It’s Tuesday, Valentine’s Day. Sam is walking around the house making sure all the screw heads are facing in the same direction. Before I can offer him the use of my final therapy session to address his sudden onset hardware compulsion, Sam explains that when all the screws face the same direction, “It’s the mark of a skilled craftsman.” A code. A wink. A secret message sent to whoever will inhabit this home next. “I love that,” I say as he jams a flathead screwdriver into another light switch.
I began saving for a house of my own when I was a teenager. Even before it was legal for me to work, I had multiple jobs, scrimping as if my life depended on it. I was always the “cheap” friend, the “Jew,” the one who never got refills, always used coupons, compared unit prices at the grocery store, ate oatmeal, stole dinner from free work lunches, wore hand-me-downs (still do), double checked receipts, cut my own hair, the list goes on.
In my 20s I taught myself how to flirt so that I never had to pay for a drink, I started waitressing on weekends so that I could have discount dinners when I didn’t have access to the well-stocked kitchenette at work. “Work,” at the time, was writing vacuous financial articles for a start-up company that, over 10 years later, has yet to “start up.” I also babysat on weeknights to pay for my MetroCard and utilities, because financial writing, ironically, did not pay well.
A decade into my dogmatic commitment to saving, I met Sam—who was always saving too. Together, we lived off Ramen, thrift store clothing, and the sale shelf at the grocery store. We rode bikes because they were cheaper than cars. We pulled furniture off of sidewalks and sold it on Craigslist. We collected fast food soy sauce packets and dumped them into our emptyish soy sauce bottle. We worked second and third jobs. When that mega-gentrifier building went up next door (disturbing our peace and killing our plants) we asked our landlord for a discount…and got it. Three years later, when our landlord tried to evict us to turn our apartment into a gentrifier rental of his own, we demanded he pay us to leave. He gave us $5,000. We were out the next day, heads spinning from how quickly your home can be torn away from you. Should’ve asked for more, we kept muttering to each other.
After nearly 15 years of saying no to dinners and drinks, hoarding soy sauce packets, extorting our landlord, and putting away small amounts from our smaller paychecks, we were able to buy our first home. Just kidding. We were tens of thousands of dollars short of being able to purchase any type of home. So, we took out loans from the bank, our generous families, and pooled our 15 years of joint savings to buy a big, beautiful, old house in a big, beautiful old neighborhood where fruit trees grow on every corner, teenagers shoot each other dead, rich murals burst off of storefronts, contractors dump their hazardous waste into the sewers, activists keep the underpasses clean, and politicians carve up historical buildings to sell to developers at a discount.
Subjectively, this house is the most stunning home in all of Los Angeles. It’s 112 years old and you can tell. The whole structure pops and creaks at night, settling into sleep with us. Every door shrieks with use. Our minuscule closets remind me that there was a time when minimalism was the standard, not the exception. The pocket doors disappear into the walls where crickets sing in the fall. In the winter, the orange trees produce sour oranges, and our lemon trees give us sweet lemons. Door knobs fall off in your hands and the moldings are pockmarked from a century of use. I still can’t believe it. This house has been a home for a century. Sam and I have filled this home with food and friends and art and antiques and Roz and stories and peace and all the love you can possibly pour into a collection of redwood, cement, plaster, and nails.
A coyote ran through the intersection while Sam, Roz, and I were getting in the car to spend our Valentine’s Day at Home Depot. As the coyote passed, Roz began to cry, wailing at the sight of her distant cousin, one she couldn’t smell, couldn’t be with, couldn’t join. The coyote heard her, paused, and looked in our direction. Sam snapped a blurry photo and I told Roz that the coyote was not her friend.
There’s always a thrill when you see a coyote lurking in your neighborhood until you remember that they get bolder and meaner when food is scarce and water is scarcer. According to neighborhood lore, coyotes—pushed into desperation for sustenance—have eaten three dogs on our block. Occasionally, I hear irresponsible owners crying out pet names in the streets.
Marcos, our neighbor, claims the coyotes live in the cemetery across the street. At first, I judged their choice of home, until realizing that I lived in the same one. I had also been pushed out of my natural habitat due to scarcity, fear, and discomfort. Now I, too, live at the cemetery with the coyotes.
In the mornings, Sam and I sometimes watch them put bodies into the ground while drinking our coffee. We sometimes watch them filming TV shows while pruning the roses. We sometimes watch the cemetery joggers while sipping cocktails on our porch. The joggers who use a rubber track circling the cemetery, put in by José Huizar, one of those politicians I mentioned earlier—he just plead guilty to racketeering and tax evasion federal charges in January.
At first, I worried about putting more than every cent I ever saved into a home so close to a cemetery. What if the pain of the past pours through the chain-link fence and into our yard? What if no one will want this house once we grow out of it? What if I faint from holding my breath every time we drive past the graves? But like the coyotes, I began to appreciate the cemetery as part of my new home. I spent time walking the winding paths, standing at graves from the 1800s, bowing my head every now and then. My favorite epithet reads something like, “Here lies Edith. She did her best.”
I began proudly showcasing the cemetery to visitors, “This, is Evergreen, the oldest cemetery in all of Los Angeles,” I’d tell friends, hoping that the latest round of gang tags had been power washed off the headstones. I joined a local historical society to bond with the one other person who loved the cemetery as much as I did. Hungry for more details than what the internet had to offer, I bought a $50 independently published book, riddled with typos and amateur poetry. My favorite tidbit? In 1887, the Los Angeles Times described Evergreen Cemetery as, “a borderland of lawlessness and pleasure.”
