Monday, August 13, 2007

Apartment hunting shoots back

The quest for a new apartment had begun with the first setback already hitting. Pangs of lust and excitement stirred after viewing a beautiful apartment at a beautiful location in Santa Monica on 6th street -- a bachelors going for a very affordable $1295. Instinctually thinking was something was wrong with the apartment I went to go see it over the weekend regardless. Expecting to see fecal matter and a missing wall, I was pleasantly surprised to see it was clean and weighing in at large 620sqft. In fact, the only problem seemed to be was parking for an extra 100$/mth and perhaps the 24mth lease. Suddenly, all I could think about was getting this apartment and finally living in a walkable neighbourhood.

Like a 6 year old on Christmas day, I woke up early on Monday to go submit my application which requested for W-2 tax forms. Without thinking I gathered, pay stubs, bank statements and W-2 and blithely skipped to the management office. After completing details of the application and discussing terms of the lease, she asked me about my income. My response was acknowledged with a pause and an audible breath. Her next three words saddened me like the unmasking of Santa – “You don’t qualify”.

“What?” I replied

The housing apparently is set aside by the city of Santa Monica for moderate income people, meaning individuals whose income exceeds $55,000 do not qualify. My heart was broken and I was desperate again. After about 10 minutes of brainstorming solutions to this problem, she flatly said that nothing can be done. So now I know what was wrong with the apartment after wasting about 1 hour. Now all I can do is imagining life in that apartment.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Earthquake!

Felt my first earthquake last night. I was woken up from an apparent 4.5 earthquake that originated in the porn capital of Chatsworth. The event was rather unremarkable – it felt akin being on a bumpy road in a car for a few seconds. After emerging from my bed, I dawned on me that absolutely no preparations have been made for a greater magnitude earthquake. So if you are in California, you should probably make an earthquake kit:

  • Water and food to last at least three days

  • Water purification tablets

  • Heavy-duty gloves

  • A first-aid kit

  • A minimum of $100 in cash

  • Family photos and descriptions to aid in finding missing people

  • A flashlight and portable radio

  • Extra batteries

  • A personal commode with sanitary bags