There Aren't Enough Staples in the World to Fix This

"Okay, and staples... and rope...and here we go..." That, from the handyman crouched upon my roof fixing my swamp cooler.

My swamp cooler needs to be filled with water, that is all.  If this guy falls through my roof, he's not getting paid.

Now he is on my front porch clearing his sinuses in loud, short bursts. He does not spit.  I don't know what's worse keeping the spit in or letting it fly in my yard.

Now he is using my bathroom. He has been in there for a long time. Thank God I cleaned up my typically messy bras-on-the-shower-rail-bathroom before he came over.

He's back in the front yard, annnnd, he spits.... and "JOSH! YO!" Waves at friend down the street.

He hovers in my front doorway.  I am waiting to write him a check just to get him to leave the property. He says that he and his girlfriend, who happens to live up the street from me, broke up over a financial dispute ("his bad", he admits). He didn't apologize "all the way" enough for her.

If he talks to me for another 30 minutes I'm going to stop, drop and roll right on the ground in front of him.

"Yep, my mom and dad got divorced when I was eight..." he continues, craning his neck around to see if he knows the guy driving by in the pockmarked Chevy truck. He doesn't. He loses his train of thought. I see my chance and leap at it. "Well thanks for your help, I've got a phone call to make... business... you know... gotta call into work... (door shutting)..thanks again... (his eyes still peering in the crack in the door). I close the door and lock it.

Finally. I am $25. lighter and he is gone.

I switch on the swamp cooler, and the electricity go out.

Hindsight

It has been seven months since I hightailed it out of Tujunga and took up residence in my old home town of Redondo Beach. I can't say I miss Tujunga much. I can say that I miss the freedom of wearing cut off shorts and a wife beater with my stomach sticking out day after day without anyone noticing.

Redondo is pretty and proper. It is Starbucks and luncheons and clean nails. Tujunga is ratty, semi dangerous and if it could talk, it would have a smoker's rasp.

Now that I'm back here in the relative safety of my childhood community, I find myself wandering, curious, out into the less traveled parts of the South Bay. Rusting gates and the derelict buildings compel me to travel deeper, poking my head into areas that are alien to me.

Goodbye Tujunga

Well, I'm moving. Despite Tujunga's many charms and pot dispensaries, I am heading out. It's time for me to downsize. I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, no more neighbors begging for money, booze and toilet paper. On the other hand, no more apricot tree, garden or extra room in which to paint. My paintings will get smaller, I will buy apricots at the store and I'm sure I'll be able to find a place for a little container garden. I will miss the kid that walks by every day with the gigantic yellow afro.

My neighbors, the Borrowers, are also moving. They rent the house next to me and the owner is selling it- or rather, has sold it. If I'm lucky, the neighbors will end up living next door to me in my new hood.

So now I begin the task of paring down my belongings.
Shoes. I have so many. I have two feet and a hundred shoes, most of which pinch my broad, hoagie-like feet. Clothes. Millions, ranging five sizes since my body can't decide where on the scale it should stick.
Children's books. I thought I wanted to be a children's book illustrator my whole life, then I had the chance to actually try it and I hated it. God it was boring and stressful at the same time. I have boxes and boxes of children's books that need to go away.
Beads. Why did I ever think it would be a good idea to buy hundreds and thousands of beads for jewelry making? Clasps and jump rings and shiny and matte beads... all gorgeous and untouched. Maybe I'll keep them. Just to look at. And dream.
Knee socks. Tons. All striped. All too small. They sounded like a great idea at the time.
Hello Goodwill.

I guess I'm writing this as a documentary for myself- to sort of keep track of my brain throughout this process.

Wherever I go, rest assured, there will be a diary.

Neighborhood News

My toothless neighbor had a heart attack. With his blue feet and all, and his chain smoking, one wouldn't say he was in the best of health in the first place.

I got home from work last night and Toothless's wife sidled up and vodka'd in my ear, "Toothless had a heart attack". I was like, "WHAT?!" and then I noticed that she was dressed up (aka out of her house dress), and he had eye makeup on. And she seemed chipper. Hmm, dislike your husband much?

She told me it was a mild heart attack and I was glad for that. As much as I make fun of my neighbors, I do like him. He's a sweet man. He's the man who screams at his wiener dog.

