When I moved to Los Angeles, I moved into "corporate housing"- an extended-stay hotel filled with fruit-flies. I was tempted to stay, just to say I spent a year living in a hotel.
Instead, I spent 6 weeks scouring Craigslist for rooms in biking distance to work. There was the vegan house south of the freeway, the suite of asian waitresses and the 31-year-old environmental consultant who assured me he really didn't mind if guys spent the night.
I wound up in the Verdugo Viejo, in an "eco-mansion" with 11 male roommates. I pay $479 plus utilities for 60-square-feet and a communal kitchen, that I just finished scrubbing, braless, in a Snuggie, as my libertarian landlord watched over my shoulder.
I'm moving. This weekend. A new intern came on two months ago, and while I hated him for stealing half the grunt-work, I liked him enough to work out with him. Now we're moving in together, into a two-bedroom on Alameda. It's right by Trader Joe's.
I wanted to live in the ghetto, or at least someplace cheaper, but this apartment is more sensible. It's hard to see that spending money can be useful, but nothing makes me feel more adult than shelling out cash for the nice neighborhood, the contact lenses or the overpriced condoms.
Anything that will make me feel more like an adult and less like an emo kid, wandering target with an unbalanced checkbook.
