The Ways My Trip Sucked 1: Intro and Moving.
Archived from October 26, 2007
THE WAYS MY TRIP SUCKED.
By Starr Ahrens
Next time we meet you might be tempted to ask “How was your trip, Starr?” In reference to the month long Midwestern sojourn I was on this summer. “Not the best.” I would reply. I am searching for what the Universe was trying to tell me through various signs including the I35W collapsing into the Mississippi shortly after we drove across it.
The other day I was watching the director’s commentary on Werner Herzog’s film, “Even Dwarves Started Small”. Werner went on a little diatribe saying chickens are unbelievably stupid. You look into their eyes and “see no intelligence there”. You can hypnotize them with a line of chalk on the ground. I kind of felt like a hypnotized chicken for this trip; mentally overwhelmed, wandering around not sure what to do, waiting to be slaughtered.
Moving
I know my hypnotized chicken feeling was partly because I decided to move to a new apartment a week before leaving LA for a month. It was wise from a financial standpoint, but from a “where’s my stuff” standpoint it was incredibly stupid. I moved because I had shingles for Memorial Day, which is something people my age don’t usually get unless they’re immune compromised. After soul-searching and double checking my AIDS status (which is “does not have it”) I determined that my immune system had been compromised because of lack of and/or poor sleep for the last 3 years.
This poor sleep was due to both my frequent night terrors and my 50 yr old meth-head neighbor who would at 2am break out into unintelligible death metal “songs” and super creepy gutteral bellowing, which sometimes involved extreme cursing. He also smoked so much marijuana that my towels were stinking of nasty, burned out old man pot. His crazy-town antics included 3 separate 4am episodes of banging on all of his walls and ceiling while shouting obscenities and then going outside to shriek at his upstairs neighbor about walking too loudly (he even called the police about her 'loud walking'. The upstairs neighbor weighs about 99lbs. The police gave him a warning about false cop calls). His rants were followed up by top-volume telephone shouting matches with the building manager. I must admit I was a little freaked out by this guy. I did not live in a secure building; my front door and window opened onto the sidewalk. It was a studio apartment, so my bed was next to the front door, the perfect location for intruders looking to commit bodily harm.
When my friend Scott’s roommate moved out, I decided to move in. I’m now in a secure building on the second floor, which is pretty much a gift from God, as far as I’m concerned. I have about 3 times the space and my plants are finally growing. So if you’re interested in taking a trip to LA I have a GREAT living room for you to sleep in. Unfortunately I no longer have assigned parking nor a pool, but I have piece of mind, and that’s arguably worth an occasional $50 parking ticket.
<< | Posted by Starr at 8:42 PM | >>
