Leaving LA

Today was my last day in LA. I am writing this at 11:11 PM Saturday August 31. Tomorrow I am waking up at 5:30 AM to finish packing. Then I’m going to drive to ktown and pick up my friend Souz and we’re going to drive to San Francisco where I have an apartment waiting for me.

Last Thursday Souz called me when I was in an Uber driving from a Wells Fargo where I made a deal with a guy to sell my Honda Civic. I had over ten thousand dollars in cash with me in two Wells Fargo envelopes, and he was asking me specifics about where to go to pick up my keys. We were going into a long Labor Day weekend and the office was going to be closed until Tuesday, but I’m going to be landing there tomorrow, so I needed someone in San Francisco to pick up the keys. Souz had my back.

My Uber reached the destination – my bank, where I went in and deposited the cash into my bank account. The sale was complete – I was paid, and the money was secure. In that moment I became car-less and am FREE. If I want to move to Tokyo or Buenos Aires or Beirut the only thing I’ll need to figure out is how to sell my furniture.

Souz called me back – he got the keys, and we chatted for a bit. At this point I was at K&M coffee where I was drinking a cold brew and eating a chocolate chip cookie from next door – Delicia’s Bakery. I walked home and coded.

On Friday morning I woke up and I walked to Cafe De Leche to get a cold brew. My friend Rudy was working there – I know him from the coffee shop. He’s trying to level his shit up so he’s in college and he’s cutting hair AND he’s working a job as a barista. He’s this 20 year old kid and he’s gonna do great, he works every day and is great at speaking. He bleached my hair. I should text him and let him know that he’s doing all the shit he needs to be doing and that he’s a beast.

After I got the coffee I walked to fucking Glendale it took an hour but I pulled up to this convenience store at 515 S Verdugo Road. I was supposed to pick it up from a bike store on Figueroa Ave which is only a 30m walk for me but they changed it late night on the 29th lol crazy that Uhaul does that. Imagine if you’re in Nebraska and the closest Uhaul is an hour from you and the second closest is 2 hours from you (driving).. what do you do then??

But I wasn’t worried about it – I’ve got ENERGY because I’m about to move. So I did the walk and I got to see LA for one of the last times.

I pull up to 515 s Verdugo Road and it’s a convenience store. I probably should have googled it before but I guess for some reason I thought it would be like an empty lot or a automotive place. But random businesses I guess can just be Uhaul sponsors and coordinate the handoff of trucks – including gas stations, liquor stores, whatever. This is a symbol of the way work is now. All “work” is now pawned off to the next person. A gas station is a convenience store, a convenience store is a Uhaul facility, a Uhaul facility sells gas.

So I’m at the convenience store and I’m watching a woman behind the counter who is watch a man try to put 7 bucks together to get cigarettes. He asks if there are any seven dollar cigarettes available and she says no. The guy pulling his money together notices me and tells me that I can go while he continues to fumble around. I ask the woman “Is this 515 s Verdugo Rd? I’m here to pick up a Uhaul.” Without batting an eye she says yes and starts the process via her phone to get me set up with the Uhaul. She starts filling out some web form while the guy who is fumbling gives up on the plan of buying $7 cigarettes and instead takes out a crispy $20 and a $10 and buys two $15 lottery tickets. She gets frustrated with the form and has a slew of customers to service so she just gives her phone to me as to fill out the form. The phone is in perfect condition with a case and a screen protector. The woman is well-put together, and speaking some Slavic language.

I fill out the form and the payment goes through, she hands me keys and tells me that she doesn’t know what gas the Uhaul truck takes. I tell her I’ll Google it (like a fucking nerd) and we smile at each other. This whole while there are two Slavic guys standing at the door of the store chatting and chilling. They’re involved with the store somehow. Showing face/ providing protection? This store is selling all kinds of shit.. lotto tickets, booze, chocolate bars, cigarettes, Uhauls.. what else? What’s in the back of the store?

She says the truck is around the corner and I leave the store. It’s not immediately there so I walk back and some disheveled ass American guy with missing teeth and an unkempt beard says “Sir, can I help you?” Very professionally. I ask him where the Uhaul is and he tells me the street its on. I look at my GPS, I see the street, I say I got it, and I go. What the fuck is the connection between the American guy and these Slavic people in this convenience store? Who owns it? What is going on in Glendale California?

