7:35 a.m. — It’s the seventh of the month, a weekday, but my alarm doesn’t go off for work. I’m already at work.

Minimum wage in San Francisco just went up to $15 an hour, close to the $16.25 an hour I get from managing a hotel near Union Square. I say “managing,” but it’s really nothing of the sort. I know because I used to be an actual hotel manager, but then 10 years ago I transitioned and started presenting female full-time. My conservative over-seventy Norwegian boss, who campaigned for Proposition 8 (California’s 2008 anti-gay marriage bill), didn’t quite fire me, but a yearslong campaign of wearing me down enough to quit eventually succeeded.

Despite years of management experience I was turned down after every job interview over the next couple of months. Eventually I gave up out of necessity and worked at Starbucks and Target for a couple of years, before falling into a front-desk clerk gig at a gay-friendly hotel. A year later, I got “promoted” to “management” when the previous manager succumbed to leukemia and I pounced on the role before anyone could stop me.

That gig is only part-time: five hours a day, four days a week, barely enough to make ends meet. So I got a second job as a desk clerk in a Chinatown hotel at $16 an hour, where I am this morning. This is a full-time overnight job, “graveyard” as it’s dubiously referred to, so I’m awake at 7:35 a.m. Actually, I’ve been awake for the last nine hours. Between the two jobs, neither of which provides health insurance, my biweekly paycheck adds up to about $1,600 after taxes.

Despite the image of a liberal mecca some media commentators like to paint, San Francisco is a rough, dirty town.

7:45 a.m. — I start packing up to leave work. I decide to leave my big purchase from last year, a used $900 laptop with a good-enough graphics card, here in the office. I was lugging it across town every day but never actually using it at home, so I’ve decided to spare my aging back and keep it here most of the time.

When I’m lucky the hotel is completely dead most of the night, and the biggest challenge is just staying awake, so I spend most of the night watching YouTube, playing games, and occasionally, actually writing something.

I will hand-carry my ThinkPad X220, a seven-year-old laptop I bought for $50 a couple of years ago and fixed up. It runs Arch Linux, but I have an aging version of Apple’s macOS X on it as well for when I do something Mac-specific. With a screen size of just 12 inches it’s surprisingly light, but it’s built like a tank and has an all-day battery life under Linux.

This auxiliary laptop is my writing machine. I suppose it is frivolous having a second laptop, but the keyboard is a joy to type on. To me it’s reminiscent of an old typewriter, something I still use on occasion. As I’ve aged, one thing I have noticed is an appreciation for older, even obsolete technology. As my biological components break down, I find myself relating.

My ex-girlfriend’s nickname for me was “Old Man.”

8:05 a.m. — Even though I was starting to nod off an hour ago, I don’t stop for coffee on my walk. I’ve been trying to cut back on the caffeine lately, and besides, it’s a stiff price to pay for a cup of mud. Back when I drank it daily, I just bought a cheap bag of beans that lasted a month and made it myself like a sensible person. Working at Starbucks did not leave me with a good impression of chain coffee shops.

They both watch me pass, glaring, one of them angrily commenting about ‘gay-ass San Francisco’ in a Boston accent.

The brisk air is helping to wake me up. It’s August and freezing, one of the few things I still love about this town. Even after 15 years of living here, like a tourist, I still look up and marvel at the architecture and the tall, mist-shrouded buildings.

Out of the corner of my eye I see a guy leaning against the wall of a high-priced chain hotel, smoking; an actual cigarette, no less. He nods at his friend, jerks a dismissive thumb in my direction. They both watch me pass, glaring, one of them angrily commenting about “gay-ass San Francisco” in a Boston accent. I feel that familiar stab as an ice pick of anger pierces deep into my chest. I almost decide to flip them off as I consider a human body’s soft, fleshy vulnerabilities and which to attack first if it comes to it, how to best manipulate my frail frame into dealing out the most pain and damage before making an escape.

Despite the image of a liberal mecca some media commentators like to paint, San Francisco is a rough, dirty town. There are plenty of problems with this city, and I don’t even need to make up stories about homeless people doing cocaine off the sidewalk.

The tech industry has tried to gloss over it with $5 soy lattes, vegan cupcake pop-ups and $100,000 yearly salaries to pay for small apartments in gilded, protected skyscrapers, but let’s put it this way: When a movie set in the ’80s needed to recreate Times Square, they came to San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. Modern New York City was too clean for that dirty realism the producers sought, and this town’s gritty noir roots stubbornly refuse to die despite the liberal use of pesticides.

