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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Favorite Quotes:
"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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Apartment Hunting in Hell
I'm apartment hunting.
Step one was to go buy chocolate ice cream to make me feel better about apartment hunting. This was only marginally successful, so I followed it with chicken parmesan. It's a good thing I have to be out of my current place in a month and a half. Otherwise, I'd have to buy new pants.
Apartment hunting in Los Angeles is significantly worse than wherever it is you live - with the possible exceptions of New York and Tokyo.
"Heresy!" you shout. "Just try moving in Dubuque! They won't let you. They just come and set all of your furniture on fire. Also your cat. And your hair."
I don't care. Not as bad as L.A. (Admit it. You didn't even like that cat.)
First of all, rents start at approximately $7 gillion. Unless you live on the water like I do, then it's $9 gillion. (It's possible that your landlord will also attempt to raise your $9 gillion rent during a recession while rent elsewhere decreases. You will laugh at this because he is obviously kidding. When you discover he isn't kidding, you will pack up your stuff while suggesting his mother had inappropriate relations with various livestock. This won't really help, but you'll feel better about things.)
When you start looking, you have to take a GPS, a scientific calculator, three months worth of traffic data and a statistics professor from UCLA to tell you if you can possibly get from this new place to your office in less than four hours during rush hour. It's possible even he won't be able to figure this out.
Also in L.A., you will be forced to consider things like whether living above an all-night liquor store is really that bad. It's not, in case you were wondering. There are worse things.
THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED TO ME IN L.A. APARTMENTS I HAVE RENTED:
* Ceiling that caved in and started gushing water into the middle of the living room.
* Neighbor who screamed "Weaner man! Weaner man!" outside my window several times a day. Bonus points: He was the apartment manager.
* Homeless people sleeping next to the building's communal clothes dryer, which was located outside, to keep warm.
* Swarmed by an entire hive of bees.
* Having the outer wall of my entire apartment removed and replaced with plastic sheeting - for months. It was like camping but with carpet.
* Neighbor who banged on a manual typewriter all night long.
* Hallways that perpetually smelled like cat food. The wet kind.
I could go on, but do I need to?
Excuse me. I have ice cream to eat.
Step one was to go buy chocolate ice cream to make me feel better about apartment hunting. This was only marginally successful, so I followed it with chicken parmesan. It's a good thing I have to be out of my current place in a month and a half. Otherwise, I'd have to buy new pants.
Apartment hunting in Los Angeles is significantly worse than wherever it is you live - with the possible exceptions of New York and Tokyo.
"Heresy!" you shout. "Just try moving in Dubuque! They won't let you. They just come and set all of your furniture on fire. Also your cat. And your hair."
I don't care. Not as bad as L.A. (Admit it. You didn't even like that cat.)
First of all, rents start at approximately $7 gillion. Unless you live on the water like I do, then it's $9 gillion. (It's possible that your landlord will also attempt to raise your $9 gillion rent during a recession while rent elsewhere decreases. You will laugh at this because he is obviously kidding. When you discover he isn't kidding, you will pack up your stuff while suggesting his mother had inappropriate relations with various livestock. This won't really help, but you'll feel better about things.)
When you start looking, you have to take a GPS, a scientific calculator, three months worth of traffic data and a statistics professor from UCLA to tell you if you can possibly get from this new place to your office in less than four hours during rush hour. It's possible even he won't be able to figure this out.
Also in L.A., you will be forced to consider things like whether living above an all-night liquor store is really that bad. It's not, in case you were wondering. There are worse things.
THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED TO ME IN L.A. APARTMENTS I HAVE RENTED:
* Ceiling that caved in and started gushing water into the middle of the living room.
* Neighbor who screamed "Weaner man! Weaner man!" outside my window several times a day. Bonus points: He was the apartment manager.
* Homeless people sleeping next to the building's communal clothes dryer, which was located outside, to keep warm.
* Swarmed by an entire hive of bees.
* Having the outer wall of my entire apartment removed and replaced with plastic sheeting - for months. It was like camping but with carpet.
* Neighbor who banged on a manual typewriter all night long.
* Hallways that perpetually smelled like cat food. The wet kind.
I could go on, but do I need to?
Excuse me. I have ice cream to eat.
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