Dispatches from the City of Angels
I'm a writer and humorist living in and writing about Los Angeles. You can catch my novel LOSING CLEMENTINE out March 6 from William Morrow. In the meantime, feel free to poke around. Over at my website you can find even more blog entries than I could fit here, as well as a few other ramblings. Enjoy and come back often.
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"Taint what a horse looks like, it’s what a horse be." - A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett
"Trying to take it easy after you've finished a manuscript is like trying to take it easy when you have a grease fire on a kitchen stove." - Jan Burke
"Put on your big girl panties, and deal with it." - Mom
"How you do anything is how you do everything."
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Big game apartment hunting
You know things have started to go downhill when you say to yourself, "Hey, what's a little asbestosis among friends?"
My apartment is under construction. It has been under construction for four years. And I've been informed that they will now be ripping out the windows and sliding glass doors that stretch from one end of the place to the other, which should only take about four months, and um, don't worry about those asbestos ceilings. Oh, and please take all of your furniture and move it into the bathroom. In fact, if you could put the couch in the shower stall, that would be great.
They sent in an asbestos abatement crew, who drilled a few dime-sized holes around the future rip-age areas and presumably sucked out some stuff. I wasn't here for obvious reasons, but I did see the crew working on another floor. One guy had his shoes on the wrong feet and was puzzling the mystery of a shop vac. Just gives you the warm fuzzies, doesn't it?
So I started a mad search for a new apartment.
You know the scene in "When Harry Met Sally" when Harry suggests the only way to find a place is to read the obituaries? If only that worked.
I live on the Westside because to do otherwise would mean my husband would be forced to live in his car during the three hour commute from the suburbs, and it's hard to brush your teeth and steer at the same time. But living on the Westside requires some compromises. You start to say things like, "Okay, it has no parking, but we could get a beach permit and bike home those last four miles..." Or "Hey, $2,300 a month! What a steal! Oh, wait. It doesn't come with a roof..."
And that presumes you could kill the fourteen other people ahead of you in line for that parking-less, roof-less $2,300/month piece of paradise. (I've been trying to make appointments with leasing agents for days. All booked. Guess what all those mortgage-defaulters are doing?)
So now I'm trying to see the upside of living in my bathroom for four months.
I can bathe while sitting in the recliner!
It's a toilet. It's a TV stand. It's both!
Tub by day, cozy sleeping quarters by night!
Just another day in the City of Angels...And if any of those angels decide to move to Orange County, call me. I want their apartment.
My apartment is under construction. It has been under construction for four years. And I've been informed that they will now be ripping out the windows and sliding glass doors that stretch from one end of the place to the other, which should only take about four months, and um, don't worry about those asbestos ceilings. Oh, and please take all of your furniture and move it into the bathroom. In fact, if you could put the couch in the shower stall, that would be great.
They sent in an asbestos abatement crew, who drilled a few dime-sized holes around the future rip-age areas and presumably sucked out some stuff. I wasn't here for obvious reasons, but I did see the crew working on another floor. One guy had his shoes on the wrong feet and was puzzling the mystery of a shop vac. Just gives you the warm fuzzies, doesn't it?
So I started a mad search for a new apartment.
You know the scene in "When Harry Met Sally" when Harry suggests the only way to find a place is to read the obituaries? If only that worked.
I live on the Westside because to do otherwise would mean my husband would be forced to live in his car during the three hour commute from the suburbs, and it's hard to brush your teeth and steer at the same time. But living on the Westside requires some compromises. You start to say things like, "Okay, it has no parking, but we could get a beach permit and bike home those last four miles..." Or "Hey, $2,300 a month! What a steal! Oh, wait. It doesn't come with a roof..."
And that presumes you could kill the fourteen other people ahead of you in line for that parking-less, roof-less $2,300/month piece of paradise. (I've been trying to make appointments with leasing agents for days. All booked. Guess what all those mortgage-defaulters are doing?)
So now I'm trying to see the upside of living in my bathroom for four months.
I can bathe while sitting in the recliner!
It's a toilet. It's a TV stand. It's both!
Tub by day, cozy sleeping quarters by night!
Just another day in the City of Angels...And if any of those angels decide to move to Orange County, call me. I want their apartment.
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