This Must Be The Place

For the last three days, the missus and I have been barrelling around Los Angeles in a cherry-red Mustang convertible, steered by our newly-acquired Thomas Guide, fueled by Jamba Juice smoothies and Clif bars, driven by the all-encompassing need to find a place to live before we move out to sunny southern California for good in two short weeks.

Everyone said, before we made our little house-hunting jaunt out to the West Coast, courtesy of Jet Blue's reduced fares to Long Beach, that we could find somewhere to live in a few days, a task that sounds as Sisyphian to a New Yorker as establishing a manned base on Mars. "Oh, there's places everywhere," they said. "Just drive around, you'll see For Rent signs all over," they said. "You'll find a place.

What they neglected to mention is that while finding a place to live in L.A. is quite easy, finding YOUR place, especially with a deadline of 72 hours, is nothing but. Especially when confronted with L.A. rental doublespeak, in which "Lots of Character!" means "It's a dump that hasn't been renovated since Truman was in the White House!" and "Great Neighborhood!" means "It's an even bigger dump than that one with Lots of Character!" In one character-loaded abode tucked in the hills, I attempted to pull up the blinds after curiously noting that all the shades were drawn, only to have the entire apparatus collapse in a heap on the carpet, revealing windows that hadn't been cleaned in years and a view of trash-strewn yards beyond that resembled a trailer park post-hurricane. The squirrel-faced landlord laughed hesitantly at the malfunction, then gestured out the window. "Great view, eh?" he said, before adding, "I'm sure that stuff'll be cleaned up sooner or later." Throw in a toilet in the main bathroom that was shored up with plywood, and you had yourself a deal at only $1995 a month. Yes, finding a place quickly is easy...it's just finding a place quickly that you could comfortably call home that's hard.

So, it's a bit of a minor miracle that, come April, the lady and I will be nestled in a beautiful, sun-filled little house in the Los Feliz with a white picket fence and hummingbirds in the garden, in a genuinely great neighborhood with Griffith Park, an indie bookstore, an art-house movie theater, and the best coffeehouse I've ever seen (open 'til two!) all within walking distance.

This is a place I could, and soon will, call home.