The idea of sharing a bathroom was initially alarming, but the pictures of the house looked nice and Ms. Shiver wanted to meet new friends. For $2,200 a month, she now rents a Starcity room with a queen-size bed, a bedside table and a chair....Boy, did it take me a long time to understand "And when we run out of tinfoil, there’s just more tinfoil." I had to ask for help. You see, in the dorm-style residence, all you have is a bedroom. There's a communal bathroom and there's also a communal kitchen, and the building has a staff that keeps up the supplies like toilet paper and "tinfoil."
“I’ve run a household; I’ve done the bills; I’ve mowed the yard, and I don’t want to be responsible again,” Ms. Shiver said. “I want to paint and learn how to make ramen noodles. And when we run out of tinfoil, there’s just more tinfoil.”...
I'm sorry but I come from a region of the United States where no one said "tin foil." We said "aluminum foil." When I see "tinfoil," I automatically think I'm dealing with the metaphor, the notion of the "tinfoil" hat, and I genuinely thought Ms. Shiver — love the name — meant that in San Francisco, you don't have to deal with reality — paying bills, mowing lawns — you get to shut yourself off to the troubles of reality and there's just more and more and more fantasy. San Francisco will give you all the "tinfoil" you need.
“I never thought I could live like this,” Ms. Shiver said. “But the more I live here, the freer I feel.”Okay. That is kind of nice.
She said she had not locked her bedroom door once since moving in, and most days when she gets home from work, a roommate has taken her dog into the shared living room. She said she hardly thought about the dorm-style bathroom setup, that there had never been a line for a shower, and that the building was like a family.
The only thing people really need to do alone is sleep, [said another resident]. “What are the things you can do with other people? Eat food, drink wine, watch TV... You don’t need to do that in your own unit alone, so why pay for it?"It does seem a little sad to say, "The only thing people really need to do alone is sleep," but I know what he means: The only place you need to be set aside as only to be used by you is your bed. You might not always use it alone. Do you really need your own bed in a system where you don't get your own toilet? I think the bedroom — 130 to 220 square feet — is specifically your own because you need a place to keep your stuff. Otherwise you'd need a locker. And, psychologically, you probably need to feel you have a personal retreat, a place to set some personal items about and make homey. That's what college students do with dorm rooms, often with roommates, which undercuts the idea that "The only thing people really need to do alone is sleep."
If you keep paring back on necessities, you might find it hard to come up with anything you really need to do alone. Think your own thoughts maybe, in that own-room you've got in your cranium.
Lots of stories in the NYT about women who leave their husband and relocate geographically, often with a pet as their sidekick. You're not really sleeping alone when you've got your Yorkie Pomeranian, Stanford. Stanford! When I get my Yorkie, I'm naming it NYU — Professor Nyu.
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82 comments:
”I'm sorry but I come from a region of the United States where no one said "tin foil." We said "aluminum foil."”
Do you mean Delaware? In the Wisconsin I grew up in it was “tin foil”. I’ve always assumed that before there was Al foil there was Sn foil, but I don’t know that for a fact.
Ditto “tin” cans.
My Grandma was a Pomeranian, but her name was Berthe.
38 going on 18. Some people can handle full on adulthood.
And they call it the me generation. Huh.
Yep. Wikipedia: “Tin foil is almost always aluminium, whereas "tin cans" made for the storage of food products are made from steel with a thin tin plating. In both cases, tin was the original metal.”
Are maitre d’s, teachers, bookstore managers, lounge musicians, copywriters and merchandise planners professionals?
"I’ve always assumed that before there was Al foil there was Sn foil, but I don’t know that for a fact."
There is a substance that is literally tin foil, but that's not what people are referring to when they say "tinfoil" all the time, not what's kept in stock in Shiver's communal kitchen.
"Tinfoil" for aluminum foil is common I think in NYC or it used to be. I think I remember hearing the refrigerator called the "ice box." Of course, "ice box" also refers to something that we'd all call an "ice box" if we recognized what it was, but who has had one in their house in the last 70 years?
I grew up calling it "tinfoil" and I'm not sure it was Aluminum.
When I was a kid we used mostly waxed paper. Foil was unusual if I remember correctly,
Heh, good luck with that. Its all fun and games until someone helps themselves to your macrobiotic tofu in the communal refrigerator or monopolizes the common area with incense and tantric yoga sessions. Whoever wrote this is still in the romanticized part of communal living.