On this borderland of lawlessness and pleasure, I’ve been handed pupusas from abuelas griddling in their front yards. I’ve shared boozy drinks with ex-firemen in backyard speakeasies. I’ve opened my windows to let Mariachi music and the smoke from Marcos’s asado waft into our living room. I’ve watched babies turn to toddlers who stick their fingers through our fence to get licks from Roz. I’ve stepped out to find oranges, watermelon, avocado, passion fruit, four roses whisky, on our porch; various offerings from kind neighbors. I’ve seen other neighbors dump fast food into our yard on too many occasions to count. I’ve watched boys turn to teenagers who spray hurtful symbols on discarded mattresses. I’ve watched nimble young men outpace LAPD. I’ve watched LAPD drag not-so-nimble young men from their homes at gunpoint. I’ve grown accustomed to the nightly hum of helicopters, the night sun sweeping the streets for conquests. I’ve inspected Roz’s feet to see if the heroin needle she just stepped on pierced through her jellybean pads. I’ve protested, I’ve cleaned, I’ve rallied, I’ve written, I’ve painted, I’ve made, I’ve destroyed, I’ve cried, and I’ve laughed. And this past year, I exploded into a million pieces here in the borderland of lawlessness and pleasure.
It was an exceptional explosion if I do say so myself. A gorgeous, glittery eruption that dazzled all who dared to look. When the shimmery dust settled, I realized that I’d lost my self…it disintegrated. It’s gone. No more self to be had. What’s left is some muscle, water, and a bunch of cartilage that resembles a 35-year-old woman (with the right lighting and maybe some blush of course). It’s really, quite an incredible thing. To say I’ve reached enlightenment sounds too spiritual for me, but I’m somewhere that’s not really here or there. Everywhere? Maybe.
What a gift it is to detonate (/ˈdetnˌāt,ˈdedəˌnāt/ from the Latin ‘to thunder down forth’). I spent every day of my adulthood yearning for something I didn’t have, saving for something I couldn’t buy, and waiting for something that didn’t exist. I have thundered down forth, and now I’m free from all desires.
As such, Sam and I have gotten rid of as much excess as possible. Selling, donating, tossing. Last week, we used our BBQ grill to set fire to all the paperwork we no longer need; mostly medical documents from when that woman hit me with her car, some stuff from Sam’s non-profit work, and a few failed TV shows. When the grill was done smoldering, we rolled it to the curb by the alley—it was gone by morning.
I’m getting lighter by the hour and our home is getting emptier by the day. Soon we’ll be gone and a house is not a home when no one is in it.
Sam and I hug in front of the heavy-duty, extra-large boxes at Home Depot. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he says as his chin rests atop my head, “I didn’t get you flowers.” “That’s okay,” I respond pressing my face further into his chest, “I used your credit card to buy chocolates.”
That night, we eat Peking duck from a cardboard box and split a bottle of wine we grabbed from a friend’s house into two red Solo cups. On the TV, police chase a man who stole a car—he’s doing donuts in South L.A. The news helicopters hum overhead. I finish a row of chocolate. Sam lightly snores from our pillow-less couch. I make a note in my planner: “Pack cushions Thursday!” The police eventually catch the man, but not before the whole neighborhood is out streaming the chase from their phones, someone moons the helicopters above, middle finger pointed upward. The reporters tsk at the gawkers as they themselves film from the skies.
Food’s been scarce, and water scarcer. I am getting bolder and meaner. Later today, Sam, Roz, and I will leave Los Angeles. Our home will turn back into a house with nobody in it. Maybe in our new place, the screws will already be facing the same direction. Maybe they won’t. Either way, it’s okay, I’m happy to be here, there, and everywhere.
Nice Internet Picks
To be honest, I’m not sure if I should keep doing this part. I started this newsletter in the hopes of getting off social media and finding a place to share cool & fun internet thingies but now the purpose of this writing has shifted. Does anyone read/enjoy this part? Should I keep it?
Light Poems - Tumblr just turned me on to the work of Robert Montgomery. I love it. Can you believe I’m still using Tumblr? Who do I think I am!?
Aline Kominsky-Crumb - This straightforward interview with underground comic artist Aline Konisky-Crumb is an incredibly empowering read for tortured artists. Plus, she also blazed out of California: “Before moving to France, we lived in California. Living there turned me into a militant ecologist; I actually got into vandalism, against these horrible developments. I won't say too much, but I was scared that I was going to end up in jail…I thought: I better move on, because I had so much anger about the destruction of the environment, and the stupid reasons people were doing it.” Me too, Aline. Me too.
God Did Us A Favor By Destroying Twitter - The whole article is a fun read, but this is the best part: “How will these smaller groups of happier people be monetized? This is a tough question for the billionaires. Happy people, the kind who eat sandwiches together, are boring. They don’t buy much. Their smartphones are six versions behind and have badly cracked screens. They fix bicycles, then they talk about fixing bicycles, then they show their friend, who just came over for no reason, how they fixed their bicycle, and their friend says, “Wow, good job,” and they make tea. That doesn’t seem like enough to build a town square on.” Here’s to sandwich-eating, boring people!
Bonus Pick: When I was a tween, aching for guidance on how to become an adult, Mary Schmich’s essay, “Advice Like Youth Is Probably Just Wasted On The Young” became my roadmap. Published in the Chicago Tribune in 1997, you’re probably more familiar with Baz Luhrmann’s spoken word version of her essay, “Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen).” It is embarrassing to admit that I still use this song as my guide, but here I am, wearing sunscreen, saving love letters, throwing out bank statements, and living in California once, but leaving before it makes me too soft.
That's exciting! Looking forward to your writing about your adventures.
You never disappoint. Just this Monday I was thinking I haven't read any Marina lately, since I finished your book and launched into my new Sedaris. And now here you are. I swear.