I walk to the Uhaul and I drive it back to my house. I turn on the radio and Daft Punk is playing. I find out Oasis is doing a reunion tour and are playing at Wembley Stadium in London. Apparently trading their kidneys to get tickets to this show. I WANT TO TRade my kidney for an Oasis ticket.

I get back home, I park the Uhaul truck, I start packing.

I pack for a few hours and then I do ketamine and draw this picture.

I’m fucked up and I piss in the guest bathroom. I break something off the toilet and the toilet seat/ bidet breaks off the toilet. I tell myself I’ll fix it when I wake up sober. I use the last of my food – plain noodles that I put butter salt and pepper and peri peri sauce in. I keep drawing, I listen to some music, I fall asleep.

I wake up to the sound of rocks being thrown in a metal container across the street. My neighbors Jennifer and John are having their foundation fixed. Contractors tore up their concrete to do some work on it and are cleaning up the excess concrete. The sound is much worse than the previous days’ jackhammering that starts at 8AM. Infrequent CLANGs right across the street. I hear my roommate leave his room and leave the house. I pull up the blinds and see him talking to the people across the street I guess asking them to shut the fuck up. I text the GC like “what the fuck lol” and Yves responds with “at least you don’t have to hear it after tomorrow” and i say “:(“

Well I can’t fucking sleep now and I told Souz I would be up by now. He’s coming in from SF he took an overnight bus and train to get in on time, bless his huge heart. So I get up and start my day. I start packing and text him being like “whats good are you still getting in at 10:40” no response. I text him an hour later and no response. At 9:40 he calls me like “I’m in LA” He was on some fucked up bus from SF to Santa Barbara overnight and then he caught a train from SB to LA. He couldn’t sleep great on the bus so he knocked the hell out on the Pacific Surfliner and only woke up when the train was getting in.

Whatever I’m good to go. I put on a shirt and put my fanny pack on around my shoulder and get in the Uhaul and navigate to union station. The sideview mirror is pointed at the ground whoops. I’m on the 5 driving downtown he calls me again I ask “what cross streets are you gonna be at I’m not gonna try to park a Uhaul right outside of Union station” and he gives me a cross street. I navigate there and then he calls me back and says that’s a fake cross street he found on Google maps – it’s under a bridge – so he sends me a new cross street. I get there, I text him, and I step out of the truck and I see him half a block away. He approaches and I give him a hug – I missed him.

He gets in the truck and puts his bags down in the cab. I ask him where he wants to go he says he wants Mexican breakfast and lets me know he’s not vegan anymore. This is amazing because I have a really hard time finding overlap in diets between my allergic ass and my vegan friends who are like all of my friends.. Why are so many of my friends vegan? Should I be vegan? Whatever that’s awesome let’s go to Cindy’s on Colorado. I’ve driven past it so many times and the sign is awesome so let’s go there, he’s down.

We park down the street cause I’m not trying to navigate a parking lot with this fucking Uhaul. We drive a block away and walk over, we get seats at the bar instantly. Wait staff is cool as hell they get us our food – I got a brisket omelet and Souz gets the Chilaquiles. Noob order Souz! We both get coffee and water.

We chop it up and the breakfast is delicious that restaurant kicks fucking ass. Wow they have really good brisket.. who the fuck is making that? Where do they get it why is the best brisket I’ve had in LA at this random diner? Is this a random diner?

On the way out I run into my neighbor who lives across the street, Karen. We say hi I tell her I’m leaving she says damn, I dip. Karen was there – she has pretty good taste her house is beautiful and she drives a Tesla and a Sprinter van. She’s a widow – she had a black husband who died suddenly before I moved in and she has black children with him. The children are a little bit unwieldy and she talks to them like she’s their equal. When I first moved into this spot my battery was fucked and she jumped my car for me, a perfect stranger. She is a very generous woman and I didn’t repay the favor. I saw her on the first day I moved in and on the last day that I moved out, despite having limited interaction with her during my time living in Mt Washington, LA.

Karen is my Mt Washington experience. She welcomed me in, helped me. I didn’t give anything back, and I left abruptly, and she said goodbye with “Okay.”

I drive the Uhaul back to my place and Souz and I start packing. We start with the hardest shit to move – the couch and the desk. We pack everything else up, it takes about three hours. I drag my feet towards the end.

We pack up enough and I decide it’s time to skate. We bomb down my hill – the destination is G Park. We go down my hill and then get to El Paso drive which we take to Ave 50 . We go down ave 50 until Fig and then mob down fig. We get to a taco truck and we each get two tacos. We’re hungry but we don’t want to get bloated before a skate sesh.

