Andrea lately
Sunday, February 05, 2006, 3:10 PM

I know I've been lazy in Blogville lately, but every time I tried to write an entry, I felt stiff. The words just weren't coming. It's not that I didn't want to write, I just couldn't. So much is going on for me right now and it's been difficult to concentrate, but the good news is that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I'm feeling hopeful, something I haven't felt for quite some time. Hope is a great emotion. It makes me sleep better at night.

I'm at a friend's house this weekend pet and house-sitting for Sneezy and Hissy. I'm still in LA, but in a better part of LA. It's quiet here, almost too quiet, but too quiet is much better than my skeleton popping out of my skin at the sound of something like a bowling ball being dropped into a metal dumpster.

The only bad thing about it being quiet is that my overactive brain likes to try and fool me when I'm sleeping. I've heard doorbells at 3:30 a.m., I've been sexually assaulted by a boy I used to know in high school, I've won an award for blogging because a bunch of teenagers liked what I had to say, even though it's been a while since I've really said anything, and I've been desired by a man who has a yen for feet.

You see how one doesn't even need to step foot outside the door to have an interesting life? Not that I'm advocating a life of hermacy. Not that I'm a fan of Rip Van Wrinkle, although I've wondered before how a man can sleep for so long without waking up with a doozy of a headache, but that's a fiction story for you.

I am moving again in less than a month. I am moving from a two bedroom apartment with a washer and dryer, to a studio apartment that costs twice more a month than what my three-bedroom house with an attached garage did in Indiana. My new apartment is within walking distance of where I work (which means I will get back almost three hours of my life per day). It's also part of a community of extras, which means I can swim laps in the pool, make like a tea bag in the sauna, grow breathless on an elliptical machine in the fitness room, or bob my head like an Egyptian chicken in the business center and totally scare anyone in range.

All I want is a life of liberation.

I'm giving LA another year. I almost didn't. I almost decided to hell with it all, I'm moving back to the place I know where everything is. But I'm gradually learning where things are here and I can't keep trying to hold on to memories or ideas of the past. Everything is different now, and it's to my benefit to try and make a life for myself here. I haven't wanted to; I've resisted this culturally-diverse city of freedom with its mega population. Ever since I got here, I've felt that I've been sitting on the wrong side of the spectrum. I forgot the reasons why I wanted to come. I forgot about the idea that I wanted to break out of my tired comfort zones, to challenge and interest myself in a different life, and to learn for myself that I really wasn't the shy little nobody I see inside. Other people have been saying wonderful things about me that I should be thinking about myself. It makes me wish I could be a stranger and meet myself.

I do a lot of thinking while I'm walking to work. I walk past the arty shops of clothing, furniture, paintings and coffee and sometimes I still can't believe that I'm here in LA, riding buses on roads also traveled by the celebrities we see on TV and in the movies. But I am here. There's even a star on Hollywood Boulevard with my name on it (Andrea King ... go ahead, Google my name, I'm a star). I have to find and photograph it.

Meanwhile, I have some packing to do, but it should go quick. It's time again to reduce and simplify my life, mainly because I'm bursting at the seams with clothing. I'm looking forward to decorating my new apartment and sharing the photos here. If I can't get my camera to work, I'll buy a new one. I'm tired of having no pretty pictures to share.

Well, it's time to go water the plants and to pull the car into the driveway. Someone has to do it and it might as well be me. Woo!

Toodles.
7 Did the Unhingey Jiggy Engage in Unhingenosity
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .