Areas of Unrest

QOTD: "One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries." - A. A. Milne

Reading: Stewart Lee Allen, In the Devil's Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Food

Listening to: Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys

Decluttering accomplishments: threw out lots of papers and magazines I don't want to move, but I swear the piles multiply at night

18 July 2002 - Still Unsettled

This is the 21st century. Surely we were supposed to have teleportation by now? Think of how much simpler moving would be.

Actually, it's not that it's so complicated, but it is stressful. I found an apartment that will do well enough. The D.C. area is very different from L.A. in terms of how rentals work. In Los Angeles, the usual rental agreement is month to month, with a six month minimum, and you pay one to two months rent as a security deposit. The twelve month lease is the norm in the D.C. area, but security deposits are very low. An L.A. apartment may not include a stove or refrigerator but you never pay extra for yuppie amenities. Everywhere I looked in D.C. included appliances, but they all charge an "amenities fee." Apartment complexes in D.C. are often huge, with multiple building developments of hundreds of apartments - something that is rare in L.A.. Parking in L.A. is pretty much always assigned, while you pay extra for assigned parking (and even more extra for covered parking) in D.C.. Most places in D.C. make you pay for water, while that is very rare in L.A.. And, of course, there is the difference in architectural style. I've been in Southern California long enough that high-rise brick buildings look like death traps to me. Californians see brick and think, "unreinforced masonry, bad in earthquakes." Washingtonians see brick and think, "good insulation, never needs repainting." I can't readjust that quickly and went for a garden apartment (defined as 1-4 stories) in a wooden building.

I'm back in L.A. where I have been packing up my office and where I met with the estimator from the moving company today. I'll get moved just about in time to go on vacation, which is not ideal, but that's how it worked out. I really just want the whole relocation thing to be over with. Hence, the wish for teleportation.

As for the job, it's fairly interesting. There's a strange pace to things. Not much is happening - or not much that is within our control - and then somebody makes a phone call and we scramble around to put together an answer in a few hours. I used to marvel at the information my predecessor put in his weekly reports. Now, I know that you just have to hang around and listen. Fortunately, my gossip receptors are well-tuned. More to the point, I do feel like I'm learning a lot of the things that were my motivation for taking the job.

I'm sure there was a whole lot else I meant to write about, but I'm still too scatterbrained from time zone changes and overwhelmed by how much there is to do about moving and all. Expect updates to continue to be erratic.