• 15 minute posts,  spilling my guts,  urban life

    The Great Apartment Search of 2012, Chapter One

    I typeset my apartment search. Some people would make a spreadsheet. I would not be one of those people.

    Apartment hunting is for the birds. It’s not that fun at all. There are all kinds of new and improved ways to find apartments nowadays like PadMapper and craigslist but there are no apartments to be found!! Well, at least no reasonably-priced ones that is. If you have a lot of money there are tons of beautiful places to live but personally I don’t have an extra four grand a month to throw around. It’s pathetic.

    I found the perfect apartment within walking distance of the school I want Bug to go to and our favorite park. It was lovely. I could hear children laughing, birds singing…it was exactly what I was looking for. It was affordable too! The only catch? It was only 350 square feet. That’s basically the size of a dorm room. AND it didn’t have a kitchen, just a counter for a hotplate and a microwave.

    I seriously considered it and even researched a solar oven. I made an appointment to look at the inside and then things took a turn for the worse. The landlord called me up and asked me to tell him a little bit about myself. I got to the part where I have a daughter and he stopped me. He wouldn’t even show it to me. It was inhumane to let a kid live there, he said. And that was that. My dreams of walking Bug to school were shut down like a rattly lid on a copy machine. Ker-slammo.

    Then while I sat around in Toby’s house fiddling with all my various notes on different apartments another listing popped up on craigslist. I called on it immediately. Probably minutes after it was posted and made an appointment to see the place. Two hours later I showed up at the “nice bright airy apartment” and guess who was there to meet me? About ten other prospective renters doing the exact same thing I was.

    TEN. TEN!!! people looking at a postage stamp-sized studio going for $1250 a month!! It was so small you had to turn sideways to go down a narrow hallway to get to the bathroom. I don’t know how they build these things to code. But it was cute. Nice hardware, nice windows, adorable Melrose Place-esque courtyard to share with two other tenants.

    I might just go for it if the landlords choose me. Which they probably won’t because I don’t know if they really want a mom and her daughter living there. I did bring Bug around to meet them and I’m hoping she charmed them with her cuteness but they were a little distracted with the crazy party of prospective renters that were interrupting each other at every turn. So I’m a little discouraged.

    Thankfully I have time. I don’t have to find a place until August. Something is bound to turn up. If you think of me maybe you could say a little prayer or call up your rich uncle who has property in Newport Beach and see if he wants to rent out that little casita by the pool.

  • 15 minute posts,  diary illos

    Ask and ye shall receive!

    5-16-12

    Sketchery posts are actually pretty easy to pull off. I love sketching. I just stopped for a year or so because a lot of my sketches were about bad stuff and I didn’t really want to share that. Maybe I’ll pull a Mark Twain and publish them 100 years from now when everyone who could be offended is dead. Or not. I haven’t actually been sketching that much. Mostly long rants about stuff and stuff.

    You guys gave me a lot to think about and you said some really nice things. Thank you!

    This is basically me fiddling around with my sketchbook while I wait for Bug to eat at a local diner. I had long finished, of course. I do a lot of that. She thinks she can exist off air and junk food. We also tried to get her last installment of homework done at the restaurant. That went over about as well as the food. She barely touched either.

    I’m also worrying/drawing (I should coin a new term: drorrying) about the invitation website I hope to launch in a week or so. It’s in the programming stage and I haven’t seen it yet. I’m at the nail-biting stage. I can’t wait to share it with you guys though. I think it’s going to be super cool.

    Next is playdates: I’ve actually found a fellow mom who doesn’t mind if I bring my laptop on play dates with her daughter. That’s kind of awesome. The first one we had, I just sat there and made small talk with her for three hours. It was painful. I didn’t know what to talk about and I was itching to work so bad the whole time. I hardly get much Bug-occupied-and-happy time so whenever I do get a minute I want to work on my laptop.

    5-17-12

    Here is today’s rapid fire sketch of messiness. I should be working but no, I’m thinking of you guys and all your nice comments that make me buzz. Too bad I have to draw about scary things. I need to work on that. But what comes out, comes out, you know?

    Oh, you’ll like the cockroach story! It was lovely. Delightful! Creepy and crawly and full of the heebie jeebies!

    As you may remember my cat, Aqui, is an outside cat. Not my choice, purely hers. She likes to come and go all night long and since we don’t have coyotes in this neighborhood I humor her by keeping a back window open just a crack so she can slither in and out. It’s all been very fine and dandy until last night.

    I hear this tell-tale muffled meow that can only mean one thing. She’s caught something. She’s quite the hunter. I’m a super light sleeper and I wanted to drift back to sleep but her muffled meow sounded like it was coming from inside the house and the last thing I want is her delivering a half dead mouse to my pillow for me to admire. She will do this. She is quite proud of her hunting prowess and has to show it off to me every time. She’s caught birds, gophers, lizards and…GREAT BIG SCARY AMERICAN COCKROACHES THAT CAN FLY!!!!!!!!!!!! (click if you dare)

    You read that right. Flying bugs with creepy-crawly legs and wiggling feelers. This is my worst nightmare. Snakes don’t scare me, spiders don’t scare me (too terribly much), mice don’t scare me but cockroaches do! I will climb up on tables to get away from them screaming like a sissy.

    It’s been a bit challenging living in this run-down mobile home with an-under-the-sink leak that attracts bugs that like to eat rotten wood. Thankfully, my dad fixed the sink leak but there are still plenty of big bugs outside for the cats to bring in.

    I hate it. With a passion. And there is no man around the house to come capture them and put them back outside.

    So that’s what I had to do in my nightgown at two in the morning. Pleasant dreams!

    bluhuhuhugh…shudder!