My "vacation" has been interesting. Nothing I've heard about LA has been true so far. The weather has been rainy, rainy, rainy. (What???!!!) It has been so rainy that nobody here knows what to do. And so far I've met at least 5 people who DON'T own cars. That's right, they DON'T own cars.
1. Finding an apartment: Easier than New York, but not that easy.
After having a relative renege on her promise of letting me crash with her for a little while . . . and after discovering that the "dorm" I had discovered about a month ago was probably a house of prostitution . . . and after I visited the youth hostel and discovered that it wasn't on the beach . . . I had to turn to Craigslist. Even though everyone here says with a gasp, "You want to live downtown???!!!!", I have stuck to my guns. Downtown = central location. After spending hours on Craigslist, I found a 1 bedroom that was cut up into three separate living spaces that I could have shared with three guys. The one who showed me the place answered to the name of Captain America and said proudly that he was Basque-American, and described himself as "a gay, Born-Again Christian Republican who has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ." I also found a new 1 bedroom in Koreatown (quiet, clean, centrally located, with a view) that was being rented by a cute Filipino couple. I thought I had found the perfect place to live. The only problem was that the boyfriend, who initially agreed that I would move in as soon as possible,never called me back. So with no place to go, I had to crash on my friend Jack's couch.
Then I shelled out $60 to join a service called WestsideRentals.com. This didn't yield anything much better. I saw a bright, new, clean bachelor room (one room with a hot plate and refrigerator) that was in a very scary section of town. And one smelly, tiny, dark room with no hot plate in a great part of town. Finally, Craigslist came through! I will be living very close to downtown in quiet residential neighborhood with a very nice couple--Aaron and Elsa. I can ignore rust-colored carpet and the large but dark bedroom because of the huge closet, available washing machine, private bathroom, free parking, and giant kitchen. So my new address, should you decided to visit or send a picture of yourself making snow angels in New York, is:
[please contact directly for address]
2. Driving: Lessons learned
Trial by fire. My very first highway experience happened at 8pm miles from where I needed to be. Scary. And most of you are going to laugh at me for the rest of this but here goes . . . so far I've learned that AAA is the very BEST thing you can do for yourself as a driver (especially as a new driver). I am now the proud owner of a dark blue Toyota Echo. Echo tells me with beeps and noises when I need to pay attention to something but I'm still not versed in car lingo. I'm sure she screamed at me when I left my lights on and wandered around downtown dropping off resumes for a couple of hours yesterday. But I didn't hear her. So little Echo got a jump from the friendly and extremely speedy AAA battery repair guy. The very WORST thing you can do as a driver is buy Geico insurance. The rates might be low and the commercials might be funny but the customer service is so horrendous that I plan to write a letter that will get one of the representatives fired from her job. The next lesson is don't drive with your emergency brake on. (Don't worry, I only went a couple of feet.) Another good thing to keep in mind is that you can always get where you want to go in LA without using the freeway. And finally, nobody in LA knows how to drive in the rain, or at all.
3. Jobs
The economy is as bad here as it is everywhere else. Maybe worse because of the strike. I've applied for the following positions:
dog walker
inventory counter
caterer
cafe cashier
health club front desk attendant
smoothie maker
frozen yogurt counter girl
hotel receptionist
spa front desk receptionist
So far the only responses I've had have been for inventory counter and cafe cashier. We'll see what next week yields. And everyone is down in the dumps because of this strike.
4. The Biz
I don't know yet. But so far my excellent friend Jack (whose sofa has become my temporary home and whose cat has adopted me) has gotten me an audition with his Shakespeare company tomorrow. So even if film and TV are dead right now, theater is alive and well. And as I drive around getting hopelessly lost, I am thrilled to see tons of little theaters. Yay stage!
5. Impressions
Being from Houston, TX the sprawl of LA doesn't particularly intimidate me. But it is a giant, giant city with lots of different neighborhoods to explore. Exciting! I've only met nice people so far because they're friends of all of my New York friends. BUT everyone without exception has said to me, "People here suck. Don't believe anything anyone tells you." And, "Everyone here is a producer so be careful." We shall see . . .
