In my last blog AIR Diary (intro) I wrote about living in an Airbnb house. I rent a (non Airbnb) room month-to-month but there are three other bedrooms in the house that are Airbnb rentals. Per my last blog the Gypsy woman finally did leave around 11:30am Friday morning on her check out date, kicking and screaming all the way. She was screaming into her phone all morning and it was clear she didn't want to leave the house, but she eventually did. I was mistaken about the Jeep being hers. After she left the Jeep is still here. Still parked on the little foot path leading to the house. 😒 It must belong to the guy renting the bedroom on my right. He's the only one who's been here long enough to match the amount of time the Jeep has been here. On the karmic side one of the little barky dogs from next door pees on the house shrubs just in front of his Jeep. The next-door neighbor, an elderly Hispanic woman, friendly, nice, just lets her little barky dogs pee wherever. There's a big pee stain in front of the walkway I'm assuming from her barky dogs but one never knows for sure out here. There have been AIRbnb guests who could have just as easily stained the walkway with urine.
There are new people in the master bedroom who checked in the day before yesterday, but I have not seen them since they checked in. Mostly because they have their own bathroom so I would only see them coming and going from the house or in the kitchen which I am rarely ever in. And there are new people in the bedroom to the left of me who checked in yesterday, loud as fuck.
The people, two guys, renting the bedroom on the left of me, I'm going to guess are Jamaican based on their accents. They sound like Bob Marley. That's all I've got to go on by comparison. The Jamaican guys are doing the thing people do on Airbnb when the homeowner doesn't live on the property, two people book the bedroom (at two people maximum occupancy) but then let their friends crash for free on the sofas. I just went downstairs for my late-night Zen time, 3-4am is the only time I get to walk around the house with assured peace and quiet, only there are two guys crashed on the two sofas in the living room. (sigh) so much for peaceful Zen time. I made my toast and went back upstairs to my room. I have thyroid autoimmune disease and take my prescription for it on an empty stomach and then eat toast afterwards per instructions. I make my toast 3-4am during Zen time, only now no Zen time. The house has been taken over by the Jamaican guests. At least the food they made last night smelled good. Note to self, try Jamaican food. But they are loud as fuck. Not scream-o loud like the Gypsy woman on her phone but physically loud as in CRASH!! CRASH!! SLAM!! CRASH!! Into and with everything. And when the fellas occupy a bathroom, they occupy a goddamn bathroom as in they are in there for hours but there's like 4 or 5 of them, so, you know. Five guys in one bathroom equal one inconsiderate female, I guess. It is now 4:29am and they have already started their symphony of CRASH!! CRASH!! SLAM! I'm going to refer to them as the CRASH SLAM boys from here out.
Going back to bathroom habits, I need to know what's up with the bathroom door, people. Every non-American who stays in Airbnb's shut the bathroom door after them, as in all the way shut until the door clicks. Why do they do this? When I see this, I then think someone is in the bathroom and will use the half bath downstairs. It then turns out there's no one in the upstairs bathroom. Is it because they pooped and didn't see the air freshener sitting next to sink? Is it because that's how they were raised to pretend it's not a bathroom by shutting the door? What's going on people? I've now gotten into the habit of gently turning the doorknob to the bathroom to see if it's locked or not. Especially when I don't see any light streaming from under the door. Last night I gently turned the bathroom doorknob, the door wasn't locked, so I opened it. Standing there was one of the CRASH SLAM boys in his boxers doing something in front of the mirror while another CRASH SLAM boy was in the shower. For fuck sake fellas, LOCK THE DOOR.
4:43am and the house is alive with CRASH!! CRASH!! SLAM!! The broody solo white guy who rents the room on my right is the one I'm really concerned with now. He's been here a while. Not as long as me but probably 2 to 3 weeks. He's super quiet like a ghost. I sometimes hear his podcast or whatever he's streaming but I never hear him speak to anyone. He moves about the house very quiet. You know what they about the quiet ones. I thought we Koreans were supposed to be the ghostly ones. Way to screw up my stereotype, mister broody white guy.
When I first moved into this house back in June to scope the job market which is not well these days in the US, I'm afraid, it was just me and one other guy, and it stayed just he and I for weeks until we both left. The homeowner has several houses. I moved into another house of his for the month of July and then moved back into this house July 27th or so. I moved back into this house because it's a better location. I take metro, and the other house was about a 25-minute walk to the metro stop which under normal circumstances I don't mind the walk but since my stroke I don't like having to walk that far getting to the first metro stop especially when it's 110 degrees out.
The house I stayed in for the month of July was okay. I had my own bathroom, what woman doesn't love that, and only one housemate. I met him a few times. He's from South Africa he said. He had been in that house for three months he said. I think he stayed in my room at one time because I found a bead bracelet in African flag colors. I changed the lock code on my bedroom door after that. I even thought I heard him once open my bedroom door before changing the lock code. You can never be too careful out here. Towards the end my African housemate started doing this weird thing of leaving brush in front of the door to monitor if I left the house or not. Super weird and creepy. I've been back in this house (in Chinatown) ever since.
An ex-boyfriend from around 1993, when I was 24 years old, has made a generous offer to let me stay with him if things get so bad where I can't find another gig and no one picks up my book. He lives in the Bay Area, who doesn't want to live there, I love the Bay Area it's where I first lived after leaving home when I was 19 years old, but over the years he and I have had what I call an unhealthy friendship. Was it even a friendship? When we met in 1993, I was a messed up confused 24-year-old kid still fresh out of an abusive childhood, and he was a 30-year-old man who's divorce papers were still wet. Not a good way to start a relationship though we tried like pounding a square peg into a round hole. Typical 90% Hollywood relationship. 100% if I was a stripper. It ended badly of course. We're adults now. Seniors actually. 55 years old and 61 years old. What would it be like now? At least we're both too tired to fight. That's what happens with age, exhaustion. I talk about that in my book actually. Not about our relationship but how when people raised in other parts of the country (or world) move to Hollywood, California, expectations are so unreal it's a constant fight and wonder, how any of us made it past 40 years of age. Some didn't, unfortunately. That's the thing about unreal expectations, you fight for it, and fight for it, 'til your last dying breath and then wonder why you didn't succeed.
I would like to think my ex and I are older and wiser, kinder and gentler people. I am. I have no choice really. My stroke in 2021 knocked me to the ground and I've been struggling to get back up ever since. I would like to fall in love again. I would like to have that glorious warmth of love. But I also want to finish my book. It's important to me for so many reasons to finish my book. There's a line in (film) Walk the Line, when Sam Philips says...
- Sam Phillips: Bring... bring it home? All right, let's bring it home. If you was hit by a truck and you was lying out there in that gutter dying, and you had time to sing *one* song. Huh? One song that people would remember before you're dirt. One song that would let God know how you felt about your time here on Earth. One song that would sum you up. You tellin' me that's the song you'd sing? That same Jimmy Davis tune we hear on the radio all day, about your peace within, and how it's real, and how you're gonna shout it? Or... would you sing somethin' different. Somethin' real. Somethin' *you* felt. Cause I'm telling you right now, that's the kind of song people want to hear. That's the kind of song that truly saves people. It ain't got nothin to do with believin' in God, Mr. Cash. It has to do with believin' in yourself.
My book is my one dying song. I hope I get to finish it. I hope you enjoy reading it when I do.
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