Rinse and Repeat.

"Hey, I just overheard you say you moved here from Brooklyn? We just did too."

"Oh my God, there are so many people from Brooklyn here!"

"Where did you live in Brooklyn?"

"Park Slope/Fort Greene/Carroll Gardens!"

"Yup! Us too. And where do you live now?"

"Silver Lake/Los Feliz/Echo Park."

"Us too. Quite an adjustment, huh?"

"Yeah. I'm really not used to the driving/flakiness/sprawl/driving/plastic surgery ads/smog/driving yet. But we love going to Intelligentsia/Pazzo/Gingergrass. And you can't beat the weather/beach/sunsets. Plus, the produce out here is to die for."

"Do you come to this farmer's market every weekend?"

"We like this one a lot, but sometimes we go to the Hollywood/Plummer's Park/Glendale one."

"And what brought you here from Brooklyn?"

"Work."

[ed note: no one says, "I'm an actor" here]

Costco, Ikea, Death Warmed Over

Today, Jody and I did our bit to personally stimulate the economy.

To explain: We moved out here with very little in the way of furniture. This is partially because we hated our old furniture and partially because we had to move as cheaply as possible (due to Jody's modest relo package). In essence, we sold most of our stuff in NYC and came here with little more than kitchen supplies, a dining-room table, a hammock, and our clothes.

We bought some living room furniture weeks ago, but are waiting for it to arrive. We have also scavenged a ton of stuff off of craigslist, which seems to have much higher quality stuff in LA than in NYC (and of course we're not in a walkup, so it's easier to grab stuff on a whim). I scored 6 gorgeous dining room chairs for $50 (!), a liquor hutch/linen cabinet for FREE, a dented but useable black lateral file cabinet for FREE....and so on. So we have a few things, but we're far from settled.

One of the ways we've been getting by in the interim is to rent stuff. In fact, we have rented a sofa for the past several weeks, and a TV since June.

It doesn't cost a whole lot to rent a little TV, but it adds up after a while. We just wanted to wait for the holiday sales before we made a major purchase which we knew we'd live with for the next ten years.

Today we bit the bullet and finally picked one out, a beaut from Costco for a ridiculously low price compared to what we'd have paid even a month ago. And a vacuum cleaner, because the house is currently a cat hair dust bunny farm.

We'd never set foot in a Costco before. I found it really a bit insane. But I sure am glad to discover what everyone's been talking about for years.

And we didn't stop there. There are also no closets in this house, so no clothing storage, so a big mess. Presto! Off we went to Ikea in Burbank and bought Pax wardrobe frames, shelves, doors, etc., in an effort to create some kind of elegant clothing solution. I guess I miss building Ikea kitchens, so now I have to build Ikea closet-y things.

Satisfied we'd done our bit to put the country on the right track, we headed home (took two trips in our l'il Prius to haul it all) with Jody feeling more than a little queasy and light-headed. By the time we got here, she also had a headache and fever. And is now conked out for hopefully the next several hours while she fights this thing off.

Sigh. A very productive day from the standpoint of getting a little more settled here, but not without its toll.

Boxed In

This afternoon, the movers delivered the one piece of furniture we decided to bring from New York—our dining-room table—along with our gas grill, our hammock (complete with stand), Zach's bike, a mattress, and 70 boxes.

Yes, 70.

I know because they were numbered.

The grill and hammock (complete with stand) are in the backyard, still shrink-wrapped in protective plastic.

Zach's bike is adorning the living room, along with the rented couch, rented love seat, rented coffee table, rented end tables, and rented lamps. It's the one thing that makes the place look somewhat lived in (if you ignore the shrink wrap, that is).

The ridiculously heavy top of our butcher-block dining-room table is leaning up against a wall downstairs, not far from our borrowed dining-room table, which is set not with plates but with boxes, more of which are assembled underneath it. Neither table has matching chairs, so I've been doing most of my "dining" (takeout, frozen pizza, cereal, and the occasional healthy salad) at the coffee table, which has a better view of the rented TV.

The legs from our disassembled dining-room table are currently upstairs, in a room that until a few hours ago had been empty except for a litter box and our cable modem and is now home to most of those 70 numbered boxes. I can only hope that the cats can distinguish their box from ours.

Our mattress is upstairs as well. And while it's probably far more comfortable than the rented one that sits on the rented box springs that are in turn balanced on the rented bed frame, for the time being it is off duty, leaning up against the wall like a bored teenager.

I have emptied four boxes so far. One is already full of the crumpled newsprint I harvested in the process; another is waiting to be pressed into service as an overflow receptacle. The third has been broken down and folded up, and the fourth—the largest—has been repurposed as a fort for the cats.

If this keeps up I'll have to start my own business selling secondhand moving supplies.