I have new neighbors renting the house just to the south of me. A woman, a man and a stepson. The woman is short, stocky and rough- she looks like she should be smoking a cigar and balling up twine on a schooner. The husband looks like a has-been fashion model. He's tall with hair "wings" that bounce and behave as he lopes around the backyard fixing stuff. He wears odd things. I suspect he shops at the Goodwill but not in an ironic way. Think Dolphin shorts.

The stepson mostly stands around in the backyard with a twig or a rock in his hand. Just stands.

So they're digging this hole. It is right outside my kitchen window. It's big enough for a body right now. They haven't dug in a while. Perhaps it's the rain, or maybe they're done and they're just waiting to kill me.

My kitchen sink faces their living room where they sit on the couch and watch TV. So once a year when I do dishes, I essentially look right in at them. It wouldn't be so unnerving if they could tell that I was doing dishes, but the window doesn't begin until about my mid chest. So, for all they know, I'm just standing at the window, watching them watch TV. Ah well. What are they going to do, call the police? Not with that open grave out back.

Maybe Toothless will be back from the hospital tonight when I get home from work. That would be good. I miss his shouts and yips.

Classy

I sunk to a new low and embraced my inner Tujungan today. No I did not smoke meth with the one legged guy who does donuts on his moped in the KFC parking lot.

I bought a battery operated pumpkin pie scented candle.

Here's what happens when your life begins to unravel.

It starts with a CVS being the only "store" in your town. Then, you get yourself a Saturday night alone, add one Atkins bar (hors d'oeuvre), one gluten free beer (cocktail), one battery operated candle (ambiance) and and voila, instant class!

The "best part" is that it is made out of real wax (shamWOW! Buy it today for only $19.99!), so when the candle warms up, the wax foofs out the scent of pumpkin pie spice.

Somebody give me my life back.

80

I drive home to Tujunga at 80 miles per hour every weeknight. My drive is a twelve mile, traffic-free commute. It is always the same, though some nights, it seems to take forever.

Mmmuh, trucks...
off ramp...
more trucks...
tail gaiter...
JPL...
La Canada...
La Crescenta...
Tujunga...
Datsun pickup truck with missing taillight...
my exit...
tweaker...
hobo....
clown...
dog...
open field with river stones stacked one on top of the other, like little men, everywhere...
wild horsetails growing out of a swampy spot in the gutter...
enormous lumps in the road...
day laborers...
7-11...
motorcycle guys...
Bonner's Equipment Rental...
auto body shop...
liquor store...
medical supply...
tweaker...
drunk guy...
auto body shop...
liquor store...
medical supply...
tweaker...
drunk guy...
auto body shop...
liquor store...
medical supply...
tweaker...
drunk guy...
apartments...
tree...
more trees...
houses...
home...
neighbor...
"can I borrow three dollars. I'm outa cigarettes".

Medicine

A nap is a sacred thing. A nap should not be interrupted unless there is a big fire.

My neighbor has a sixth sense about naps. This is how it works: When my eyes close, hers pop open and something in her brain tells her, much like a pigeon's homing instinct, to come over to my house and ask for money.

Her hair is always pulled back in a banana clip. Her eyes are a shocking blue...and red. Her brown acrylic cardigan is pilled and stained. It stretches down, over her stomach and covers half the length of her shorts. Her sweater pockets are filled with handmade, beaded jewelry to sell. Stuff she made a few years ago, when she wasn't, as she explains it "depressed" because of all of her "family shit".

The husband doesn't let loose on the details of their lives but the wife does. She is usually drunk on her "medicine" (vodka and milk), so she'll say revealing things as she wanders back down my front path. Most of her remarks make me want to run screaming away from her and this town. And then she'll say "you have such cute shoes" and I'll give her a dollar.

Saturday, after a refreshing 1.5 minute nap, I stood at my front window, wifebeater on, vodka and milk in my sippy cup, and wondered WTF I was doing in this hick town.

Learning something probably.

You're Soaking In It

I hate doing dishes probably more than anything in the world. I'd rather get a mammogram. I'd rather pick up dog doo with my bare hands.

So I swore I'd do the dishes this last Sunday, it being Easter and all. I figured, if there was a Jesus, he'd probably want me to do the dishes. So I took a nap, scraped down the hideous oil painting I'd began the night before, swept the floor and did some laundry. Then I took another lie down. This is when the panic attack hit. The damn dishes. The income taxes, the property taxes, the mortgage, and the dishes. I was snowballing. I promised myself that if I ever got the dishes done, I would never use a dish again. I would buy paper plates (sorry trees) and plastic forks (sorry everything).