Over my years here I’ve had to toughen up for survival. I love high heels and frilly dresses, but when I wasn’t getting sexually harassed I was getting physically threatened on a daily basis, just trying to get to work. So I leveraged my nearly 6 feet of height and developed my version of a street-tough persona.

My entire wardrobe is black, and though I still wear dresses and the occasional low-cut top, I pair them with leather boots and gloves and a general “don’t fuck with me” attitude. Street harassment went way down. Still, it happens on occasion.

I’ve confronted street commentators before, but as my youth disappears, seemingly as quickly as the burn-off of this morning’s fog, I’ve found it difficult to hang onto toxic emotions. Why am I upset at these poorly shaven clowns, anyway? Because people can be stupid, rude, and inconsiderate? Welcome to the human race. A street fight is not going to change anyone’s mind. I’ll still defend myself, if necessary. But I’ve matured out of looking for fights.

I take a breath to center myself, focus on my breathing as I think about not thinking, and keep walking.

8:15 a.m. — I’ve arrived at my “management” job. Like most days, I can’t go home to sleep after my graveyard gig, and instead have come directly to my other office. The front lobby has been under renovation for what seems like a year now, and my desk area in the back office keeps getting more and more cluttered as the renovation expands. I clear my desk of trash in annoyance; somebody keeps leaving food and junk, treating it like a shelf for various items. I gather it all up in a big handful and drop it off on a communal desk.

I’m not very popular here with my coworkers. The “trans” thing probably has a little bit to do with that, but I also just don’t work well with others. I tend to be direct and to the point, and don’t give a shit about some stranger’s previous evening, even if we’ve worked together for two years.

As I’ve aged, one thing I have noticed is an appreciation for older, even obsolete technology. As my biological components break down, I find myself relating.

I’ve been tested as borderline autistic. I wonder if my apathy and light sociopathy is a symptom, or if I’m just a bitch. I’ve decided at my next job I’m going to start bringing doughnuts to share. It helped TV’s Dexter Morgan throw his co-workers off the scent of his being a serial killer; maybe I can use sweet treats to buy enough of people’s affections to con them into thinking I’m a well-adjusted person.

9:00 a.m. — I check my makeup and touch up my foundation and concealer. Thanks to the estrogen and testosterone blockers I’ve been taking for almost 20 years and my half-Asian heritage, I thankfully have light body and facial hair. But after 12 hours without shaving I start turning into a pumpkin, and I promise myself again to set aside some money, eventually, for another laser hair-removal session.

I grimace at my reflection, at my bowling ball of a jaw and caveman’s brow ridge, and think about my trans friends who work in the tech industry, their $100,000-per-year salaries that allow for facial feminization cosmetic surgery in Beverly Hills. Those hot bitches.

Ten years ago, back when I was making more cash as an actual hotel manager, I put away enough to have a bit of cosmetic surgery. In Thailand. Maybe only a mother could love my mug, but I’ve been told I have an okay rack.

Jealousy is another toxic emotion, and I work on meditating it away. It’s important not to “push it down,” but to accept the feelings and let them glide by, like water flowing around a stone in a river. Sometimes that river can be deafening.

9:45 a.m. — I’m starting to nod off again. This time, I put on my sunglasses and roll with it. At this point I’ve gotten pretty good at micro-napping while sitting upright, and can even do some basic responses if someone tries talking to me. It’s not like there’s much else to do around here.

The hotel I work at is two businesses in one. Formerly a residential hotel building, it was purchased by Koreans and converted into a short-term tourist hotel. Housing laws being what they are, the long-term, single room occupancy tenants were allowed to stay and condensed onto the sixth floor. Everyone else works for the tourist side of the business. I alone manage the residential units.

Occasionally the owners ask me to research something or call in a contractor for some building issue, but most of the time I’m just occupying a particular space for a set amount of time in exchange for money. I spend most days trying not to think about how horrific that is.

I’m not very popular here with my coworkers. The ‘trans’ thing probably has a little bit to do with that, but I also just don’t work well with others.

This role mostly consists of collecting rent from the long-term tenants once a month, the number of which dwindles every year; in my three years here, four have died of various health complications. I’ve come to think of the sixth floor as a waiting room, though some showed up decades before their appointments.

I wonder where my waiting room will be, and then, hope I’m not already there.

