Yeah! I'm glad people are finally updating again. I come here all the time to read about your lovely lives and am too often disappointed by the lack of info.
This is a picture of me in the last play I did ("The House of Blue Leaves"). This was taken during a dress rehearsal - so it's before I got my hair cut army style. But you can still get an idea.
I really do like this area. The abundance of theatre is incredible. I love the shows I've been doing. The city is really cool and holds a trove of wonderful little places. The people are really cool. My job is a lot of fun.
But things have not been easy for me out here. California being one of the worst states in the recession, it took me far too long to find work. The time I spent unemployed basically depleted my savings. Now that I do have a job I get paid far too little. My position is as a substitute aide. All that means is that I fill in for any staff member who is sick or in any classroom that just needs extra help. Basically I do the same job as everyone else and get paid half as much. When they hired me they said that substitutes usually get a permanent placement after about 2 months of being there. It's been 2 months, and I'm the next sub in line to move up - so hopefully that will happen soon.
Since money has been so tight (the cost of living out here is insane!) I have had to turn to some creative ways of making money. I sold my ipod on craigslist for some extra grocery money when I really needed it once. I sold a bunch of books and all 4 seasons of "Weeds" at Half Priced Books (I'm still holding on dearly to "Six Feet Under" though).
Before I had a job, I sold my camera on ebay. That one was hard to part with - it was my most prized possession - but in the end it was only a possession and I really needed the money. I sold the whole package - camera body, two lenses, memory card, tripod, camera bag, etc - all for about $600. A good deal for the buyer, but still hugely beneficial to me. I had never used ebay before. I had to set up a paypal account and learn how to do everything. Once I made the sale I received an email from paypal telling me that the buyer had paid the money, but that they wouldn't put it into my account until they got confirmation of shipping from me. So I mailed the package and gave paypal the tracking #. A few days went by and I still didn't get the money - which I desperately needed at that time - I did get a few emails from paypal explaining the delay though. And then I got an email from paypal stating that, since I was a first time user, I wasn't allowed to accept a payment under $1,000. They said that the buyer was willing to make the $1,000 payment, but that I would need to wire them $400 to make up the difference. That's when I realized that this was completely not right. I sent the emails to paypal who confirmed that they were indeed a scam. Apparently someone can send an email that says it's from paypal in the address bar and looks legit and everything and is completely fake. Needless to say I never saw my camera again or any of the money. Great.
Because money has been so tight I could no longer afford the apartment I was living in. So at the beginning of December I had to make a move. My last apartment was two miles from work, and I had to move 27 miles away. That's about a 45 minute to a one hour commute in the mornings due to horrendous traffic. That is by no means the worst thing about my new living situation though. I am renting a room from a middle aged woman who lives on the living room couch smoking cigarettes and watching tv all day. She has about 10?, 15?, 20? feral cats living in the house. The whole place reeks of cigarette smoke and cat piss. I can constantly smell it on my clothes and on my skin. I only hope that other people don't notice. It's also incredibly dirty. Almost every time I've wanted to take a shower I've had to clean cat shit out of the bathtub first. The woman's stroke victim mother also stays in the living room when she is not at the hospital. She is hooked to machines that beep when she needs something. I am often woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of the woman screaming obscenities at her mother because the beeping is keeping her awake.
On Christmas Eve I had a blast. One of my co-workers (California's very own Ms. Toccara) invited me out to karaoke for her birthday. I figured that she just invited everyone at work (or most people anyway), but it turns out that it was just three of us from work (including her). That made me feel pretty special, and we had a lot of fun.
Christmas day was not nearly as fun. I spent it with my friend that drives me crazy. He hasn't been as bad lately, but still. He invited people over to his house that he knew were going to be alone for Christmas. I didn't know the other two guys that came (and he only sort of knew them), but we all pitched in and had a nice dinner. All of the other guys really like to play board games and strategy games and card games. If it's not charades or pictionary or something like that then I'm not really that into games. But I acquiesced and played a couple of long and terribly boring games with them. Then we decided to go see a movie. Now, I have been waiting to see "Nine" for about a year now. Maybe longer I don't know. Ever since I knew it was going to be a movie I have been dying to see it. I love "8 1/2" and I love the stage version of "Nine" - so even though the movie isn't getting great reviews, I'm pretty sure that I will still love it. I was, however, outvoted and forced to see "Sherlock Holmes". That movie sucked.
For the last week or so my car engine has been doing some funny things. So I have been trying not to drive it too much until I could get it looked at this next week. Because of that I didn't drive to my friends house. I just drove to the closest BART station (local rail system) and took that to his house. We got out of the movie too late for BART to still be running so my friend drove me to my car. When we got there I found out that my driver's side window had been busted out and my car broken into. Merry Christmas! They stole a tin full of change and my sleeping bag from the trunk, but there wasn't anything too expensive in there for them to steal.
Now I still have to get my engine fixed AND I have to replace the window (which is not covered by my insurance). So once again its the end of the month and I'm wondering how I'm going to make rent (even in this shit-hole room). It doesn't help that this is all happening during the 2 week school winter break where I DON'T GET PAID AT ALL. I'm sure everything will work out though. It always seems to.
Emily, don't let this scare you from coming out here. It's still lots of fun, and you should definitely come - even though none of the bars seem to have Blue Moon, even when they have a picture of it on their wall.
My name is Nick. I'm feeling stressed, but still happy. And my goal is get my car fixed and find a nicer place to live and someday own a grumpy bulldog. Go one.