Fine, I guess. I assume no children are involved (and no, "Stanford" doesn't count.) But why would you want to be a college student all your life? She may feel that her work and other activities give her life all the meaning it needs, but do they really replace faith and family? How will she feel about it in another 38 years? Or is this just a phase she's going through? I don't purport to know the answers to these questions.
Sounds like ex-hubby got the better of the deal.
Unless he is having to pay for her infantilism.
My first job in San Francisco paid $13,000 a year in 1985, roughly $30,000 in today's dollars. You find a way.
University is the new commune, without too much responsibility.
If you want to be alone at Starcity, hold a meeting of the Trump fan club.
Here in Arlington, they were floating the idea of these kinds of dorm-style rental units, where people would get a dedicated sleeping area with a communal living space, communal cooking area and communal showers. They even showed mock-up pictures of what it would look like.
It looked EXACTLY like the inside of the Arlington County Detention Facility (i.e. jail).
Yet another Althouse article that makes women look intellectually lazy and analytically weak.
Me and the lady read the NY Times rentals in the city, and there was recently a couple from Montreal via San Francisco.
The couple both works at Facebook, and the wife is, I shit you not, selling 'upcycled' vagchina (bought at a garage sale) with pictures of...pussies and tits she painted on them to raise awareness about some nonsense.
Oddtitties
Howling with laughter on the couch for a good 10 minutes.
Dorm style living? Communal kitchen, bathroom, living area. I cannot imagine it.
Who cleans up the messes in the kitchen and other rooms. When do you get to cook. Do you all have to eat together. Seperately. What about noise. Schedules that conflict with people who go to bed early, stay up late. Music in the common room. Country versus Rap vs Progressive Jazz vs Gospel... Television shows.
I can see all sorts of conflicts and potential mayhem.
She is paying $2,200 a month for this Hell?
HELL NO!
I get it. To complete the fantasy, she should go to adult summer camp, or at least be a counselor at a summer camp as carefree college age kids do.
$2,200 a month, she now rents a Starcity room with a queen-size bed, a bedside table and a chair
For $2.2K, I hope that it's a comfy chair (yes, that skit).
makes women look intellectually lazy and analytically weak
Some women, yes. There are other articles that cover the same quality of some men. Perhaps they are just late-life explorers seeking to discover themselves.
Original NY Times article here. Douche levels high, Captain: What ungodly prentention is being built atop a dog's breakfast of questionable ideas.
Goodbye Silicon Valley, Hello East Village
San Francisco was cheap when I moved there in 1971. The motto of the city was "Living the Good Life" from the Grateful Dead tune.
My first apartment in the Western Addition was a one bedroom at $125 a month (about $775 in 2018 money).
My first wife and I paid the rent by working part time. I spent much of my day walking the city and stopping in cafes to read and have an espresso. I had plenty of time to play music and most nights I played in a club or attended a jam session.
The big money from Silicon Valley hadn't hit town yet.
Imagine the sound of loud Repulsive Sex Ensuing in the next cell. All night long.
Ready to shed most responsibility at 38,huh. No apparent career, no children unless you count the dog. Some people are so infantile in reaction to the usual challenges of modern living, which are negligible compared to other parts of the planet, they have no perspective. First world problems, narcissistic personality disorder.
It's too bad her family life didn't give some of those things.
It does seem like a nice way to be new to a city.
For $2,200 a month, she now rents a Starcity room with a queen-size bed, a bedside table and a chair....
Not to boast, but BUYING my 1 bedroom HOUSE (with full kitchen, bathroom, living room And office) cost me what 13 MONTHS of her rent costs.
a Great restaurant is 1/2 block away, a feedstore (farmfresh eggs for $1.50/dozen) is a block away.
I DO have to go very nearly TWO miles to the nearest trout stream, and the great ones are MORE than 15 miles away! (17m to best stream in state)
HOWEVER, i am NOT allowed to poop on the street, so there's that
Back when I was at LMU, in the early 80s, the freshmen and sophomores lived in the dorms. In the dorms, we were two people to a bedroom and we had a communal bathroom for the whole floor. There was no kitchen, so we had to subscribe to the meal service at the student cafeteria. (I remember that we had meal cards and Thursday night was "steak night.") When you became a junior or senior, you could live in the student apartments on campus. It was four to an apartment,(two to each bedroom)and you shared a common bathroom and kitchen in the student apartment. If you wanted your own bedroom, or didn't win the lottery for on campus housing, you had to live off campus and rent your own apartment. I remember that there was a girl who actually lived right across the street from the main entrance to the University and she still insisted that her parents pay for her to have on campus housing.
