I
don't mean to be so flippant with my blasphemy, but
there just isn't any other way to describe what has
transpired in the period of one week. I realize that
it doesn't fall too much under the category of "The
Journey", but I can't not write about it. If I were to
just put it into Journey terms - it would go something
like this:
"I
now have a mortgage to worry about, which in turn
makes work a whole helluva alot more stressful, and
takes quite a bit of focus off my career. I sure hope
I made the right choice, and can still push my career
with the hunger and intensity that I had when I first
got here."
That
would pretty much cover the past 2 months. LOL. And it
has certainly sunk in with those simple parameters.
The question being - have I cemented over my dreams by
laying the foundation for domestic life? Too early to
tell of course. But at this point, I have to believe
that because it takes me roughly 9 minutes to go from
my house to the "Welcome to Hollywood" sign on the 101
- I'm gonna be fine. So onto the fun shit:
So
Tuesday the 13th I get off work, high as I've been in
awhile. I now have a full 6 days off to shape up the
house, and move in! Great feeling. Strangely enough,
we don't know if we're moving in Wednesday afternoon
or Thursday afternoon. It all depends on when
everything records down at the courthouse. 24 hours is
about as big of a deal as you can have in this case -
as the carpet is being installed Saturday morning. Get
the call at 9 AM Monday the 14th, that everything was
received on time and some dude is standing in line at
the courthouse - so evertyhing should record by that
afternoon. Strange shit. But it's done. So the first
thing I do is get in my car and drive to San Diego to
pick up a washer and dryer from an old WTVN listener,
Michelle, and she followed me back as she's gonna help
us paint. Word.
Got
back around 3 PM, and got the call that it was
recorded - the house was ours, we were in. At the
time, this was a good thing. We were happy. What I
didn't realize, was that this was pretty much the
starting gun shot that would trigger 20 hour days, and
a physical feat that can only be matched by the last
time Jess and I moved (Entry #75). Except this time it
lasted for 5 straight days. 'Cause after the 3 days of
work, you then get to move everything! Yahoo!
The
first night involved the fun stuff. Our friend Kerry
from the apartment complex joined in and I got to go
shopping at Home Depot with 3 women. Whew. As I do
care about both Kerry and Michelle (and of course
Jess) - I'll leave this one alone. But needless to say
it had some moments of frustration. I can sense all
your smiles as you're reading so I've done my part.
Then
we got to rip the hell out of EVERYTHING in the house.
Oddly enough the walls are all plaster. So we could
only lightly sand - but I got my first power tools out
of all this and I must say it was pretty fun. There
was of course the nasty ass brick veneer that we were
going to just paint over and then accidentally ripped
them out while I was taking down these god-awful
mirrors with gold lightening strikes all over them.
Whew.
So
we found we could take the brick down - so
there went the rest of my night.
Unfortunately this was also the moment
that I pretty much ruined my hands. A week
later my hands still throb. With a hammer
I ripped it allllllll down, as you'll see
in the
video,
and some of it was mighty easy - but parts
were just impossible. The next morning
(basically 3 hours later) My hands and
feet hurt somethin' stupid. Heh. But there
was zero time to waste.
Thursday
was more of the same. This time priming everything as
fast as we could while still scrapin' the hell out of
this house. But now we had the neighborhood kids in
the mix from the apartment behind us - and it was
getting really bad. The whole row of houses have a
cement wall seperating the yard from the apartment
complex. Very tastefully done, and makes a huge
difference. That is of course except for OUR HOUSE.
Which is not only a chain link fence - but the last
1/3 of it is COMPLETELY down and kids hang out in the
yard, shooting hoops on a rigged telephone pole, and
shooting marbles behind our garage (which they also
broke a hole in because they hated the guy before).
Now I guess they could be shooting guns, but it still
sucks. As well there's like 20 of them. So I went out
and made friends with 'em basically. Just to let 'em
know I'm the new owner and get a sense of how things
were. The kids were cool. They're 10. Thought I looked
like snoop dog with my long hair for some reason. I
asked them if they wanted any pop and apparently that
was the damn funniest thing they had ever heard. It's
SODA out here of course. So for the rest of the day it
was a bunch of mexican kids yellin' "Yo snoop! You got
any pop?!!". It was actually quiite funny.
Unfortunately, there were so many that they're running
in and out of the house and it just got nuts. Finally
so one little fuck INSIDE my garage - poking another
hole with a metal rod. I went fucking off. I
immediately knocked on my neighbor's door to see where
he got his concrete wall built - 'cause this had to go
up NOW. He said he'd have the guy meet with me
tomorrow morning, and he'd translate as he didn't
speak english. I was a bit concerned, but the neighbor
was pretty damn happy someone was finally doing
something. He said the wall cost him about $4000
(other people have spent upwards to $9-$10,000 on
them, and the black iron bars on top of the wall would
be another $1000. We'd have to use a cash advance, but
wehad no other choice. So back to work on the house.
The
final day, Friday, I woke up and knew there was no way
I was going to be able to put my feet on the ground
and hold weight. My hands were basically limp at this
point, and throbbing too. Hmm, how often can "limp"
and "throbbing" occur at the same time? Heh. But I
hobbled over and met with the contractor guy bright
and early. He goes back and looks, there's quite a bit
to tear out before the wall can even go up - old
cement structures underneath, the whole fence, all
these bushes and shit - quite a bit really. He says
"$2600".
?!
