NEVER happens in Seattle."** More often than not, I'm left to feel awkward and tense and to figure out for myself, and when I make a mistake and unintentionally get in front of somebody, or stand too far back, there's the weird condescending, "Oh, it's okay," (spoken in that "I'm talking to a child" cadence), or people don't say anything at all, and maaaaaaybe do that weird passive-aggressive throat clear that is supposed to mean "you have done something that makes me uncomfortable, but actually speaking to you makes me even more so."
I almost *NEVER* had to deal with that behavior in my two recent visits to San Francisco. But the purvasiveness of that behavior here in Seattle has made me decreasingly willing to go out and do much of anything on my own, since it makes it difficult to impossible to feel comfortable making mistakes, or trying to get information from people or pretty much anything. As I said after my vacation to SF last year, "I feel like I might actually be thought of as a human being there (and that there's nothing wrong with that.)"
*That* is the reason.
* It was also rare for people to act all offended by a response to "do you need help?" that was in the polite negative.
**Or Portland.
When I was down in SF apartment hunting, I stayed at a hotel with a Starbucks next door. This was convenient because I was not taking vacation time, and would run downstairs, get my coffee and muffin, come back up to my room, slap the Do-Not-Disturb sign on the door and work for the rest of the day. (While constantly scanning Craigslist apartment ads.)
This is not the reason.
Because I was hitting the Starbucks between 7 and 8:30 A.M., and it was in a fairly central place (with a BART station right nearby), the place was usually very busy with the morning commute rush.
This is not the reason.
On several occasions, I'd walk in and have to figure out how much of a line there was and where it ended. More often than not, a fellow customer would ask, "Are you looking for the line?" and when I answered in the affirmative, would explain clearly where it was, "It's a little further back...", "it's about five feet up a little more...", whatever made sense at the time.*
As another blind friend said when I told her, "that NEVER happens in Seattle."** More often than not, I'm left to feel awkward and tense and to figure out for myself, and when I make a mistake and unintentionally get in front of somebody, or stand too far back, there's the weird condescending, "Oh, it's okay," (spoken in that "I'm talking to a child" cadence), or people don't say anything at all, and maaaaaaybe do that weird passive-aggressive throat clear that is supposed to mean "you have done something that makes me uncomfortable, but actually speaking to you makes me even more so."
I almost *NEVER* had to deal with that behavior in my two recent visits to San Francisco. But the purvasiveness of that behavior here in Seattle has made me decreasingly willing to go out and do much of anything on my own, since it makes it difficult to impossible to feel comfortable making mistakes, or trying to get information from people or pretty much anything. As I said after my vacation to SF last year, "I feel like I might actually be thought of as a human being there (and that there's nothing wrong with that.)"
*That* is the reason.
* It was also rare for people to act all offended by a response to "do you need help?" that was in the polite negative.
**Or Portland.