Haven't traveled to SF for a while. Might go this winter or spring.
I wonder what happened to the old Beat and Bohemian culture in the city.
Hard to see how anybody could live on the bum and just enjoy life and do their art in SF with those rents.
- think tin can -> tin foil.
- Ann's digression into wordsmithing sometimes is distracting. It doesn't speak well of you being a good teacher ?
- agree with a previous comment on how Ann discusses women who are lower in life than her. Makes her feel superior. The nasty part is when she says that is what women should do when she knows it's a losing game- limousine liberal.
-picture of this women along with her mantra of “I was looking for more meaning.” indicates a fool.
Reminds me of Asimov's Caves of Steel.
In an arrangement with a shared toilet; metal foil is the last thing I'm worried about being in good supply.
Modernity slowly rediscovers why there used to be lots of folks in convents & monasteries.
But, then, there's those pesky vows of poverty, chastity, & obedience, aren't there? Somehow, ol' Benny figured you needed some rules to live by if you're going to throw a bunch of strangers together & really make a go of it.
In SF you can get a much cheaper apartment than that, bigger, with your own bath and kitchen, for well under $2000. A studio in the Tenderloin, "Lower Nob Hill" area, or the Sunset/Richmond/Mission/Ingleside etc. will go for $1800 or less.
Hardwood floors too.
Granted, the cheaper apartments are, some of them, in places where you do get poop on the sidewalks.
gilbar said...
For $2,200 a month, she now rents a Starcity room with a queen-size bed, a bedside table and a chair....
Not to boast, but BUYING my 1 bedroom HOUSE (with full kitchen, bathroom, living room And office) cost me what 13 MONTHS of her rent costs.
Where, oh where, would this happy land be?
Carla is exactly the kind of woman who, in her old age, will depend on volunteer strangers to do her shopping, fix the leak under the sink, help her move, and drive her to doctor’s appointments. I know this type well. 30 years of being a free spirit, 20 of entitled dependency.
One of the things that money buys is privacy and space. I don't need a hell of a lot of space, but some, along with some privacy is nice, especially for those of us who like "alone" time. I'm guessing most of the people there wouldn't appreciate Tank's blues guitar at 10:30 PM, but that's when I like to play. And I like to turn it up. My neighbors tell me they can hear it easily out in the street when walking their dogs, but no one else hears it in their own homes.
Mrs. Tank does not wish to share a bathroom. End of story.
Yeah, we always called in aluminum foil. When I first heard the phrase "tin foil" I thought it was actually foil made out of Tin.
The NYT likely has a considerable audience of women who like the fantasy of leaving their husband and living some other life, so they look for examples that it's possible. I don't think they publish the greater percentage of "I left my husband and old life and headed off into the blue" that didn't work out so well. Even those "successful" new lives involve tradeoffs I am unwilling to make, but I do find it interesting to occasionally read what tradeoffs others are willing to make. If the story makes a major publication, some editor sensed that enough people would find it amusing. I don't think it pays to mind-read why Ann (occasionally) finds it interesting. I have no idea why I (occasionally) find it interesting.
Note: The whole story would feel quite different if it had been a 38 year old man who decided to leave his wife and head out for the territories in order to pursue his art and live in an expensive dormitory.
Tin foil was well-established before it was replaced by aluminum foil. People continued to say it because that's the name of that sort of thing, similar to dialing a phone, the golf clubs called woods or chalk that is really gypsum. I'm sure there are others. That is what has been happening with words ever since language was invented. Not a surprise. When I was growing up in the 50's and 60's in New England, older people always said "tin foil," younger people might or might not. I use both, with no rule I can discern.
Another in the ongoing NYT series, We Profile Spoiled New Yorkers In Order To Make You Despise Them.
I wonder how much of the NYT audience is middle-aged, well-to-do women. They seem to be the target audience.
I don't think the NYT ever did, but most major papers, even in the 70s, when I started reading them, had "Women's pages".
That sort of went away. Now the whole paper is "The Women's pages".
BTW, a lot of older women, married or not, get tired of having a house, and are fine with relocating to an apartment or Condo.
MY parents did that in their 60s. My Mom was the driving force behind it, even thought my Dad more or less fixed everything and took care of the repairs. Tired of cleaning, tired of rattling around in an empty house.
More fun to move to a Big City Condo.