We mob down Fig and Souz reminds me that I can get a lock at the Autozone on Fig. My Uhaul truck is not locked and contains all of my worldly possessions. We stop in and I set my water bottle down and I buy a lock. I forget my water bottle. We continue mobbing down Fig. We’re looking for cold brew. We mob past the part of Fig where there are coffee shops I’m like wait a fuckin minute. It’s 4:56PM and Civil Coffee closes at 5. We go back and we have to go back towards these girls who are on some HLP scene that we passed while we were mobbing. I get the coffee and we finally sit down at the bar right next to Civil coffee which we’re not supposed to be at but they aren’t gonna kick us out because I have green hair and Souz is black. We eat the tacos and I’m thirsty WHERE’S MY WATER? agggg I gotta go back I go back to Autozone, my water bottle isn’t there. I go back to the taco truck “Did I leave my water bottle here?” “Yeah, it’s $1.50.” “What? I said I left did I leave my water bottle here” Oh he thought I was trying to buy water. No there’s no water bottle here.

I go back to Autozone, this guy leaving the Autozone is like “Did you leave your water bottle? I found it.” I’m like yeah the guy at the coutner is like “here’s your water bottle” I ask where it was and theyre like uhhh he conjured it and i said okay cool thanks man.

How did the guy who found my bottle know it was mine? Did the guy he return it to say “some [description] guy was just asking for this” and then the guy saw me as description and knew it was mine?

Now I have my water bottle and I mob back to the bar that I left Souz at. I tell him this whole saga and we talk about “what’s George Lopez’s best movie?” We can’t think of a single George Lopez movie but we both feel certain that he’s been in movies.

I keep noticing George Lopez I took a picture of this poster the other day.. why is George Lopez entering my BRAIN???

We ate, got coffee, got the lock, mobbed, chilled, lost my water bottle, retrieved my water bottle, now it’s FINALLY time to get to Gpark. I bound off and Souz is like bro you left your fucking water bottle. I bring my water bottle.

We mob to gpark and it’s fun we both love mobbing.

We skate for a sec and Lucas pulls up. We’re all skating and the homies Cesar and Henry are there. We’re all skating together. Lucas gets a great back heel over the pyramid, Souz gets a nollie 360 over the pyramid, Cesar gets a fakie 180 over the pyramid and then comes back and does a switch hardflip. He sticks it perfect, fuck yeah! I got some nice crooks, some nice heelflips,a. good long 50-50. Session winds down, Cesar grabs a six pack and we chop it up at gpark and then say bye. Goodbye Cesar, goodbye Henry. You guys rock. This kid from Atlanta who has a Canon film camera and was wearing slacks and had too much ass and had an all-around goofy demeanor was there too, he was awesome.

Lucas has his whip and he drives us back to my place. We were talking about the effects of ketamine at the park earlier. Souz says he’s never done it, I suggested that he try it since I love it and he’s vaguely interested. We go back to mine to drink beer and do ketamine. I let them know I have three beers at the crib but ask if we should get more, we do. We stop at Happy’s Liquor and get a 6 pack of modelo. We go back to my place and we start drinking and doing ketamine. The last time Souz and Lucas were at my place was when they were helping me move in, the second full circle moment of the day after Karen. We chill for a sec and then Lucas’ girl hits him up, he chills for a little bit more and then he heads out. Our boards are still in his car. We go to get our boards then I realize I couldn’t find my cigarettes earlier so I ask him for a ride back to Happy’s Liquor to get cigs. Souz is down to come with, we go back to Happy’s. I get my cigs and we walk back up the hill together smoking cigs and laughing telling jokes, coming up with the dumbest Tiktok sketches.

We get to Jessica Triangle and I start loudly explaining Jessica Triangle and then I realize that there’s a woman in the Jessica Triangle in the darkness. We walk around Jessica Triangle. Souz gets back and he takes a piss and we chill on the porch for a sec and then I call an Uber for him. I’m funding this little trip for him because he’s saving me like 800 dollars by coming down and helping me move.

He let me know that he got home safe.

I’m sitting here in my room at 12:53 AM, with all this shit still in my room, hoping that I actually get up at 5:30 tomorrow and get all this shit packed up, actually. I need to pack the water heater, all the random shit on my floor that I feel emotionally blocked to pack up and finish the job, and a little bit of extra food that I have. Then I need to drive to ktown and pick Souz up and then we’re gonna drive up to SF together and then my life starts over again in San Francisco.

Cya LA