The West Coast: The Best Coast?

Greetings, dwindling blog realm o' mine!!! It has been approximately 3,000 years since I last posted on TheLatentMap, and I apologize to all of you, as I know you were all rabidly checking and rechecking for updates every two minutes, every day. I know how cramped and sore your clicker-finger must be by now, having pressed the refresh button so very many times for so very many decades. And for that I am sorry.

But here I am! I'm back! And it's time to talk about my latest new home: Los Angeles.



Ahhhh...Los Angeles. Land of hopes and dreams, palm trees and traffic, plastic surgery and the silver screen, sauerkraut and mittens. Or...something.

My life here so far has been very enjoyable. I've been subletting a "townhouse" (the classification is misleading since said house is not made of charming brick, nor does it have a concrete staircase with a wrought iron banister leading up to the front door, nor is it located anywhere near Brooklyn) in a gated community in Hollywood. I know, I know, it sounds weird. Gated community? Hollywood? But it isn't! Well, the house itself (which is only temporary, mind you) is a little weird, as it's filled with sundry items from a someone else's life:

-Movie paraphanalia centering around the films for which the house's owner was Editor, including but not limited to hundreds of VHS and DVD copies of said films, promotional posters and magnets, and framed rejection letters from various film festivals.
-Random posters, including one of a cat crawling cutely on a log, confusingly located on the inner side of a closet door.
-Lots of creepy live spiders.
-Two life-sized chicken figurines located on the floor next to the water cooler.
-Novice paintings, including a creepy rendition of the Girl With a Pearl Earring (in which the Girl looks more like a frightening heroin-addict-ghost-person), and a large multimedia work that Sarah approves of, which depicts abstract people-forms making out.

So, yes, that's all weird. But my life itself is good. I've been hanging out a lot, and I mean a LOT, with Sarah, and I've been doing my best to steal all her friends/sisters and make them my own. Because who else will I have once she goes back to that annoyingly far-away place known as Georgetown? Well, I will have my good friends Keni and Jara, but that's the extent of my social circle. So I will fight by tooth and nail to steal other people's friends, dagnabit!

And, here's the real kicker, folks, the cherry on top of the proverbial soy sundae: I got a job. Not just a job, but a REAL job. Like, one with a preeeety decent salary, and medical benefits, and three weeks of paid vacation. And it's at the NRDC, a non-profit organization for which I have always had a great respect. They are awesome, and they work out of a beautiful and entirely GREEN office. Green as in the architectural/energy source techniques, not the color. That would be less impressive. Although, come to think of it, the color is green as well. But that's not interesting. So, ANYWAY, this building in Santa Monica, right by the beach, where it's like ten degrees cooler than hot hot hot LA, and really pretty. Huzzah!

So, whilst I sit by the window in my Hollywood "townhouse", next to the tarnished menorah and the "Sam's Saloon" novelty coaster holder, thinking fondly of my lovely memories of New York and London, I will temper my nostalgia with the knowledge that I have accomplished something that I wanted and worked for. I will not be saddened by the fact that I have no friends, but will rather gather up the stolen acquaintances I have collected over the past weeks, and pull them close like a security blanket. And, in the coming months, I will think of the crappy weather all of you will be enduring as I wander the palm tree-lined avenues in short-shorts and a bermuda shirt, and I will be happy.

P.S. I miss you all very much.