Open houses are strange beasts. It's almost like you have to get there fifteen minutes early, be the first one. If you come halfway through then there are already four people ahead of you. More often than not it's first come first serve. And the houses that are worth a damn, the apartments, they're snatched up like that.

*Snap fingers appropriately here.*

Oh, ridiculous.

So, the quest continues to find a place on the westside. A decent place that doesn't make me want to claw my hair out. A place that I actually want to drive/walk home to at the end of the day.

We'll see.

We found a perfect 1 bedroom in Venice, but we arrived halfway into the open house and there were already six applicants ahead of us that wanted to move in right away. One girl was writing out her application furiously on the side of the fridge, eyeing the other potential renters. You could tell she would have cut you to get the place. Stabbed you in the alleyway and run.

Another guy with a fedora hat and skintight shirt came back and started talking to the people who owned the place, a cute guy and girl. "Hey, you know," he said. "You should really be charging more for a place like this."

And me, all I could think - why would you ever say that to someone who was renting out a killer apartment? Why, oh, why?

Unless you had money to burn.

So...

Downtown LA place is now out. We decided the commute was still too long, and Matt was hesitant about the big, loft-like space and his penchant for playing music extremely loud into the wee hours of the morning. Without doors, would I be able to sleep? I said I'd invest in earplugs, but he still wasn't convinced.

I guess downtown is full of hipsters anyway.

In my head there was enough space. I just wanted to have the warm Southern California weather and sun with the big buildings surrounding me. Walking to the grocery store, gym, bookstore, movies. All of it in one space. Bars, restaurants, old world crumbling brick buildings ready to collapse at the nearest tremor.

Glorious, I say. Sounds like heaven. Sign. Me. Up.

But then, I could actually breathe in Venice. Those cool ocean breezes.

I could get used to that. Couldn't I? Could I?

Yes.

The Prose-Poem Project "Last November"

A prose poem I wrote is now up in this lovely magazine. Print edition will come out in April sometime.

Hurrah!

So, Matt is thinking of leaving LA to travel in Hawaii and Chile. Which means that I would have to find a roommate and probably move to the west side. It just doesn't make sense to stay in my place if he's going to go travel. I think he feels LA is expensive, pretentious, and stupid. Parts of it are and parts of it aren't. I love, love, love our neighborhood, but the commute is slowly draining me of all life. I'm always tired and don't ever want to do anything on the weekends. When I do I crash afterwards, into an abyss of sleep. I've broken down my life to writing, exercise, day job work, Greek, and there's barely any time for Greek. I've been neglecting Matt, neglecting friends I want to see. Eating healthy is supposed to fit somewhere in that equation, too, but often that falls to the wayside.

I don't know if we'd stay together if he left LA for a year. A part of me wants to go with him, but I wouldn't be able to afford paying my current bills (car + student loans) and travel expenses. I guess I wouldn't have to worry about an apartment if I just took up and left. No rent! Whooo hoooo!

I just want to live somewhere that's close to hiking, pilates or some fitness studio/gym that's affordable. A grocery store. I want somewhere that has parking, or where parking isn't an issue. And I don't want to deal with pretentious people. Or sneering people. Or people that want to kill me.

I don't know if we'd stay together. Or if we'd try an open relationship. I don't know if I'd try online dating. I hope he's just thinking about it and doesn't do it, but then a part of me wants him to go travel. Go! See the world! If that's what he wants to do, why not? Stuff's picking up in la la land, and I want to see where that takes me.

But I would miss him terribly if he left.

Not to mention having a roommate again...uuuurrrrrrggghhhhhhhh.