It May Just Be that all my Birthday Flowers are Now Dead

Woke up this morning to the smell of fall. Something crisp and damp with a hint of decay in the air. Hopefully the decay can be attributed to falling leaves and not the bums that live on a mattress behind our house.

The smell is a promise of rebirth and holidays and pumpkins lined up in parking lots, and once those are gone Christmas trees to take their place. It's enough to make anyone go buy fresh notebooks and chew on a turkey drumstick.

Fall is a fleeting tease for a city that just had 95 degree weather a week ago. This is not me complaining. I still have bumpy gourds decorating the kitchen table and melting pumpkins adhering to the front porch steps. So what if I have to hang white lights in palm trees?

FYI It really doesn't matter what state your in, those enormous snow-globe lawn ornaments look tacky no matter what the climate.

Hailing from the Midwest, I will admit a shockingly scarce amount of life-size nativity scenes in Los Angeles last year. Nothing says holidays like offering your two-year-old to play stunt double for magical baby Jesus in the manger. His real hey-day before the Zombie years.

And don't get me started on the lack of fresh apple cider. Almost gave the grocery boy at Whole Foods a stern talking to after hearing no cider until Thanksgiving. Not sure what kind of operation they are running, but apple juice does not count.

How else am I going to drink spiced rum and yell at the neighbor kids for smashing our proudly decayed pumpkins well into November? How I ask?

Why must you mock me with your witty marketing and specifically designed font?

Stick a fork in me. I officially don't want to have to look at any more apartments to call me own. When the reports say this is a buyers/renters market this is no joke.

Trying to find an apartment to rent in Los Angeles right now is like trying to find a date in a sex-addicts support group. You score every time.

It's a free for all out here.

For now I will settle for a view.

For every listing that I find there are at least three or four signs posted along the way. I can afford to be picky even though I can't afford to pay the bloated housing prices of yore. The gravitational pull towards to ocean is a draw on the 'ol purse strings, if you know what I mean.

Refusing to settle is downright gluttonous. I can't even chose between detailed menu items or an extensive beer list, let alone a smorgasbord of housing units.

"More hardwood floors please and extra closet space if you have it. Oh, and definitely go easy on the security deposit, they never sit quite well with me."

This search is becoming an obsession. As a Scorpio, I need to be able to find security and comfort within my living quarters. This is an vendetta to find the perfect space for two, albiet tiring.

Two is the perfect number as it turns out. Listings are being thrown at us. Not only do I get to live with a rad chick who boasts a near complete wardrobe, but we get to save loads of money compared to the single chumps living in a closet.

Although I did almost sell my soul for a "two bedroom," or shall we say a glorified hotel room with a stow-away, for the closest I will get to an ocean-view for many years to come.

Somewhere my sanity is out there. Despite severe repulsion to haggling paired with an inability to commit, we will find a place to rest our weary heads. Persistence, my friends is key.

Thinking about what I will do once I strap myself into a lease without any furniture or plans for the future almost made me vomit in the middle of Anthropologie today.

Surrounded by a gaggle of stoneware mugs, clever wall hangings and decorative cutlery I realized that I couldn't afford to furnish the humble abode that I so dearly sought after. Curses.

Once I get the place, I can then agonize over each piece of furniture that enters the threshold. Since I don't anticipate any financial benefactors any time soon, the place will probably be complete by the time we move out. Eight months seems about right.

What's wrong with shacking-up with an air mattress for a while? I can create a nest in the corner with old newspaper and use cardboard for warm. I'll just wear an extra pair of socks to bed.

One thing at a time people, one thing at a time.