A window in my bathroom that I had believed was rotted/molded shut was opened yesterday for the first time in probably 10+ years. I don't live in a rotting building, but it's just very, very old. It's an "East Coast" brown stone that somehow got beamed onto the beach in LA. It was built in the 1920's and probably served as a hotel for people who lived in Hollywood or Beverly Hills. Anyway, I finally complained about this window and the Gods of building management shone on me and two guys came yesterday to open it and figure out how to replace it.

I had this very romantic idea that the Opening of the Bathroom Window symbolized the opening of my soul to new life and access to the flow of energy (and air) into my world. That is, until the incredible stench from the shaft outside of the window wafted into my bathroom. My neighbor across the way had warned me about the smell, but I wasn't prepared.

Just for today, I can appreciate closed windows.

I live by the beach where I can smell the breeze of the ocean. It's fabulous, except for times like now when there's an unsavory stench in the breeze and it smells like a thousand sardines committed mass suicide on my porch. Ah...nature. It's one of those pieces of information that never get written about possibly because they might be bad for the real estate market. Come to think of it, brochures on beach living don't come with a scrat-n'-sniff.

Just for today, I accept all the realities of living by the ocean.

There's something about going long periods of time without that leads to compulsive acts of decluttering (wait...did I miss a noun somewhere? Oh, silly me. I forgot to write the word "sex,"...it's been so long, it's no longer in my immediate vocabulary). There are two things that I have bought enough of to last throughout the '00 decade and that is cleaning supplies (because God knows this is a dirty decade...what with global warming and all), and toiletries. Because I am a sound ecologist, I am determined to put it all to use. If that happens, I will utilize all of my ten spray bottles of disinfectant, my ten miniature bottles of Victoria Secret fruity lotions, my two bars of natural deoderants, my three bottles of hydrogen peroxide (because God knows that stuff is hard to find), my two jars of silver cleaner, my giant bottle of Oscar De La Renta perfume, my eight million emory boards (did I tell you about the lawyer boyfriend I had who defended an emory board company?), my four trillion q-tips, all of the random bottles of light perfume (Bath & Body works type of stuff), three cans of leather protector, two tubes of body glitter, and that jar of sea salt skin scrubber that I leaves a film on my bathtub...(isn't this fascinating?).

Just for today, I can declutter.

Yesterday, an honest mistake turned into a web of lies when I started the wash without realizing that someone's clothes were still in there. My choices were to let the wash run through again and tell her about my mistake, or wring them out, stick them in the dryer, and hope she never noticed. A mature person would be honest and the experience would be an opportunity for bonding with a neighbor around our mutual humanity, but living in chronic fear and anxiety as I do, I panicked and did the latter. What resulted was a conversation in which I listened to and commiserated with her concerns about how the machines must be broken (why else would her laundry be wet?) and said things like, "...must be buggy...do you want any quarters? (desperate plea to ease my guilt)...anything I can do?" I'm generally compulsively honest about my mistakes, but this one involved a whole cover-up scheme that I just couldn't process, let alone explain to a neighbor I've said little more than "hello" to, on a Saturday morning...(sigh). Evil Flash Programmer would be proud.

In case you're wondering why I would write about this for the whole world (and possibly Washing Machine Lady) to read, I'll just say that after four years of blogging what I've learned is that unless someone is my friend or relative (more likely) or a spammer (Asian Porn, Mature Blond Cunt...I know they read my blog) most people have better things to do than read about my neuroses (unless I beg and plead)...

Just for today, I can blog honestly about my duplicity.

The birds left. I think I annoyed them with all my gawking and picture taking. They kept looking at me like, "Do you have a freakin' life?" (Not really). Or, "Have you ever heard of 'privacy?' We're trying to nest here!"

Could she have any more 'tude? I think she's right. Just because I've never let a male (besides my dad) forage for me doesn't give me a right to prod into the lives of those creatures who do. Watching the doves (I think that's what they are) made me realize the instinctive nature of procreation. I think my maternal instincts got hijaked by some recessive salsa gene (my maternal grandmother's side), an occupation guaranteed to keep me single until the end of my days.

But I've decided to forgive my inherent weirdness and accept the fact that like Shirley Maclaine and, most likely, the birds who abandoned my porch, I'm most comfortable living out on a limb.

Just for today, I miss my bird friends (though, I don't think they miss me).

I have a wrought iron bench on my porch that I bought from Furniture Brother #1 about five years ago. It's a weird shape, not standard, and that has been my excuse for not buying pillows for it. For years, whenever people came over and stood on the porch, they would sort of stare at the bench and ask me when I was going to buy a pillow for it. A few brave souls would sit on it and, thus, experience the discomfort of my world.

This week, I finally bought some pillows (misaligned, but who cares), and lo and behold, I sat and had coffee on it with my neighbor! What kind of craziness is in my brain that keeps me from doing the obvious?! (I don't really want to know the answer).

Just for today, I can sit on my porch.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any more ghetto, some kind of vermin infestation has descended upon my apartment building. After my neighbor Nancy's old stove sat on our floor for about a year, and my other neighbor found a homeless man in the laundry room, I was starting to wonder if I was hallucinating that I lived in West LA. There's something to be said for paying market-rate rent.

Anyway, my neighbors claim that the vermin fall under the category of "rats" while my rich Acadamy-award winning director of a landlord claims they are "field mice," but even if they were rats, we should look at the negative stigmatization of rats in the media (recently ameliorated by "Ratatoille")...WTF?!

Someone decided that the rats/mice were coming in through the back door and so the building manager put up a sign telling us to keep it closed so "the rats don't come in." Since when do vermin walk in through open doors?! Do they know the security code?!...I can't believe I've lived here for ten years.

Whatever they were, they were having a party in my walls until the traps killed a bunch of them...my landlord called me last week to status me on the rat mortality rate. Doesn't he have more important things to do? Like direct Russell Crowe or Angelina Jolie?

Just for today, it's time to buy a condo.

You know it's time for a change when you come home one day to find two guys hammering out giant holes in your kitchen. And thank God, because the electrical wiring system in the apartment building you've lived in for ten years is so outdated that everyone has been one simultaneous blow dry away from beginning the first only LA wildfire to start at the beach.

It's ok, though...go ahead and knock walls down and free the squirrels and possums in the walls because it's 'bout time I moved on (and out). I'm really ready for some major mid-life (crisis) overhaul action, as almost everything in my life feels like all those bottles of hair gel I can't get rid of in my make-up drawer.

Hold on.

I just rid of them.

I guess it's time for an upgrade, a new operating system, a redesign (take your pick of techno-centric metaphors...I would use a home renovation metaphor like, gutting the bathroom or tearing out the linoleum, but I'm too codependent with those still traumatized by the housing crash...plus, I'm not sure if people know what linoleum is anymore).

Nonetheless, I'm ready to declutter my closet, personal life, and brain.

But, first, I need a job.

Just for today, I embrace change.

Never realized how intrinsic plumbing is to happiness out here in Western Culture.

My building manager told me to hang in there for a few days. Am I supposed to hold it for three days?! I'll just hijack the toilets of local restaurants...they won't mind.

Other than that, 2012 feels good.

Just for today, I am grateful for plumbing.