My, my, my... Quite a bit has transpired since my last post. I'm going to have to break this post into sections, read each as your curiosity strikes you.
Relationship:
I broke up with Beth, my girlfriend of six-months, on Sat July 7th. I will admit that my timing was not entirely considerate of her feelings - she'd just flown back from a vacation on the other side of the country with her family. Within hours of her getting off the flight I had broken up with her. The reason I gave: I didn't think I could handle a breakup and a move all at the same time and without a network for friends in close proximity. Understandably she did not take it particularly well, and I certainly felt like an ass.
Curiously, it looks like Beth might have an inside track on getting a job at William Morris, one of the top talent agencies in Los Angeles and NYC.
Best of luck to her in that enterprise, she's a hard worker and I think she'll kick ass if she lands the gig.
Dealing with the breakup has been much easier with the help of friends, and while probably selfish I feel like I chose the right time to end things.
New Car:
After further confusion over which car to get and how exactly to work it out... My dad whispered the magic word "Prius" into my mom's ear and her ties to her car quickly melted away. After many hours negotiating with the DMV, an under-the-table cash-exchange with a body shop, and a few hundred bucks at my local mechanic I am now the proud owner of a 2000 Mitsubishi Galant with 70,000 miles on it. I'm not a "car guy" - but I am filled with no small amount of girlish glee over this exchange. The car has a V6, air conditioning (!!!!), side-impact airbags, and power everything. If I am my car, then I'm doing pretty cool.
Apartment Hunt:
I was lucky enough to have a few friends already living in LA before I made the trek down. Prince Gomolvillas (http://bamboonation.blogspot.com) wrote "The Fabulous Adventures of Captain Queer" which was my first foray into paid theater. A while back he offered to let me stay at his apartment while I searched for a place and I decided to take him up on the offer. He and his boyfriend Lauren were kind enough to let me into their home for the better part of the week while I looked around.
Strategy 1: Craig's List
I'm a pretty geeky person and where possible I will search for the technological solution to a problem even if in the long run it's more of a hassle than more traditional methods. I started my search at Craig's List, which if you don't already know, is a great place to find apartments, furniture, free crap, and casual sex partners (this Craig must be a pretty exciting guy). They offer a number of cool features, but my favorite is the ability to search by price-range and number of rooms. Using this, I was able to very quickly discover that there were pretty much no apartments in my ideal price range (1br for $715/mo)... instead I found a lot of small apartments in crap places that were hundreds of dollars more than I was used to paying in Oakland, CA.
The key with online apartment searching is persistence. After expanding my search range to include studios between $600 and $900 I turned up a lot more results. If you are looking for cheap, good-sized apartments look in and around Korea Town, the neighborhood doesn't feel exactly safe but you do get a lot of bang for your buck. But, I centered my search on the following neighborhoods: Silver Lake, Los Feliz, and Melrose. All of which have a really great funky artist's community feel to them.
Strategy 2: West Side Rentals
I also registered with West Side Rentals which is a service used by just about everyone in LA it seems. I really wish that more folks would use craigslist because registering for West Side Rentals runs about $60 for 2 months. You'll find listings with much more detailed information about neighborhood, amenities, etc. Using this service I was able to very quickly realize that I was not going to find exactly what I was looking for - let's face it: LA is an expensive place to live. I recommend this service, but only register if your preliminary (read: free) searches are turning up 50+ results. By the time you winnow down the results to only those listings that really match your criteria, it'll be a small list indeed. If you turn up less that 50 hits, it's a waste of your money to register.
Strategy 3: Pound the Pavement
Again, persistence is important when looking for an apartment. It turns out that LA is a really weird housing market (at least from the SF perspective). I had the best luck when I walked around a neighborhood I liked and just started calling the For Rent signs that were posted. It seems like every apartment complex has a vacancy, some of the cooler places I found were in the same neighborhood as a craigslist result that was a complete bust. So if you find an apartment in a neighborhood that you like, but it's out of your price-range, just get out, walk around, and start making some calls:
Hi, I'm Donovan Keith. Phone Number XXX-XXX-XXXX. I'm calling about the apartment you have available at XXXX Kingston Ave. If it is a studio or one-bedroom renting for less than $900/mo please call me back. Again, my phone number is XXX-XXX-XXXX. Thanks!
You can canvas a few blocks in an afternoon and if you wait a day or so, you'll start getting some calls back for places in a neighborhood you like at a price you can afford.
Stay Tuned
Stayed tuned for my next post, where you'll get to read about:
- A Peek Into The LA Life
- The New Apartment
- My Good-bye Party
Until then... Keep on keeping on.
