angst that's not at all existential

“I can feel your pain,” she tells me. “It’s like waiting for a package to be delivered.”

The liar. Waiting all day for a plumber to come extract you from an apartmental emergency is nothing like waiting for someone to deliver a package to you; and at least with UPS, if you miss them the first time, there’s always a second chance.

She apologizes, again, the insincerity oozing out of her voice. She just doesn’t want to pay her guy overtime, I think, even though he deserves it. Meanwhile, a fountain of black gunk erupts from my kitchen sink when I try to use the garbage disposal (which I've stopped trying to do, after the first time it happened); then the black ooze leaks from the pipes underneath, seeping in a slow treacherous line across my freshly mopped floor.

And my toilet needs replacing.

The toilet has needed replacing for a while. It doesn’t really flush anymore. Or it sort of flushes, occasionally, a few times a day. The rest of the time it just acts senile and frail, like a patient in the late stages of Alzheimer’s: it doesn’t recognize it’s own handle, or fill tank, or water supply, or anything really.

“What model is it?” she had asked me over the phone yesterday when I first called about the sink.

“I don’t know.”

“Under the lid of the tank there should be numbers.”

“All it says is 1953.”

Which makes this particular toilet older than me, old enough, in fact, to have been a single unwed teenage mother of me. Thank goodness at least that didn’t happen.

“I assume its white,” she said. “Is that one white?”

“No it’s pink.” A 1950s rosy pink, the color of nostalgia and some of the decaying tile work next to my bath tub.

“Well, should we get white one to replace it? Do you think your landlady would agree? Or…what colors are your bathroom? What color do you think the new one should be?”

“I don’t care. I just want one that works. White is fine." There's white in the bathroom. And pink and green and blue and beige: a whole rainbow of colors and styles, an element from nearly every decade, including the giant 70s mirror with the way-too bright bulbs on top. It’s typical of a lot of the apartments around here; I looked at dozens just like this before deciding to rent this one over a decade ago. The thing was, I never thought I’d actually stay here this long. Particularly not after my very first night here when the police were pounding on my upstairs neighbor’s door at 3 AM, just waiting to haul away her abusive boyfriend whose drunken epithets echoed off the concrete driveway for the whole building to hear. But that’s another story… (and she moved out before my one-year lease turned month-to-month).

“Well do you want round or oval shaped? What will match best.”

“I just want it to flush,” I told her. “Fully. You know, each time I press the handle it should flush. The rest really doesn’t matter.”

“But what does that one look like?”

“I can send you a digital photo if you’d like.”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” she said. “I’m sending my guy to look at it first thing.”

What she didn’t tell me was that was all she was going to instruct him to do: look at it. He came into my apartment and I directed him to the kitchen first. “Yeah, looks bad,” he said. He went to the bathroom and glanced at the toilet.

“An antique,” I said.

He nodded. “Oh yeah.”

Then he left. Door shut, ignition started, sound of his van backing out onto the street and driving away.

He promised to be back in “two, maybe three,” hours with a new toilet and a snake for the sink. That was seven hours ago.

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “But he got tied up on another job and now there’s Friday traffic and…” she takes a deep breath. I can hear the lie coming, the pathetic attempt at a Bill Clinton. “How about 8:30 tomorrow morning? You know, I really do feel your pain."

No she doesn't. Not at all. Because she doesn't really have to: I’m just a long-standing rent-controlled tenant, not the landlady who pays her account.

global warnming

A sign of things to come, perhaps...





In the park it’s like early summer: kids play barefoot on the grass under a bright blue sky while adults gulp from plastic bottles of water and pretend to watch; couples lie on blankets under patches of shade and pretend they’re alone; the grandest array of SUVs, windows and sunroofs open, parade painstakingly slowly on the freeways toward the beach. The Santa Ana winds carry cherry blossom flowers: sprinkling them over the park, speckling the streets and lawns, the dog’s fur, my hair.

It is hot: over 90 degrees this afternoon and the dog is panting, ducking under every piece of shade she can catch. Even those LA River bunnies, plump now, after 6 months of feeding, are cowering in the shade under the bridge; the coyotes haven’t gotten them yet.

It is dry: the desert winds have brought red flag warnings in hills, closing the park where often we mountain bike ride on Sundays just like these.

It is sunny: so sunny that my sunscreen-less shoulders and face turn pinkish red even though we’ve only been out for half an hour.

What it is NOT is spring. Not yet. (10 more days and counting…)

dreams interrupted…

An ode to neighborhood monsters
and things that go bump in the night*

In those restless hours of non-sleeping
of having once been asleep, mid-dream, even, just moments before.
In those unsettled moments of too-small neon green numbers glaring
as if mocking the bleary-eyed morning to come
All I can hear is the noise:
the one which woke me up at 3:43 AM
or 2:17
or 5:03, depending
on the day, the season, the circumstance.

It's the unclaimed car alarm, unremitting, repeating at inconvenient irregular intervals.
Or sirens screaming in the distance, growing closer.
Or the thundering footsteps on the walkway, followed by pounding, "Police!" while the drunken or stoned boyfriend/ex-boyfriend/ex-son-in-law echoed curses from the other side of the hollow wood door.
Or the smoke detector’s geriatric 9-volt battery announcing its impending demise.

It's the single gunshot
murdering the man across the street and unnerving my upstairs neighbor for weeks and months to come, although the police were trying to assure us with their words,
"Yes we're certain. The vicitm knew his assailant."

It's the three newborn babies each wailing simultaneously from different apartments, as if calling to out to each other, just to check in on the status of this crazy new thing called life.
Or the husband’s insults on a hot sweaty night, echoing across the concrete driveway,
so loud compared to his wife’s muted sobs.

It's the insomniac elephant above me pacing for hours, thumping, bumping and creaking the floorboards until they screamed.
Or the thundering army of el Niño raindrops rebounding off the driveway and roof.

It's the police helicopter hovering, again: the third time in a week.
Or the car stereo blaring the loud angry bass of the rap music while the engine loudly idles and the driver honks for the dealer across the street to come down.
Or for his friends to come out and party, or both.

It's the high-pitched yelping of the dog, continuing unabated for hours.
It's the ringing of phones, the overheard calls: the anger or joy.
Or the crying.

It's the sequence of the upstairs' sultry one-night-standing: so uninhibited when it doesn't matter whether or what the neighbors might hear.

It's the thumping and thundering of my cat springing off the furniture and running circles around the apartment then jumping on the bed to hunt my ankles
then desperately meowing as he tries to persuade me to feed him again.

And only then I start to wonder...
Did I miss it?
Was there was a full moon?

*all sounds actually heard during a decade of living in an unremarkable one-bedroom apartment in a not-particularly-bad neighborhood