I got out of bed, walked past my pile of 2006, 2007 and now 2008 taxes, past my mortgage bill, past my phone where there was a message from my dad wondering what I was going to do about my property taxes, and into the kitchen, and out the back door.

My backyard looked okay. Nothing was on fire, to my disappointment. I turned around and headed back into the kitchen. Turn the water on, just turn the water on, I told myself. I turned the water on. Letting the water run (sorry ocean) I put the few dishes away that were on the drying rack from the last time I did dishes, four months earlier. Then I got down to work.

I made a deal with myself. I'd just wash the dishes that lined my counter and that was all. I'd do the rest, the stuff in the sink, another day. Just get through the overflow, that's all I had to do. Jesus would understand.

I did it. I washed those fucking glasses way deep down inside and all over the outside and on the bottoms. I washed four bowls. I did not wash the silverware. The silverware would wait for the next time.

I dried my hands on a paper towel and felt lighter as I watched my neighbor through the kitchen window. This isn't the neighbor with the blue feet, this is the neighbor to the south. A single woman, who smokes cigarettes with her son like he's her lover. But that's a story for another day.

Maybe I'll take a look at my taxes tonight. Right after I do this one thing to my painting...

Diet Coke

I've got this store down the street from me. When I first bought my house, I was convinced it was going to be a problem. I imagined bikers and gangsters and stick ups, rabid dogs wandering it's porches... and hookers. I can see the "Market" (aka Liquor Store) from the front lawn of my house.

I had just moved from South Pasadena, where I think we had one Liquor store, and the Easter Bunny or my Grandma ran it. I was in a whole new neck of the woods now- in fact this woods didn't even have a neck, just went from shoulders to chinless.

So, I sidled in there shortly after I moved in, parched from unpacking self help books. To my amazement, it was a wonderland! It was bright and cheery. There were bananas and limes on the counter and there was cat food and toilet paper and charcoal briquettes and soup and ice cream. Right there a half a block away!

The owner, Mike, said "Hello" and I said "Hi" back. This was fantastic! Man I had a lot to learn about this town.

I thanked Mike and stepped out into the fragrant May sunshine with my Diet Coke, smack into a hooker, an old biker and his rabid dog. They were sticking up a gangster.

Pool Man

My pool guy is a waifish Tujungan saint. He wears a gigantic, stoic wedding band on his left hand (I know wedding bands can't really be stoic but I swear this one takes it's job very seriously). I got his name, Greg, from the last owner of my house. I used to shoot the breeze with Greg, ask him all kinds of pooly questions, thinking I could eventually clean the pool myself. I was wrong. A pool is a beast you don't want to mess with. Right after I bought the house, I discovered the pool had a leak in it. Greg taught me a trick using a bucket to figure out how big the leak was, then he gave me the number of a reputable pool repair man. Pool got fixed, I learned a lot, done.

Then one Tuesday he didn't show up. I was like, what's the dealio, where's my Pool Guy. It's Tuesday and I don't want my pool to turn green. When you first own a pool, you're paranoid like that. So I think I called him and left a few messages. But I didn't see him until the next week.

It was cold out the following Tuesday. When I saw him, Greg had water all down the front of his sweatshirt and shorts from cleaning the pool. I asked him how he was. He said he was freezing. He stood there by the stubby January rose bushes and shivered a little. Then he apologized for missing the week before and for not calling back. He explained that his son had been in the hospital with LEUKEMIA. Oh ghad. Suddenly my jack ass pool seemed stupid and ridiculous and I didn't care if it turned green any more. The man looked tired and small.

After that Tuesday I took to hiding out in the house when he came by. Instead of going out to talk to him about algae as usual, I'd skulk around like a coward, getting ready for work with the curtains drawn. My fear was that the worst had happened and that his son had died. My fear was that I'd say, "How is your son?" and he would say, "My son is dead".

I was 22 when my mom died of cancer, and when she was dying I thought, "why aren't people talking about this with me? I'm never going to be afraid to talk about illness or death after this". And now check me out, years later. All of that clarity and fire, the truth about death and dying and love has grown a filmy cataract. I've become afraid again.

