My first post from the left coast.
I’m slowly setting in to my new digs here in Santa Monica; I’m beyond sick of unpacking and organizing all my stuff. Fortunately, I’ve thrown away several full boxes of junk and 2 garbage bags of clothes are headed for one of the several Goodwill clothing donation places on Santa Monica Blvd. Did I mention I live about 20 feet from Santa Monica Blvd? Yeah, I do. And about 5 minutes to the beach. It’s been between 60-70 degrees since I got here, so we haven’t hit the sand just yet, but it’s already warming up and our coastical activites are sure to pick up very soon.
The drive out here was great. My comedic partner in crime, the handsome and talented Mr. Erik Anker, was nice enough to join me on the 16 hour drive. He worked all day on Thursday (he’s a Captain in the Air Force, the ladies love it), and I was lucky enough to spend a good chunk of Thursday night with the one and only Heather. Champps restaurant, in which we had a lovely discussion about our recent run-ins with stalkers, we fought over waffle fries, and the amount of glare in our faces due to the silly architect that just had to build the place facing the wrong direction. I couldn’t have asked for a better Last Supper in Colorado.
So off we went, driving straight through the night, the only ones on the road. Not surprisingly, the drive from Denver to LA is a lot more interesting than Chicago to Denver. And it isn’t just because Erik and I talked the whole time (and we did; we barely listened to any music, and only a few This American Life episodes). Let’s compare.
Illinois -> Iowa -> Nebraska -> (Eastern) Colorado
Flat, boring -> Farms -> Farms -> Mostly farms and then the Rockies to the west
(Western) Colorado -> Utah -> Arizona -> Nevada -> California
Beautiful mountains -> More mountains -> Tumbleweeds and cacti (we were only in Arizona for a little while, and come on, that wildlife is funny) -> VEGAS, BABY -> More mountains
Colorado to California, you win by a landslide. Erik was pretty sleepy after working all day, so we ended up sleeping in the car at a rest stop for about an hour at 5:30 in the morning, but other than that, we plowed straight through the whole time and only stopped to eat and get gas. On this trip I discovered something… IHOP isn’t as good as Denny’s. I had no idea. All this time I’ve been walking around thinking they were one and the same. How wrong I was… Denny’s, I’m sorry, I won’t take you for granted ever again. You suck, IHOP.
The house is still a complete mess, and won’t be all pretty and finished for a while. So sit tight for pictures, they’re on the way.
I had four job interviews in my first week here! One is IT Assistant at Summit Entertainment, a production house, one is SysAdmin at a place that makes a touchscreen computer for Alzheimer’s patients to keep their minds sharp, one is IT Manager for the USC School of Fine Arts (they just emailed me saying I didn’t 
get the job, I had a feeling I was way too young for it), and one is at a company called Make It Work – they’re like Geek Squad to the Rich and Famous. I’d be driving around SoCal in a Mini Cooper, going to appointments and fixing people’s computers, TVs, networks, easy stuff like that. Pretty cool! It would be nice to be driving around all day, because I have awful direction and I need as much practice as I can get. I’m waiting for an offer from two of the places, but I’m leaning towards Make It Work. Sounds like it would stay interesting… and it could provide me with a lot of funny stories.
Last night was my first standup performance here on the coast… a little bar near my house called 14Below. Not a big crowd, but I did really well and it felt great to be back on stage. It had been almost two weeks since I’d performed last! I was missing it so much, I couldn’t wait to get on stage. I did what I could with the small crowd (including my three roommates, who loved it), and was definitely the favorite of the night. The opportunities for standup here are endless, and that’s why I made the big move out here.
I’m still totally settling in, jobless, in a mess of a house, so not much has actually *happened* since I moved out here. I doubt you want to read an entire post about how I’m hanging up my shirts and trying to find a place to put my old dresser. Once I get into the swing of things out here, I’ll have some new stories to tell.
