new place

My roommates and I moved into a new apartment. We liked all the shelf space, and the exposed brick walls. But there were several drawbacks---the giant, gym-locker-room style bathroom that took up about half the apartment and flooded on a daily basis was less than ideal. I also wasn't a big fan of the fake New Orleans interior design scheme. Each of the bedroom doors had a stained glass window etched with the name of a street in New Orleans and a stylized drawing of a jazz musician. Neon light sculptures of additional jazz musicians hung from the brick walls. Classy. I got there late, and my roommates had taken up all that wonderful shelf space with their books, DVDs and CDs, leaving me none. I threw a big fit, screaming and yelling and maybe throwing some things. Later, I apologized, embarrassed for my outburst, but things remained pretty tense.

snakes!

I encountered a number of pestilences. Tornadoes. Fires. Earthquakes. The worst was the room full of snakes. This big purple cobra cornered me. I thought I was fast enough to get around it and out the door. Boy, was I wrong.

the new world

I joined an improv troupe, but our chemistry was all wrong. We just weren't funny, and I think two of the other girls were clinically depressed. The rest of the group decided to order in some fried chicken, stay up all night, and work everything out, but I jumped ship and headed to Michigan to hang out with my coworkers.

They were eating dinner at the house of one of the publicity assistants' parents, which was on a Manhattan city block transposed over one of the hilly forested areas near Ann Arbor. The publicity assistant was mad because one of the publicists had taken over her bedroom and filled it with baby-related gear. The really annoying part was that the publicist doesn't even have a baby. Still, I liked what she'd done with the place. Everyone was debating whether or not to head over to a party on 6th Ave. It was only one block away, but that block was steep and icy and covered with heavy forest.

We decided to drive to the frozen yogurt place instead. It was a no-name Pinkberry imitator, and they weren't doing so well. The place was a mess, with napkins and fruit bits and yogurt residue covering every surface. I was almost to the front of the line when the place totally broke down and became two narrow strips of land running in parallel across the Atlantic Ocean. A neverending train of prehistoric animals, from pink brontosauruses to baby-blue woolly mammoths, trudged along the isthmuses toward their new homes.

I cut a perilous path between all those giant, adorable legs and soon found myself in a small port city somewhere in Spain, full of notable architecture and elevated causeways. At every corner, there was a park with artfully arranged bushes and benches, so that the heads of the people who sat there poked up like rows of cabbage, making out, taking naps, or just taking in the scenery.

carless in Los Angeles

Getting around Los Angeles without a car can be a real pain, especially if all the trains are full of zombies. I was visiting friends up in the hills, but had to get to a high school reunion on another hill. I'm not quite sure how I made it, but it definitely involved a lot of running and quick-footed zombie evasion down by the train tracks. I arrived just in time to hear this girl who used to live down the street from me out her little brother. He didn't seem to be expecting it, but he handled it well.

My friends got me a room in a really nice bed and breakfast up on the hillbilly side of town. Getting there was also a challenge, but it was worth it. The next day I even snuck back in to use the bathroom after I checked out because it was just the nicest place around to do my business. Then I walked down the hill to the local fruit stand. The line for this place was around the block. A local lumberjack told me that their recent popularity was due to their delicious waffles and jalapeno tacos, but they still slept out back in the mud with their pigs. I was glad to hear that success hadn't changed them (although in their case a little upgrade probably wouldn't have hurt).