It's Sunday night. Greg comes to clean the pool the day after tomorrow. I can continue to hide or I can talk to him. I don't want to live my life with fear trumping my empathy for people. So I won't.

Compassion replenishes the spirit of the receiver and the giver.

Shut It

My sweet, blue footed neighbor has a laugh that echoes through the neighborhood like an exotic bird's cackley call. Mostly I hear him at dusk when he's ha haaaaaing over a DVD rental. First comes the surround sound(tm) rumble of some high-tech Hollywood explosion, then comes his roaring laughter, childlike and unfettered.

The same neighbor has a indoor dog and a yard dog. The yard dog is part Chow and is well cared for in a stepdog sort of way- kind of the way Tom Cruise's other children get treated now. What other children. I know. Like that.

The indoor dog lives in the house and the Chow lives in the backyard. The indoor dog is a Wiener Dog. The Wiener Dog is named after a famous brand of hot dog. Let's call him Ball Park. Ball Park gets treats like fried bacon. The Chow gets left over dry cat food bits that have skittered across the deck and into the backyard weeds.

Ball Park and owner, look let's just call him Gary, spend a lot of time out in the front yard shooting the breeze. Sometimes guys pull up in their lifted 4 x 4s to talk to Gary about cars. Gary used to do body work on cars for a living until both shoulders gave out. Now he's on disability. He also has blood clots. I think that's why he doesn't wear shoes. So guys pull up and most of the time, if Gary is in the house, they'll honk. This makes the dogs, inside and outside, go crazy. When the dogs go crazy, Gary gets loud like one of those fake/real locomotive car horns. And it is this that he shouts: "SHUT IT!" "SHUT IT!" "SHUT IT!" "BALL PARK, SHUT IT!" And then the screen door clacks shut and Gary and Ball Park bounce down the steps and across the lawn toward one of their many friends.

Someone says something about tie rods. Gary breaks out in laughter. Ball Park barks. Gary shouts "SHUT IT!". Everything is right in the world.

I Love It When She Calls Me "Honey"

11:15 pm
Knock knock knock! Out of bed, feet on floor, stumble to front door and flick on the porch light. No fear, just incredulity and annoyance because I know it's my neighbor wanting a) money or b) beer. I've learned to keep neither in the house. You'd think it would be easier for me to just learn how to use the word "no".

"Hi Honey, I need you to turn on your pool light because I gotta catch some cats". This doesn't register and I think of soup. "What?", I ask her, squinting through my security screen. "I have to trap those cats so I can get them spayed in the morning and I need the light from your backyard so I can manage the traps". Sounds reasonable. She thanked me and shuffled off into the night.

I turned the light on, went back to bed and haven't seen the cats since. I realized today that I've been telling myself that they are still at the vet recovering from being spayed. It has been two weeks. I'm so stupid. They have obviously been relocated.

Wake Up Call

Again I wake up to the house rattling knock of my neighbor. "Hi Honey, did I wake you up again... Wish I could sleep in, I didn't get to sleep until 3:00 am... anyway Honey I was wonderin' if I could borrow ten dollars, I'm outta cigarettes." I give her two dollars and she wanders back over to her house saying something about having some change and figuring something out. I feel bad. I lied. I had about five dollars in my purse (now three). But I'm sick of always giving her money. It's not like I have a lot of it. She never, ever pays me back. Ever. Plus, the money is probably for booze- and maybe for some cigs. I am spineless.

Ice Coolers and Abandoned Shopping Carts

I let my neighbor use my pool when I'm at work. Let me back up. My neighbor started using my pool when I was at work, and then he asked me if he could use my pool and I said yes. He is a sweet man. He brought me a palette of individually wrapped breakfast muffins for my birthday. He and his wife babysit their 1.5 year old granddaughter most days. Some mornings I am awakened by a loud, impatient rapping on my security door. It is the wife. She carries with her a cloud of alcoholic vapors. When she knocks I know she wants one thing. Money.

You Are Here

At this point you are probably wondering why I don't just move- if I hate Tujunga so much. Well, it's more complicated than that. And I don't necessarily *hate* Tujunga. I just find it different from what I'm used to. So have patience with me while I figure this town out (figure myself out).

