Okay ladies and gentleman, I’m done. I’m totally and utterly done. For the last two weeks I have been searching for an apartment with the zeal of a homeless guy dumpster diving behind Trader Joe’s, and I’m fucking over it. Because San Francisco is so ludicrously expensive, at 25 I am looking for two to three random roommates to move in with by July 1st. I can’t afford a studio, I can’t afford a one bedroom, and sweet baby jesus I can’t even afford a TWO bedroom with one other roommate. That’s just how ridiculous it is.

But my beef this week isn’t with San Francisco housing prices – it’s with the ridiculous rigmarole that I thought I’d never have to deal with again. The joys of random roommates. Like a warm spring day peppered with fairies and puppy dogs, it just warms the cockles of my heart to trudge from random house to random house condensing myself into 30 second sound bites and making awkward conversation. This whole process has, if anything, confirmed the fact that I am indeed a good person simply by virtue of the fact that I haven’t committed homicide. I did lose it on the fat dopey Midwestern woman crushing my toes on the train but that was just residual anger and it doesn’t count.

So, since I’m having such a hard time deciding which palace of festival and light that I should move in to, maybe you all can help a sister out. Here are the gems of my mining expedition.

Upper Haight Street – Advertised as the former house of “Country Joe and Janis Joplin” I went to check it out on sort of a whim. The muddy blue shag carpeting went alluringly well with the exposed wire on the landlord white walls, an eclectic mix, really. The best though was the cautioning of the potential roommate that there is a 10 pm “quiet hours” rule despite the back yard with hypodermic’s carelessly thrown among the flaura and fauna. I do dig contradiction. It’s like, totally hot.

Lower Haight Street – Slightly seedy, a little bit dirty and totally hipsterville, I do love the lower haight- amazing bars, a bevy of restaurants, and always a crack whore around to sing you happy birthday for a smoke. However, even this place was a bit much for me. It was as if the street crept up from behind the iron gate and slinked up the stairs. It was crudely painted, dirty and reeked of garlic and curry. I love me some vegan hippies but vegan hippy frat boys? umm no. The guy seemed cool enough, he showed me around while I carefully tried not to touch anything and then invited me to join him for a chat. All was well until he asked if he could take my picture – he’s a photographer you see. He informed me he was taking pictures of everyone he interviewed, “It’s for an art installation”. He might have been totally legit, considering everyone in San Francisco is creating and “art installation” but somehow I pictured my face photoshopped onto a body with some serious titties and a porn star ass. Not that I don’t have a porn star ass. Either way, I decided to exit stage right, lest he invite me to go “smoke-out” in his big white child molester van.

The Castro – How amongst the bazillion of funny little gay boys I managed to walk into an apartment full of scarcely post-adolescent girls is beyond me. They were very nice. Very nice indeed. They were so wholesome I almost gagged on my tongue. And I’m not exactly Pam Anderson here, I’m actually considered pretty “wholesome” amongst my friends. The girl with the glasses and the deafening guffaw was totally killing me though. She seemed sweet enough but the completely out of place tattoo on her upper calf was cloying and unnerving at the same time. Who were these girls? One girl had worked in a non-profit for four years and was so “consumed by the passion of working for the cause, and inspired by the people” that she decided to go to grad school for public policy. NO ONE I know who works in the non-profit would EVER say something like that. No one with an ounce of sanity at least. Non-profit’s are the most ghastly inefficient organizations around that simultaneously guilt trip you into slave wages and consume you with dysfunction. I barely got out alive after one year! I have friends who have to pop clonapins every night with a glass of Jack just to make it through the week. It ain’t fun. In hindsight, I think she was some sort of mythical being. I was half expecting butterflies to start emerging out from under her skin and rays of holy white light to blind me. The other problem was the laughing. Now, I know I’m funny, (obviously) but I am also somewhat deliberate about it. I would say something decidedly UNFUNNY and guffaw girl would lose it. It completely freaked me out. The other problem with people like that is that they are not funny. In fact they are painfully UNFUNNY. You know the kind of people I’m talking about, the ones who need to EXPLAIN the joke to you? As if explaining it suddenly imbues it with a new type of humor that had previously flown over your head? No. I’m not stupid, it just wasn’t funny. Bottom line being that every day I lived there would be another day I’m reminded I’m going straight to hell. The evil bitchy thought counter in my head would be whirring 24 hours a day, racking up the reasons I can look forward to eternal fire and brimstone – or in a more realistic hell scenario, being put on a treadmill, hungover, with Anne Coulter on stereo.

The house was nice though.

Divisadero Street – A shout out to the ass ogler! Hi, ass ogler! It was, like, soooo fun to meet you. When I walked in the door and you stared at my chest and then insisted I walk up the stairs first? that was really fun. I’m sure you wanted me to walk ahead of you because it’s the gentlemanly thing to do and not because you were staring at my well toned soccer ass. In fact when I turned around and saw your eyes connected to my behind like a laser beam I’m positive it was because there was a really embarrassing piece of lint on there or something. Right? I think it would be super duper to live with you and share a bathroom without a lock and all that kind of stuff. Oh wait, I’ve got a better idea… Go rent some porn, lock yourself in your little room and fantasize about Lindsay Lohan. It’s not acceptable to invite people into your home and then provoke them to violence with your horny little overtures. Looking for a roommate is not like looking for a prostitute, however, it may be about as fruitful, considering any hooker worth her salt would take one look at you and increase the price ten fold. In fact, if you want me to live with you, that’ll be about $750 a month. Thanks.

So those are my choices people, help me decide. They’re all so tempting and wonderful I really don’t know where to begin. I could give you more options but I don’t want to confuse you with more tales of tepid personalities and rooms the size of a glove compartments. Sorry if you’re dear Lo is a little cynical today but the nasty little confluence of speed dating and job interviewing is really chapping my ass….my porn star ass. That’s right.