If You're Ghetto and You Know It, It's Time to Move

I think it's time to face facts. As much as I'm perfectly capable of sewing up moth holes in my coats and sweaters, as much as no one sees me when I'm wearing eyeglasses that have been taped together around the house, I don't like it so much. I'm also not all that fond of digging through my old clothes and things for items to sell so I can pay my rent or using chairs and other bits and pieces of furniture as free weights instead of joining a gym (Okay, that I haven't done. Yet). But this is the price I've been paying not just to have my career hit the skids, but also to live where I live. To live in Los Angeles, for one. And in my neighborhood for another. It's fairly obvious that I don't have the income for either. But LA is my home. My neighborhood is central to my friends and the things I like to see and do-- free as they are. And I'm single, so it's important to be close to my friends. But living in this apartment that I moved into when I wrote for a TV show, maybe not so much so. Even though it's considered a deal by today's rent standards, it's still more than I can afford. A whole lot more.

When I moved into this place, I cried. It was bigger than both the apartment and then ultimately, the townhouse I grew up in. Or close. (2500 square feet! Hardwood floors! High ceilings! French windows!) Even though it wasn't an actual house, it felt like one to me. I didn't need a front yard or a back yard. As long as I had appliances. Appliances that let me wash and dry clothes in the comfort of my own home. And I had a dining room! I could entertain! My friends didn't have to be buzzed in. I had a front door. And a back door where my cat could go in and out of her own free will. Best of all? There was a room I could use for an office. I'd have a place to write. I felt like I had arrived. (All that and tax deductible, to boot.)

So I decorated. Not in a cheesy way. (Being that I'm not cheesy.) I hired Husband-for-Hire to hang chandeliers I got on eBay and to change the towel racks in the bathroom. He also hung pictures. And Sears? They both delivered and hooked up my fridge and my washer and dryer. For free! For once, my rooms worked. Or at least they worked for me. They reflected my personality. And you could tell what they were. The office, well it felt like an office. And the bedroom was a bedroom and the living room... well, you get the idea. No longer was the breakfast nook functioning as an office. Or the living room functioning as a dining room because there was no place else to eat. And I didn't have to hang clothes to dry in the bathroom because I was out of quarters or the machine was broken. It was all so civilized. So right.

And then it wasn't. Because when my career started to suck, this place sucked away my savings. And so I had to make a choice. Move or get a roommate? Get a roommate or move? Fall in love and get married or... well, yeah. So the roommate thing happened. As much as I didn't want it to, it did. I wasn't a roommate girl... ever. I'd lived with crazy people in the past who had done all the typical crazy roommate things that made me crazy. (Sorority house anyone?) So I lived alone and vowed that the next crazy person I lived with would be my boyfriend or my husband or some version of that. But it didn't work out that way.

Sure my roommate was fun. He's a gay fashionista and we were friends before we were roommates. And in the grand scheme of things he did little to disturb the dynamics of the decor. (After all, all he owned was a mattress and clothes). But it wasn't the same. There was a person. In my space. And my office was in the dining room. Colors clashed. Furniture was everywhere. It wasn't a catastrophe. It wasn't horrible. But he wasn't my man and it wasn't where I wanted to be. Still, I held on. We entertained. We frolicked. We shared expenses. And we talked about our day at work. Then things started to go wrong. (Hmm, maybe he was a husband). At first, I was too distracted with other things going wrong in my life to worry about that one. And then it became much too difficult to ignore bounced checks and random people staying over and promises that he'd get me money so the bills would be paid on time. I wanted to kick him out, to salvage my pride, but where would he go? Where would I go? The rent wasn't going to pay itself. Moving is expensive. Losing a friend, more so. But then I did. I finally kicked him out. And the rent somehow magically appeared for the last two months.

First, I got a green envelope in the mail from the WGA (aka a residual check from the TV show. Green = money. Cute, huh?). It wasn't a lot, but it covered his half of the rent. And then, I left my job. The vacation days I never took took care of the next month. But now, it's almost December. And truthfully, that money from the last two months would have been better spent on other things. And then there's that little fact of Christmas. Sure, the rent may fall from the sky along with a bonus for the stuff I need and the presents I'd like to buy. And the 'Raise the Rent' garage sale I'm planning to have to optimistically raise my rent might do just that (although the last one I had brought me a mere $76, it was that ghetto). But I'm beginning to think, or rather know, it's time to move on. I have things I want to write about. A company to start. And if I'm working six days a week, worried about keeping this place, none of that will happen. My life will just continue on as the hamster wheel it's become over the last four years. Which no matter how big the habitrail is, is still very small. And never ending. So I'm seeing a studio and a storage space in my future.

I'm not going to lie. It breaks my heart. I know my cats will punish me for it. And with them, bankruptcy and rising rents, it may not be all that easy to find a place. Not to mention, come up with the first month's rent, last month's rent, and a security deposit, to pay men to move all this furniture, Husband-for-Hire to take down those chandeliers and hang up the ugly ceiling fans and towel racks that used to be here. But it's life. My life. And as much as I may not want to admit where I'm at, I don't really have much of a choice any longer. There's no natural disaster to blame it on, no one but me and my choices and my circumstances. So at the end of the day, I have to be honest with myself. Right now, I'm a little ghetto. And if I don't do something to change it, who will?