10:50 a.m. — The boss usually comes in around this time so I start stretching and trying to wake up.

I took advantage of my proximity to Chinatown recently and bought a little red ginseng from an herbalist, and I carry some trimmings in a small Ziplock baggie to make tea with. I don’t know if it’s a placebo, but it does seem to give me a little pep, so I start preparing some hot water and do a cursory check of the news and a little bit of Facebook and Twitter.

I dread these dips into current human events. As someone with a quaint and downright antiquated view of the role of the Citizen, I believe it’s my duty to stay informed. But informed on what? Truth can be subjective, sure, but when facts started to lose meaning it frayed my delicate neuroatypical sensibilities.

The world continues to fall apart on almost every level. I also skim some personally worrying grumblings that the State Department has started retroactively voiding passports that had the gender marker changed. I had been expecting something like this for awhile, and took steps to try and stay under the radar.

I followed the requirements to the letter when changing my own passport years ago, and after the 2016 election renewed it for 10 years. Hopefully it’s safe, and by extension, me. But who knows anymore?

11:30 a.m. — I’m something of a frequent traveler, and try to get out of the country at least once a year.

My big goal, the reason I got a second job and have been killing myself with 60- to 80-hour weeks, picking up every additional shift and all the overtime that I can, is to get away from this country as soon as possible.

I hear the insult online constantly, some variation of, “If you don’t like it, leave!” Forgetting the hypocrisy and ignorance of such a statement, believe me, I’m trying, and have been saving for years.

I recently acquired something that will hopefully be an investment in the mobility that I crave, but for the most part I’ve been keeping my savings in various locations, both here and abroad, in multiple international currencies, and a relatively small amount in crypto.

I’m also careful to keep my expenses low. My biggest splurges are my $112 phone bill, the $9.95 Moviepass that I just got a few months ago, and the Netflix, Hulu, and HBO accounts I share with my brother for $15. (I could have kept pirating, but that’s starting to feel like a lot of work these days. Oh, and I guess as a “content creator” I need to start showing some ethical something something yadda yadda.)

And once I’ve saved enough, where to? Well for me, the goal is to stay on the move, keep a low profile, and be as independent as possible to the point of almost being off the grid.

12:05 p.m. — At this point I would usually try to get away from the office for lunch, but every penny counts. I’ve been trying to get by with a $60-per-week grocery budget, so lunch today is a little roll of ham and cheese with some mustard I’ve stored in the office fridge. I started doing the keto thing a few weeks ago — high fat, low carb. I also did it for awhile a couple of years ago, but fell off the wagon in France and Italy, as I found the fresh baguettes and handmade pasta too tempting.

I’m relatively slender for my height so it’s not so much about losing weight, but yet another lifestyle choice. The diet was originally formulated for epilepsy treatment back in the ’20s, and I have some neurological issues that may find some relief, though the literature doesn’t say much about it. Nothing like being a guinea pig for science.

1:20 p.m. — It being that time of the month, I figure I should pay my rent. Yet again, I hope that the money I’m sending via PayPal actually goes toward rent. The place I’m in now is quite a bargain, especially for a city like San Francisco where the rental market is approaching Everest-like heights of ridiculousness, but the master tenant I sublease from is unreliable.

I arrived in the City by the Bay in 2004, before the likes of Twitter and Uber, and witnessed firsthand the transformation of this town as the techies moved in, and the artists and weirdos were forced out. That is perhaps an oversimplified and slightly bitter observation, but from my perspective, accurate.

I even joined in on the hype for a little while, creating my own startup that crashed and burned a few years later. It was quite the humbling experience, and helped prompt my evolution toward being a more meditative, less combative person. I gave away or sold a lot of my possessions, opting for a more minimalist and mobile existence.

Unfortunately, rent was still an astronomical expense, to the point where I couldn’t afford it even on my salary. Thanks in part to the articles of incorporation procured from my startup, I was able to secure commercial office space. At the time, there were some spaces that were considerably cheaper than residential living spaces.

I’ve been feeling ill-equipped for, and eaten alive by, modern society for quite some time.

Long story short, I lived out of my office for awhile — a private space in a high-rise in the financial district. Paranoid that I’d be caught and kicked out, I learned to sleep sitting up in an office chair so I could pretend to be working at a moment’s notice. It’s a skill that I carried to other commercial and workshop spaces as I tried to chase cheap rental rates, and I still get value from it to this day.

