22/23-year-old me tells you where she lives

i lived in echo park before it was gentrified, from 2005 - 2007. here, i explain what it was like.

first, in february 2005, when we found the apartment:

Marilyn and I found an APARTMENT! 3 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom townhouse in Echo Park WITH A TWO CAR GARAGE- can we say PIMP??? And, plus, there is TONS of room in the living area. and get this, its only $1500 a month (i know you midwesterners are balking at this, but thats an awesome price) so if we get a third roomie, it will only be $500 a month! We close tomorrow on the lease (i think!) NO MORE TWO HOUR COMMUTE!! i cant wait to finally be living in the city! I will let you know when my address changes! I think we can move in as early as next week/weekend!! AHHH!

second, in march, when i moved in:

i just moved in yesterday to my new digs- spent the first night on my air mattress bed-in-bag set (that really was more of a betsy-makes-her-own-bed-in-bag set but whatever) that was only about $50 from Target. i slept in the living room- I don't really know why. I guess just because I could. gotta love it. the new place is nice, but huge so I need company to come and fill it up.

third, in august, after living there for six months:

have i ever explained to anyone my living situation? i live in echo park which i like to believe is closer to silverlake than it really is. theres graffiti and the occasional gang skirmish plus mexican music at 7 am every saturday and sunday. when the music isnt mexican its of the hippie variety performed by a range of guys who also have really loud, mechanical sex. you would swear they had porn on but really its just his girlfriend going through the motions, if i can analyze her moans. very rehearsed, and lasting quite sometime which is impressive based on the amount of pot he must smoke. i swear im going to be a little old lady who spies on her neighbors.

the other neighbors have kids who scream at all hours of the night and lay on the garage floor at 11 pm sometimes. im always afraid of hitting one in the driveway and once a ball rolled under my car and of course got stuck, forcing my already precariously attached front bumper (there was a debacle involving a tube on my drive out to california last year plus a shitty body shop at the toyota dealership in thousand oaks) to move a few more inches. needless to say im not quite thrilled about them either. but the rent is cheap and im on the quiet side of the house.

i forgot to add, in this post, that the heater didn't work, so we used to use to oven to heat up the living room. the walls would leak, so large pockets of water would develop whenever it rained. oh, and there was a hole in the ceiling, down to where the light fixture was hung, so every time it rained, the globe around the bulb would fill with water. it was also wall-to-wall carpeting. the garage door was incredibly bowed in the middle, and we never closed it for fear it would fall on our cars. the deck outside was crumbling, and the first(and only) time we had a party, a man was stabbed on sunset, then crawled his way up to our driveway. 5 cop cars, 2 ambulances, 2 firetrucks and a helicopter showed up.