Okay, so here I am, brand-spanking-new to the Los Angeles area. Until yesterday, I was technically homeless with my U-Haul trailer being my proverbial shopping cart which I push and pull all over the city, searching for a parking spot suitable for my now double-sized Civic. Once I find a spot, I have to then park it, hoping I don't damage anybody else's car, not to mention my own, in the process. I found out early on the difficulties in merging into highways and making sweeping u-turns with this thing; navigating through Los Angeles has given me newfound humility and respect for truckers everywhere. I can almost hear my poor little Civic cry every time I try to accelerate too quickly to avoid getting hit, or hit my brakes a little too firmly in traffic.

So you can imagine how this scene looks when I am trying to navigate the city while reading my map book in the hopes I don't get terribly lost, like my friend Sean Davis did (who coincidentally just moved out here too) when he accidentally drove us straight into, and then straight outta, Compton the other night.

I found a slick apartment less than 24-hours after arriving here. I first wanted to move to Pasadena, which is somewhat close to USC. I checked out the apartment at 5:00 Saturday night and told the woman I'd decide by the next day. Well, she called me the next morning to explain that someone came right after me and snagged the place on the spot, and that there were no more apartments available.

In a mad dash, I went onto craigslist.org and made appointments to see five apartments in LA.

I set out to navigate LA streets, still towing my trailer.

My first stop was in an awful neighborhood. And I mean awful. I have lived in some nasty parts of Baltimore, but OMFG this place was a virtual war zone. The apartment building I was looking at in a hair-raising part of town (considering the hair is slowly on my head, my chest hair gladly made up the difference) and the apartment building itself was guarded like Fort Knox. I promptly made a very wide and terrifying patented “Dave-Deutsch-towing-a-trailer-with-a-Civic-U-Turn” on 3^rd Street, where I went to look at a different place. This place too was in a terrible neighborhood, so I did yet another patented U-Turn. The third place I checked out was in an area that was not awful, but not quite “clean and nice” either. But it certainly was not balding-hair-raising scary.

The place itself was slick. It's a circa-1920's art deco building, pure white with ornate engravings on the facade and an appealing roughness to it. The studio apartment I was shown had hardwood floors, exposed brick and all new appliances. All of this for $1000/month.

I took it on the spot.

Last nigh, I moved into my new hip place. My new property manager (who evidently is married with three girlfriends and thus will remain anonymous) hired a family of immigrants to help move my stuff up three flights of stairs. The family was basically a family of three with one nine-year old boy who was built like a shit brickhouse. We picked up my dresser, asking him to take the other side. Instead he took the whole damn thing, hoisted it on his shoulder and walked it up three flights of stairs to my new place.

Holy Living Mother Of Shoulders, I was both shocked and, er, shocked.

Anyway, now I have to return my trailer and get unpacked.

And after that, my Civic will be able to breathe the fresh air of freedom, shedding the ball-and-hitch it has been towing around for well over a week and 3000 miles. From here on in, every U-Turn, K-Turn and traffic merge will be a breeze compared to what my poor little car went through over the past week and a half.

And, I will never ever complain about walking up and down stairs again. Ever.

Take care,