Doonesbury described the Carla type a few years ago...
Joanie Caucus first appeared in 1972, and her daughter is JJ. Her leaving her husband, may explain her daughter JJ a bit...
"Lots of stories in the NYT about women who leave their husband and relocate geographically."
They know their audience. Gotta give'm that.
Can't they all go to CA, making it deep dark blue and leaving the rest of the US of A for us red deplorables?
No, Hank J, it won't make the continent tilt.
I could do fine in a nice house with a bedroom spacious enough for a desk, queen bed, and large comfy reading chair. But I'd need my own toilet!! I wonder if zoning laws prohibit the number of toilets per residence--that's often a restriction. Because otherwise it would take so few square feet to put in a tiny room with toilet and small sink attached to each bedroom that it makes me wonder why they don't just do that in these communal homes.
The DNA is not getting passed down it appears, natural selection can be rather quick. The "perfect" with no inconvenient children and testosterone fueled males sounds good for painting and drinking wine but it is literally unsustainable.
I remember reading a study suggesting most divorced people are less happy than they anticipated, and women in particular. The NYT stokes this fantasy of the liberated woman, kind of a reversion to the "like a fish needs a bicycle" nonsense from the seventies. It seems like the paper is being run by millennial ignoramuses.
"Lots of stories in the NYT about women who leave their husband and relocate geographically, often with a pet as their sidekick."
Cat women of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your fur!
My old 2 bedroom Haight/Ashbury apartment, across the street from this liquor store, rents for $5,000 a month now.
It was $1,200 in 2007.
Sounds like a great idea, just as long as they put up netting to catch all the jumpers who tire of staring at the walls of their 10 by 13 cell while waiting for the fat guy to finish up his evening dump so they can go take a leak and come to realize that despite their BA and their Masters and their good job they have failed at life and it's never going to get any better.
Just read the article. These 'dorms' used to be flophouses. Ten bucks a night and take your chances. Might as well leave the door unlocked, they gonna break in anyway.
I got a "real" job in SF in 1994 - for $42K/year. I thought I was rich.
Had a 2 bedroom apt in North Beach for $1100/month. Hung out at our local bar, Savoy Tivoli.
Life was good.
Read the news enough, and watch the movies enough, and you begin to wonder who these men that women are crazy about in the love songs on the radio are and why any woman would want any man. But then I don't listen to the radio anymore, I just stream so maybe there aren't love songs there anymore. Just songs like Cardi B singing about Girls and clubs and one night hookups. I will stick with the old stuff.
I had no money, casual jobs, makeshift furniture, and a twenty year old car in my early twenties and life was good.
Watch where you step Carla. You aren’t the only one in SF who doesn’t want to be responsible.
If men walk out of a marriage for no particular reason, they are an irresponsible jerk, but if a woman does it, it is liberating. huh
If by age 38 you don't have a steady good job with money being put away for retirement, you are looking at a bad time coming up.
Sure, dorm or communal life is great for a while when you are young, but there are always moochers borrowing your stuff, no one cleans the kitchen, there is food rotting in the fridge, and some jerk stays up late keeping you awake. No thanks.
Althouse, I'm only a quarter of the way through Killing Commendatore, but your recent posts flag for me the novel's frequent references, thus far, to living arrangements. I was intrigued by our protagonist's experience staying in one of those capsule hotels. What with your past posts about tiny houses, I'm wondering if you are finding additional meaning in the novel. Frankly it's been slow going for me until some of the magical realism started to kick in. The monks seem to have cornered the tiny home concept. Incoherently trying to avoid spoilers, I am.
That sounds like an upscale single room occupancy hotel. Decades ago I lived in a SRO hotel in San Francisco with a communal kitchen and communal bathing. The cost makes it upscale- though the furnishings are also better.
Even in San Francisco, $2200/month for a dorm room is too much.
I can actually see the appeal of having a built in social network when moving to a new city. But at that price, I think you'll just get transients who hang around for a couple of months before getting a real apartment.
A big problem in the Bay Area is that the lack of new construction means that you build new capacity mainly by subdividing things that weren't really meant to be subdivided. So a price that used to get you a two bedroom apartment gets you a one bedroom apartment, then a room in a shared house, then a dorm room.
I'd hold off on judging the people in the article. They seem like reasonable people holding down stable jobs. At worst, they're paying too much for a novel living situation.
But man, $2200 a month for a dorm room in the Tenderloin. Something's gotta give.
