Chipshot

I would say living in the closet is an essential part of the human condition

Our kids will be telling their grandkids We used to be able to live anywhere and not worry about Storms.

Dealing with this town is like dealing with a crack addict. They have been mainlining off of tourist and retiree dollars for so long and it is all they know. If you talk to them about , like, how to actually get things done with other revenue streams, they look at you all glassey eyed like What?

Sitting around having coffee with four other retired guys and I suddenly notice we are all wearing these big reading glasses in order to see each other and I thought Holy Cow I am here now at this point in life.

On the one hand I am living in the most beautiful town on the dark coast. On the other hand, the only places open at night are bars where the drunk locals stand out front drinking their buds and smoking their cigarettes and scaring away the tourists, and the city doesn't understand the problem

Retirement is like high school. Maybe not an original take. You have your group of friends and it becomes who is friends with whom, who is invited to whose dinners, but also now who has medical appointments scheduled for that week and what doctor to use for your knee or hip replacements.

I walk a lot, often wearing a hoodie, and carrying a backpack with a book and laptop in it. 8 times now I have been walking on a backroad here and someone comes out of their house and asks me what I am doing there, or a cop shows up because someone called them about me walking on their street.

We sometimes play this game when people walk into the coffee shop called "guess the demographic". Local, Retiree, Tourist, Golfer. Each has dress style and scruffiness associations. One time, we were thrown off with one guy and it turned out he was a fisherman. Oh yeah. Its crabbing season.

Where I live. Half retirees. Half locals. Half tourists. Very strong hues of both blue and red here. Reminds me of my Boston life where you could never be sure if anyone that you were talking to was gay or not. Here its political persuasion.

You begin to realize that SV is a bubble of an older middle class America that is vanishing everywhere else. Nice clothes, haircuts cars You then also realize that marin is that same kind of bubble, but a super bubble. Expensive haircuts, expensive cars, and expensive clothes. Holy cow.

In SV tech life, everyone you know has a good paying job. House, cars, stuff. You need something, you buy a new one. In coos county, none of your local friends buy new. Its always second hand. Craigs list, eBay, facebook marketplace.

A silicon valley techie moves to America