Day: January 23, 2002

Categories
Places

Home Affordability

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

The National Association of Housebuilders released their Housing Affordability rankings.

I’ve been seeing a lot of bragging among the weblogs about how affordable certain webloggers home towns are. Opine Bovine points out that Kansas City is second in the larger cities, and 16th overall. Sharon (who has been sick, send her get well wishes) mentions that her town, Greenville, has an affordability rate of 75.9%, meaning that 75 percent of the people making the average income can afford to buy homes in the area.

Look waaaaaaay down at the bottom, boys and girls, and you’ll see my home, San Francisco. Right down there with all the other cities in this area. According to the statistics, only about 8% of people who work here can afford to live here.

My question then is: if people who work here can’t afford to live here, then where are they living? Secondly, if the people who live here don’t work here, then who are they, why are they here, and what have they done with the workers?

San Francisco also has the highest number of homeless in the country per capita. Hmm. Do you think there’s a connection?

(Hey, that guy living under that box — I think he makes my coffee at Starbucks in the morning.)

Categories
Just Shelley Writing

Sleepless Night

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

The Bay’s remarkably clear tonight. The lights on the other side sparkle like wadded up gum tinfoil on the ground.

I was thinking tonight that writers are either abysmally insecure or abominably arrogant —we don’t fall in-between. And I think the arrogant ones among us are nothing more than insecure writers that got so tired of being insecure that they got mad and then remained in that state.

Go to a bookstore and stand between any two bookshelves. If you close your ears and open your mind, you’ll be deafened by the sound of a thousand authors whispering their insecurities into the night. What will people say? Will they like it? Why did that critic hate it so much? Why did that jackass give me only one star at Amazon? What if no one reads it?

Chances are if you’re reading this, you’re a weblogger. If so, then you know what I’m saying. Close your eyes now, and in your mind you’ll hear a thousand webloggers whispering their insecurities into the threaded void of the Internet. Will they like it? Will I get any hits? Will I get flamed? What’s my Blogdex index? Why is no one linking to me?

Categories
Just Shelley Writing

Sleepless Night

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

The Bay’s remarkably clear tonight. The lights on the other side sparkle like wadded up gum tinfoil on the ground.

I was thinking tonight that writers are either abysmally insecure or abominably arrogant —we don’t fall in-between. And I think the arrogant ones among us are nothing more than insecure writers that got so tired of being insecure that they got mad and then remained in that state.

Go to a bookstore and stand between any two bookshelves. If you close your ears and open your mind, you’ll be deafened by the sound of a thousand authors whispering their insecurities into the night. What will people say? Will they like it? Why did that critic hate it so much? Why did that jackass give me only one star at Amazon? What if no one reads it?

Chances are if you’re reading this, you’re a weblogger. If so, then you know what I’m saying. Close your eyes now, and in your mind you’ll hear a thousand webloggers whispering their insecurities into the threaded void of the Internet. Will they like it? Will I get any hits? Will I get flamed? What’s my Blogdex index? Why is no one linking to me?