And operating a day-care center for imaginative cats.

Crashing the Party

Zach and I have been talking about collaborating on a writing project for some time now, and while this wasn't exactly what we had in mind, the opportunity to chronicle our adventures in LA (not to mention getting to LA) called out to us.

I encouraged Zach to start this blog way back when as a way for us to stay connected while we were on opposite coasts. The awesome name and logo are all his, and I'm just thrilled to be invited out on the dance floor with him.

We have some revisions and enhancements in mind, but until we stock up on down time, we're going to forge ahead with plain old prose for a while. We hope you'll come along for the ride.

In an environmentally friendly hybrid vehicle, of course.

Settling In

I'm still dealing with the nitty-gritty of being in a new place. And a place where I'm living out of suitcases, at that. Job hunting (which shows promise, finally—I have an interview with a creative temp agency Monday morning), lots of admin stuff involving various east coast concerns (i.e., bills), mapping out my couch-surfing plans, and so forth. I've been back for two weeks, but it feels much shorter. I went from staying in one friend's house with no air conditioning in the middle of a heat wave, to another friend's house, which was like a veritable luxury spa, to my current situation, which involves dog-sitting a very sweet dog while workers bang on the house for 8 hours a day as new windows are installed.

It's all very unsettling, and things back home are not exactly easy for Jody. But I've had meetings with all my reps now, and it appears there's a lot of activity going on.

Now I just have to wait for some of it to come my way.

Also, before I forget, one year ago today was the first day of my first trip out here as an actor. It was also the day my youngest nephew was born. Happy Birthday, Zachary!

Back in (the) Business, and Ain't it Grand?

Let the good times roll.

I landed back in Tinseltown last Saturday, and have spent the week doing some of the basic things in life: Looking for a job. Getting groceries. Reconnecting with my reps. Paying online bills.

Nothing too exciting, just your normal everyday nitty-gritty, except I'm also adjusting: Adjusting to being apart from Jody again (for a while, anyway), to sleeping on friends' couches for a few weeks, to the vast empty skies and endless highways of this unique place.

Oh, and sweating a lot. We're on our fifth day of a staggering heat wave, with temperatures in the 100s. Very non-LA.

It's bittersweet being back here, but we hope it will be good in the long run. More missives once I settle a bit.

Somethin's Comin', Something Good

That "somethin'" would be my return to dear old Brooklyn.

Five days left.

The car smogged—barely—the second time I took it in. For the hour before it was tested, I drove it around on highways and streets one gear too low. Why? Because I read on the internet that a hot engine has a better change of smogging. So I got the engine as hot as I could.

The smog tech told me that more than the engine cleanout, the hot engine made the difference. The max allowable PPM of hydrocarbons was 134. The car eked by at 132.

I'm spending my days packing and shipping five boxes' worth of stuff I somehow accumulated, and saying ciao to my Angelino peeps. And God knows why I allowed myself to get involved, but I'm shooting a student film scene Thursday night. I think I just wanted to feel like an actor one more time before I left town.

There will probably be one or two more posts this week and back in NYC before the blog either gets shut down or morphs into something else....

Wrapping Up And Winding Down

Yes, that was a long hiatus. But I was so down when I got back to LA after the diverticular incident that I didn't much feel like writing.

My head is out from under the covers now. I have about a week and a half left here, and I'm starting to sell off my stuff. There may be an audition or two between now and my departure the weekend of April 1, but I'm no longer optimistic. C'est la vie. I'll post-mortem the whole pilot season on another day.

Today, I am taking further steps to sell my car. In California, a car has to "smog" (pass emissions inspection) when it's sold, and the responsibility lies with the seller to do so. The little beater I bought smogged right before I bought it five months ago. Now it won't.

In an effort to clean out its engine and get its numbers down, I took it in for a complete lube job on Tuesday: I replaced gas filters, cleaned out fuel injectors, etc. I was told by the guys at the shop that I should fill it with a tank of gas, drive that down as low as possible, and then fill it with another fresh tank before I try to re-smog it.

So I have spent the last couple of days driving somewhat needlessly—over 180 miles so far—in an effort to prove to the state of California that my car doesn't pollute. Classic.

Unexpected Detour

I'm too pissed off to write about it.

So just read this post from Jody's blog.

Back From NYC

Don't Give Up On Us, Baby

I think I'm finally close to done with the cold, although I still have a lot of congestion. But it seems to be fading slowly.

I'll probably be offline for the next few days, as I am jetting back to NYC for the weekend. I may or may not post while I'm there, but will most certainly do so when I get back.

Upcoming will be some views on non-actor wannabes, the gentility of LA drivers (for real!), and why valet parking is like gas pumping in New Jersey.

Stay tuned. :)