Eventually the gravy train ran dry, as commercial spaces started to outstrip residential rates as seemingly everyone wanted to become the next Google or “Uber for Whatever,” and they all wanted a shiny building to work out of to prove their ambition.

After that, for a short time I even resorted to Airbnb out of desperation, but quickly found it unsustainable.

At one point I was spending $700 a month to live out of a rich guy’s VW van with zero amenities. It had a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge, though nights were spent shivering under a blanket, a little battery-powered LED lantern the only light, watching my breath cloud float through the air and condense on the moldy ceiling while I tapped out erotica on my portable, vintage typewriter. I write (very) niche erotica e-books that I’ve published on Amazon and usually net a consistent $3 per month. A Patreon I started to support that work makes about $11 per month.

One night, as I stopped writing to warm up my hands, I realized that the city had left me behind a long time ago. I was just a ghost, drifting through the motions while the world moved on. It was probably time for me to do the same.

But people don’t just leave their hearts here. Sometimes, this town wants more. Its tendrils can get inside you, the roots spreading through vital organs as it keeps pulling you back in.

1:30 p.m. — I get the PayPal confirmation that the money was received by the master tenant. He lives on the second level of a two-story condo, and I rent the basement. By SF standards it is enormous, and I have a bedroom, living room, kitchen, and bathroom to myself for under $500, thanks to the rent-controlled building the guy has lived in for over 20 years.

It’s a pretty sweet deal, and I’m appreciative to the friend that made the introductions and let me take over her sublease when she moved out. But the guy upstairs is an alcoholic. And unlike me*, a non-functioning one. His friends and family have tried to help, but he’s in a downward spiral and it’s just a matter of time until living here is no longer sustainable.

I’m glad I finally put together a San Francisco escape plan, one that began forming soon after the 2016 election and solidified in the past couple of months when the master tenant fell off the wagon.

3:35 p.m. — I’m back at home, in PJs and about to call it a day as I lay in bed. I can usually fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow, but I’d like to finish this entry up first. My “mattress” is stiff but comfortable.

It’s a step up from the air beds I had been using previously. They were cheap, only $20 at Target. But it would only last about four weeks on average before I would wake up to find myself with no protection between my back and the solid wooden bed frame some previous tenant had permanently installed, half of the air escaping the cushion through an invisible leak.

So, I would go out and buy another one: It was basically a mattress subscription. Rather than throw out the previous one, I would deflate it and use it as padding to go under the new one in an attempt to stave off the inevitable leaks. It was when the pile of flat, fuzzy vinyl was about seven layers deep that I finally opted to buy some proper bedding, in the form of a single-sized slab of 4-inch utilitarian foam.

As you can probably surmise by these sleeping habits, it’s been awhile since I’ve shared my “bed” with anyone. In part of my striving toward minimalism, I took an extended break from dating, barely logging into the various apps I used to frequent. It didn’t help that I feel like I’ve tapped out the Bay Area of romantic potential.

The Trans-Lesbian community is relatively small, and 10 years of breaking hearts can earn someone a reputation. When three of your exes have dumped you and ended up married or living together with your other exes, or at least someone you dated, you realize how “cozy” the community is, and how the universe obviously has a sense of humor.

I’ve leaned into it, used it as an icebreaker, jokingly refer to it as my “superpower,” this ability of mine to indirectly introduce people to their soulmate.

I think about how a former long-term girlfriend would argue with me, upset by my low-maintenance, minimalist lifestyle. “Why don’t you want more?” she would angrily ask.

This was a girl making $140,000 per year and still mostly living paycheck to paycheck, paying off student loans and credit cards and yes, helping me out as well; just another expense that made her constantly sick or angry as she would come home and vent about another stressful workday. (I don’t have to worry about student loans. After my parents divorced my mom asked me to drop out of high school to help babysit my four siblings, and college just kept getting further away.)

My girlfriend’s stressed-out existence forced me to come to the conclusion that modern urban life is designed to keep people miserable, no matter the income level. It’s easy to forget or dispute this, distracted by good friends and family, a new Michelin-starred restaurant opening, or an artisanal, crafted cocktail to try. But for me personally, I’ve been feeling ill-equipped for, and eaten alive by, modern society for quite some time.

I sigh, realizing again that I think about my exes too much. I guess I’m the nostalgic type. Or obsessive.

Instead, I dream about sailing away.

It’s a joke, mom.

Update: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the minimum wage in San Francisco. The minimum wage is $15 as of July 2018.