"divorced her husband, "
So Who is paying for all this
Element Sn>Tin isn't cheap.
Tin foil means sheet metal used to make tins i.e. cans.
Sn>> tin is used for coating inside copper or brass pots to use for cooking, which are otherwise poisoning.
Anodizing may work also.
"Lots of stories in the NYT about women who leave their husband and relocate geographically."
They go to California and read NYTimes?
Genius.
I think this is a downward mobility article dressed up as a lifestyle article.
You've got your recent divorcees, your people whose jobs were eliminated in other cities, your guy who was priced out of his $4000 / month one bedroom...
Everybody in this article is cutting back in one way or another.
Portable smithy India
https://youtu.be/Wh0gh1h4QrI
I mean, you know who's missing from this article?
Someone who sees this as an upgrade on their previous living situation.
Something like
"Well, I'm paying a little more, but you can't beat the location!"
or
"I was feeling lonely in my one bedroom, so I decided to move somewhere with a built in social scene."
My great-grandfather lived in a rooming house with men from other european countries (whom he despised, being him) in CO until he went back to collect his (not-yet) wife and their son to bring them back to the US.
I spend time in a couple cities with "homeless" issues. The "homeless" mostly are young, white, able-bodied men who have fallen off the track. Instead of building "affordable" apartments for them, what's the downside of offering transitional housing, effectively dormitories with curfews, sobriety tests, cleaning chores, and training to set aside savings from their jobs until they can afford places of their own?
Two hours of pushing broom buys an 8 by 12 four bit room
Wow, a bedroom and communal bath, living, and cooking rooms all at the low, low price of.......... $2200/month.
SteveR,
Wow, I heard that song for the first time in years just this afternoon on the radio!
Unknown said...
"If men walk out of a marriage for no particular reason, they are an irresponsible jerk, but if a woman does it, it is liberating. huh"
Do. Not. Get. Me. Started.
Narayanan Subramanian said...
"Lots of stories in the NYT about women who leave their husband and relocate geographically."
I can remember - in the early 1960s - a foster brother and I, parsing the phrase "Because she's a girl" to try and figure out what made it magic. Half a century later and I still have no idea. I also have no idea where that "brainy" foster brother is. Last I heard, sleeping in a park in Los Angeles, while the "girl" in question is living near Vegas as the highly-regarded matriarch of a huge family (of mostly girls) from two different men they all despise to some degree. "Because she's a girl" is as perfect a distillation of the American era, I was born into, as I could've imagined.
It's definitely got more juice than "Because slavery".
The "homeless" mostly are young, white, able-bodied men who have fallen off the track. Instead of building "affordable" apartments for them, what's the downside of offering transitional housing, effectively dormitories with curfews, sobriety tests, cleaning chores, and training to set aside savings from their jobs until they can afford places of their own? }}}
AFAIK this has been/is currently being tried. Some shelters offer services and have rules and curfews. There's no "downside" to offering it in theory but the main obstacle seems to be the lack of desire/ability of the homeless to conform. Pretty hard to get addicts and/or the mentally ill and/or the determined anti-social anti-conformists to turn into cooperative sober productive adults. It's sad and it's maddening and can be infuriating, depending on the individual homeless person's ability or willingness to improve their lot.
In Philadelphia we have a moderately bad, not severe homeless problem for whatever reason. Weather? Some clearly mentally ill, and some who don't present as mentally ill but instead as aggressive panhandlers. It's not a predominantly white demographic; it's mixed just like the city is. However, there is a whole group in Center City who sure seem to be semi-organized heroin addicts. They are young, white, relatively healthy looking, have similar cardboard signs, show up and disappear around the same time, and are often vacant and nodding.
True story about the difficulty of changing lifestyles of those who are homeless. A co-worker actually befriended a middle-aged man who was homeless and often spent his days near our office. "Bud" was a nice guy and I talked to him a lot too. He had some home repair skills and my co-worker let him stay (I think above the garage) for several weeks and paid him for various work. He was trying to get Bud to the point where he had the money saved to rent some space for himself. However, after many weeks, Bud had no money saved. He had used it to make some odd purchases such as an over-priced gimickey radio. Bud moved out eventually and I see him hanging out in the same area from time to time. Sans radio.
I see your NYU, but raise to NYUK. Nyuk nyuk nyuk. 6 sec vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKtwlHV1-O8
Funny the husband "couldn't understand" -- or was there more a bigger problem? Or maybe never really talked about? Sad, tho.
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