30 days (almost, not really, close. sorry.)

Stephanie sits in a restaurant waiting to be interviewed for a job. These have been tryings days lately. There's a new car that refuses to start, sitting on one of the only streets in the San Fernando Valley without streetsweeping or parking restrictions. Pure luck. Every day from before 2 to after 4 in the afternoon we drive around and Stephanie picks up, fills out, and drops off applications. We argue about money, but it is more about the insecurity. Stephanie hasn't been here before. There are some days I feel just as old as her, and other days it feels like it's more than 5 years that separates us. I've been jobless for months before, selling things on e-bay to make rent and pay utilities, riding bicycles with Bill to a bar that wouldn't charge us for our drinks. I've wandered around a city of millions in falling snow, walked a mile and a half in the dark through neighborhoods I've never heard of let alone seen before to interview for jobs that I was completely unqualified for. Returning things you bought for a buck or two so you can get drunk and sleep through the anxiety, I've done that too. It gets exciting, trying to figure out what bill you can hold off paying, which peter you can rob to pay paul. I'm in the middle of a two week interview process to serve at Pepper's again. Almost 3 years of experience at the same place and I still need multiple interviews. If things would have worked out how I wanted them to, I'd already be stockpiling cash under my mattress.

Soon.


Canoga Park is beautiful. There's graffiti, burrito places, vegetarian restaurants, a pool to swim in everyday, and an abundance of nooks and crannies to explore. A nice man named Bill runs the liquor store around the corner (Tally HO!). Our apartment manager is absent minded. Life is good.

Except the cat wants to kill me, and help me cook.

I'll unpack my camera and show you how things are.