And
if you think I looked suprised, my neighbor was really
befuddled. He just paid $4000 for his. So we go back
to the front of the house, and we agree to half now,
half when he's done. I shake his hand. I swear to you
that by the time I went into my house, and walked back
to the yard - there were 10 guys tearing down shit in
my yard. They were starting THAT SECOND. He said
they'd be done by tomorrow afternoon. WOW. It was
incredible. He had his own bulldozers and trucks and
everything. Dug a trench like 3 feet down, it was
awesome. Videotaped just about every step. But they
moved so damn quick, I missed a bunch. As well, we
could "feasibly" pull off the price of the wall with
our tax refund - so Jess and I were pretty stoked. It
would actually be up BEFORE we moved one piece of
furniture in! Wahoo! But now of course, would the
house be ready on time.
Friday
was the final paint day - and godddddddddamn was it a
pain. There are these high ass vaulted ceiling that
had wooden beams we were painting white. As if priming
it wasn't hard enough, I got to stand on a ladder and
paint all 40 feet of them with a tiny brush by
hand...twice. That's the bitch about painting boy. All
the prep - and then once you've painted the whole
fuckin house - you get to do it all over again. And
that second coat is never as fun as the first, 'cause
nothin' beats makin' a white wall all...toasty and
grey. Heh. The color is Toasty Grey - which is pretty
much beige. Finally at around 4:00 AM, as it was each
night, we were done. I have to thank Michelle and
Kerry profusely for the help. It took everything I had
to pull it off each day and that was knowing it was
OUR HOUSE. How they were able to help when there was
no attachment is beyond me. So thank you, thank you,
thank you. And amazingly - we needed every minute, and
every bit of help. I was even planning to hit up E3 on
Friday to get some swag to sell, but couldn't because
we needed every second of the day to pull it all off.
Saturday
morning however was just incredible. My body couldn't
be anymore clear: "LAY FUCKING DOWN ALREADY". It's bad
enough to push your body like this, but to then add in
the ol' "No Sleep" clause to the contract, your really
pushing the limits. All of this, and then you get to
move - a physical feat in itself. All I can say is
Marshall and Mary pretty much saved our asses. We
needed every bit of help we could get, and both of our
bodies were lifeless. Lifting a piano was salt on a
wound. And the TV? Fuuuuuuuuuck. I found spurts of
energy for the big things, and luckily Marshall took
over the stress part for me. And I'm so thankful that
he understood that. Moving is stressful 'cause it's
all your stuff - and things can get broken - and you
really need to focus or you're in danger of losing
things to gravity. I was straight-up loopy at this
point. Although I cared, my body was just so mentally
and physically beaten from all the work and lack of
sleep that I could barely make it. Marshall kept alert
enough to keep everything cool. And maaaaaaaan do we
have a lot of heavy shit. That piano is just
ridiculous.
By
late Saturday night - we knew we weren't going to make
it in time. We'd have to bleed over into Sunday a
little bit. We grabbed the cats, took 'em home and the
proceeded to hide under the bed and cry for 3 days.
LOL. Pussies. That night though, I slept for freakin'
6 hours only - waking up at 7 AM all pissed...and then
my body said - NOPE. And knocked me down again, and
again, and again. I was on and off until 2:30 PM -
when we FINALLY had to get the rest of the stuff. But
as bad as I thought I felt Saturday morning - Sunday
was just laughable. There was simply no lifting in me
anymore. My legs and feet were so bad I could barely
SIT. I'd keep trying to raise them, but that still
hurt - All the advil in the world couldn't help...just
sucked. Again, Marshall, Mary and Kerry helped
tremendously. By Sunday at 9 PM, we were totally moved
in, and I then got to transfer the fucking hinges on
the refrigerator door for 2 hours. CHRIST DOES IT END.
Yes, it then ended - and I then died.
Monday
was my last day off, and an absolute joke. I couldn't
put anything away. I watched the dudes weld the metal
bars for our wall (which was all done by hand and look
fucking incredible). Watched a little TV, and just
relaxed. It was done. We were in our house. We had a
little meeting with ADT - woot - and we're gonna be
all secure and shit. Good feeling for sure. Man the
money is just flying out though. SWWWWWWWOOOOOOSH. Oh
well, you get to a point where you've spent so much -
you can't really whine about another $250 for a
security system. It actually seems cheap somehow to me
now. Heh.
So
there it is - the Grand Entry #250. I still can't
believe we're in a house and dumping every penny we
have into it. It's awesome - my neighbor said he's not
going to sell his house now that we're fixing ours up.
Actually all the neighbors seemed pretty happy now
that I think of it. I guess they were sick of the lady
too. They really just didn't do a goddamn thing ever.
I mean it has to be the laziest kept house I've ever
seen. Everything is at least 20 years from being
touched. Everything. It was the answer to every
question last week. "1983". That was the last time it
was painted. That was the last time the backyard
looked good. That was actually the date of some of the
newspaper I found in the garage. Stuck in time boy.
Well, no longer. Now of course comes the next
question: when the HELL do I do the Trinitrons 2. How
and when am I going to be able to pull that off. I've
grown my "G" Beard as I wanted to do it almost all at
once as to not look unprofessional at work. I'm still
way too fuckin' hairy for late-may in LA. Gotta cut
this shit OFF. But more than anything - its gonna take
weeks to get the hous situated. Hopefully I can pull
off the audio script sometime in the next 2 weeks.
That's the major concern. That's the foundation. Once
that's in place - the rest is just setting up time.
Whew. I can't wait - it's gonna rule.