780 square feet of bliss

I owned a 780 square foot, one bedroom condo in South Pasadena. It was way too small for me and my growing obsession with painting and the walls were paper thin. I sold the condo and moved to Tujunga. South Pasadena is an idyllic town, full of coffee houses and beautiful tree lined streets. I have to stop myself from mooning over it every single day. It seems that my heart still lives there. Sometimes I think I moved to Tujunga in a manic frenzy- without thinking about what I was leaving behind. The rush of moving was all engrossing. It wasn't until after the moving van pulled away and all was quiet that I'd realized what I'd done. I stood in my living room that first Saturday in horror as the neighbor across the street started his mini street racing motorcycle and began doing donuts.

Toothless Neighbors and Government Cheese

When I chose this town, I wasn't quite in my right mind. I see that now. That, or my realtor slipped ecstasy tabs into my Diet Coke as we drove around the sidewalkless streets that rainy May a year ago. I had looked at other towns; Altadena, Alhambra... all of the places that I could afford, and none of them spoke to me. In retrospect, maybe I should have listened a little harder to what those cities were saying before I slapped my fortune down in good old Tujunga.
I came from a middle class family. My father was a public high school art teacher and my mother was a part time public school teacher. How I became such a locationally confused person, I'll never know. Maybe it has to do with living in such poverty each summer and also constantly living so far beyond our means. There is confusion and hazard inherent in growing up in a household in debt.
I grew up at the beach in the Hollywood Riviera in Redondo Beach. It's not like it sounds. I was pale and freckled and fat. Classmates threw eucalyptus pods at me in disgust and anger while we waited at the bus stop. That's how not user friendly I was. My parents fought about everything. I cried all the time. They stopped their fighting to yell at me for crying. I'm trying to give you the big picture. I'm also trying to figure out how I ended up here in Hillbilly and NeoNazi Heaven. I'm going to trust that pitching this out there will lead me to some sun dappled path's end.
I have a brother. He is older than I am by six years. When I was very young, I used to think he looked like one of the Beatles. It's because he used to wear his hair longish in the front. Everybody did in the early 70's. He used to skateboard all over the place. In 1976 we both, along with my little sister, got our pictures in a skateboard book. We thought we were pretty hot. I skateboarded because my brother did. I did everything he did. I wanted to be around him all of the time. One time I asked him if I could hang out with him and his friend Chris. He said I could if I skateboarded around in the street in only my underwear. I retreated from his bedroom and thought about it for a very long time then I declined his offer. I was completely disappointed in myself.
I have a younger sister. She got shot in the wrist when we were walking home from school one day. I heard the air rifle go off. It sounded like a rubber band being snapped. We hated this hill. It was steep and seemed to never end. It was hot that day. One minute we were walking up our hill and the next minute she was looking at her wrist and blood was starting to pulse out of it. She began to cry. I had a dirty old blue bandanna in my backpack. I found it and tied it around her wrist, more to hide the wound from my eyes than anything else. I held her wrist and we started walking up the hill again. A boy on his bike came riding up alongside us. I knew him from school. He was a few grades older than I was. He said, "What's wrong?" or "What happened?" and I gave him a wicked squint and said "you know". And he did know. That bee bee came straight out of his house on that hill and hit my sister in the arm- traveled right up the vein in her arm and was headed for something important is all I knew.
The detectives came to our house. They asked us what happened. They were dressed nicely. They were young. They would tell us that my sister was shot with an air rifle and the boy who did it hid the rifle in his closet. His mother was very upset. His brother was a quarterback at USC. That was the big deal. That was all my mother talked about. "Your sister got shot by the brother of the quarterback from USC!"
The detectives and my parents kept telling me that I had done a good thing by tying the bandanna around my sister's wrist- that I had created a tourniquet and had helped to stop the bleeding (this was before the tourniquet had fallen out of favor as a means of stopping bleeding). I never intended to do this. My sole intention was to cover the wound so my sister (and I) wouldn't have to see the blood anymore and to probably sop up the blood. But man, I ran with the whole tourniquet thing. I didn't deny it, I just nodded my head and drank it in. And I felt like a heel. To this day I feel guilty for taking credit. I did not create a tourniquet on my sister's arm that day. I just didn't want to see the blood. Case closed.
Or is it. Could my fear and disdain for shady thugs come from that sole incident? Perhaps. Or maybe there's more.