I already mentioned that I got here early yesterday, but I failed to mention exactly HOW early I got here. Check-in was at 3:00 (and that was a very strict check-in time, I discovered). By "check-in is at 3:00", the woman meant that she wasn’t even going to tell me where my rented parking space was located until 3:00. So, I parked at the dog park in what I assumed was the general area. I spent two hours envying the people taking their dogs to the park, and trying to avoid eye contact with the homeless man pushing a wheelchair full of his belongings.
Besides being early for my apartment rental’s check-in, I ended up being early for my school’s residency, by a long shot. New Student Orientation (which I only have to attend during this visit) isn’t until 6:00 PM.
Caught up on my readings for the residency, bored with cable, and worn out by facebook, I thought I’d explore what the landlady called “one of the safest neighborhoods in the area”. The online photo advertising the apartment that I’m renting shows a picture of the alleyway from the apartment’s front door to the beach. It’s an accurate picture, beige brick walls framing a boardwalk-side umbrella and the ocean in the background. I ventured down the alleyway to what I hoped would be a string of brightly-colored, privately-owned shops and cafes. I rounded the corner onto the boardwalk and tucked my purse a bit tighter beneath my arm.
I thought I knew what to expect. I watch Nip/Tuck and they showed Venice Beach in the latest seasons in LA, and my professor (an Antioch alumnus) joked to not trip over any homeless people on my trip. I stopped in the first tourist-y shop I could find to purchase batteries for my camera. The Asian man behind the counter seemed to be laughing at me as I turned around and ventured into the open boardwalk area.
Luckily, it was early, so the place wasn’t yet swarming. Vendors were setting up tables and neon-colored signs advertising everything from caricatures to tables and tables of toe rings. I passed the vendors and pretended not to see (or hear) the man playing a full-sized music classroom-style piano on the sidewalk. My friend from the dog park was sitting on the sidewalk next to him, nodding to the music, his hand still resting on the armrest of his wheelchair full of belongings.
I was one of about five people on the boardwalk wearing clothes that had been washed recently and not sporting dreadlocks. I knew I’d just kick myself if I was in LA for 11 days and didn’t even get to the beach, so I pulled my purse in even tighter and walked a bit more briskly, keeping my head down.
As I neared the sand, I noticed a bright orange plastic fence stretching along the beach, midway between the sidewalk and the ocean.
“Oh God,” I thought. “Someone’s been murdered and they blocked off the scene.”
The signs on the fence mentioned something about “Authorized Personnel” and the waves being dangerous today; I breathed a sigh of relief. Thankfully, I wasn’t looking at a murder scene.
The walls surrounding a concrete seating area swam with graffiti. The eight palm trees near the walls were all plastered with graffiti. What kind of person defaces a palm tree? Palm trees are the coolest.
I looked around cautiously and pulled out my camera, now equipped with batteries, and snapped a picture of a batch of unpainted palm trees and two pictures of the ocean through the plastic orange fence.
I said hello to the person who nearly ran me over with a skateboard, being that I was on the wrong side of the directionally divided sidewalk, and high-tailed it back to my apartment.
Luckily, I am staying up the only alley that looks presentable from the beach. In my leisurely mindset, I hadn’t even looked at street signs or markers. In a panic, I found the one umbrella that looked like my online picture and booked it uphill.
I clomped up the narrow wooden stairs to the adorable apartment I’m renting. I muted my TV to read and I can hear the TV of my temporary neighbors. They must not be braving the boardwalk either.
I guess that equating “one of the safest neighborhoods” in Venice with “safe” in general is about as naïve as believing that “reduced fat” and “low fat” are the same thing.
I’m keeping my pepper spray in hand when I go to my car around 3:00 to drive the 6.21 miles to school and be on time for my 6:00 orientation. I mapquested from my apartment to school avoid highways, and it’s only a four minute difference from the highway route.
Alright, so I didn’t leave three hours early, but I did leave two hours to get there. It was unnecessary. I couldn’t have picked a better driving route. I’m on Venice streets for a couple of blocks, smoothly merge onto a “highway” for a quarter of a mile, merge onto one of the shortest freeways in the state, exit when the freeway ends, and park on one of the levels reserved for students. Easy Peasy. I only got honked at once, and it was because I made a few poor decisions on the surface streets. 25 minutes. Yeah, buddy.
I’m really excited about how this program works. It consists of five residencies (times that I’m in LA at the school, actively engaging in writerly things with others) and four project periods (times that I’m at home, doing writerly things and corresponding with a mentor in my genre and hiding away with my computer). I’m considering doing a dual concentration (pretty much a double major) but it will take an extra semester. By then, I might get some financial aid (fingers crossed), so maybe.
Also, I might have been the only person in the room whose excitement actually heightened through the mention of the critical papers and annotated bibliographies that will be required, but I’m okay with it.
I’ll have more information about the new and exciting things I’m learning for tomorrow’s post, but for tonight, one more diatribe against driving.
I’ve only used a few streets more than once since I’ve been here, which is making things interesting. My apartment’s address is actually on a “walk street” and my parking space in on a one-way street whose entrance intersects with a street that I can never seem to find. My mapquest directions don’t take my parking space into account and tend to lead me on a crazy wild goose chase. My GPS may be dead forever, so I’m relying on a combination of written directions, hazy mental maps, and a text message from mapquest.
Tonight, I got ½ block away from the street I needed to be on before I gave up and decided that I was in the wrong place, turned around, and called Walt to be my GPS voice over the phone.
Now, I know to just drive until I hit the ocean and I’ll be close to where I need to be. I was finally nearing the impossible-to-find street while traveling on a different one-way street when the unthinkable happened. A person whose parking skills make me look like a master parked on the right-hand side of the street, her (we’ll assume it was a female driver) gold car’s big ass sticking out in the road. That alone would’ve made this awesomely narrow street a challenge, but a yellow box truck parked on the left side of the street, at an angle. The truck was in a tow away zone, so I put it in park and decided to wait for the driver to return to his truck. I reconsidered that idea and climbed out of my car. I would not fit through that space. No way.
On the phone, Walt keeps saying, “Karly, I know where you are. Just go straight.”
“Walt, I can’t go straight.”
“No, really. The street you’re on says you can go straight.”
“It’s blocked,” I repeated. “Blocked by illegally-parked cars.”
The guy in the car behind me climbed out of his car. His silhouette provided generously by the three cars backed up behind him made me lock my door out of instinct. He’s going to stab me for not fitting through this gap, I thought.
“The guy’s getting out of his car,” I told Walt.
“Just go straight,” he said again.
The guy from the car behind me walked to the nose of my car, “I’m going to help you,” he said.
“This guy’s going to help me,” I told Walt. I sat down my phone.
He guided me through the gap (which was exactly not the size I thought it was) and told me to have a good night.
Go figure, people are mostly good.
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