Almost all the people I know in San Francisco who are still making art are either people who were able to buy property decades ago or are, at this moment, knocking on wood hoping they don’t lose their rent-­controlled housing. There is so much money amidst so much poverty and despair that your heart burns. Being comfortable when there is chaos and upheaval around you is never comfortable for long. It started to make me feel hopeless. It started to make me wonder who I would even be someplace else. And if that sounds too esoteric, I’m sure I also blew off San Francisco when I felt like it was about to blow me off entirely. The teenage feeling that sticks with you. So there I was, jilted and uncomfortable, and also shrinking, because defining yourself against something you resent will always make you small.