Hello everyone! I want to start off by saying, no matter how much time has lapsed between my posts, I don't like to address it. I want my blog to be a fun little time capsule of things I like, stuff I want, tours, milestones, etc. Things that are fun to look at in posts that stand on their own. I don't want every post to start out "Phew! Been a while, huh?" But this time it's different.
I came here because I've been pinning the shit out of so many things. Ever since the wedding I always have like 50 different Pinterest boards going. I have the Pinterest app on my phone and it lives next to the Airbnb app in a folder titled "Basic Bitch." I opened a new post prepared to start writing about all the clothes I've been stockpiling in my Pinterest boards, until I realized Eloy and I moved since my last post. And I have so many Pinterest boards dedicated to the decorating of our new place!
We lived in a tiny little one bedroom guest house in Glassell Park from October 2010 - April 2017.
It was our first home together. Until we moved to LA together, we were dating long distance for two years, traveling back and forth between New Jersey and Puerto Rico. Eloy would occasionally meet up with me on tour wherever I was - Texas, Mexico, etc. It was actually in Austin, Texas where we had the conversation about moving to LA. I had recently filled in for Best Coast on a West Coast tour where they opened for my old band, Vivian Girls. Best Coast went to SXSW for the first time that year with a different drummer. I talked to Beth and let her know I'd be willing to drum for them any time. She asked me if I was willing to leave Vivian Girls and move to LA to drum for them. I was.
I remember pulling Eloy aside and saying "Would it be crazy if I moved to LA?" or something like that. He said "That's funny, cause I was going to ask you if it was crazy if I dropped out of college." This was March of 2010. Never being one to sleep on ideas, we immediately put plans in motion. Eloy would drop out of school and start working full time to save up money to move, I would start flying to the west coast to practice with the band and look at places. One week in August, I went out by myself to LA, rented a car, and looked for place after place. This went on all day for 6 days. Exhausted and feeling defeated, I called my mom crying. I was running out of time and wouldn't have another chance to look for a house for a while. I had just turned 24.
Bethany was actually the one who suggested I go look at this guest house in Glassell Park. I went to see it, fell in love, and signed a lease that day. For 7 years Eloy and I made that our home. We celebrated holidays and birthdays, had so many friends and bands sleep on our floor. My cousin Heather used to drive down from San Francisco and sleep on our little spare mattress, or "the pallet" as she called it. We named it Swiss Family Robinson House, because it felt like living in a tree house. In the last few years at Swiss Family Robinson House we started having music and comedy shows in our tiny little living room. The most insane show had both Ted Leo and Reggie Watts on the bill. We made so many friends, and lost some too. We got engaged after 8 years together, and came back to that house the morning after our wedding. The plumbing sucked and our roof leaked all the time, but it was our home. We grew up together in there.
We watched the neighborhood change so much in those 7 years. We saw house after house on our cul de sac go from chainlink fences and bars on windows to horizontal wooden gentrifier fences and brightly painted front doors. For Lease signs turned to coffee shops and helicopters stopped circling overhead.
On April 26th we woke up to about 15 LAPD officers with guns drawn announcing a warrant. It wasn't for us, obviously, but for our landlord that we shared our driveway and our home with for 7 years. I won't go into the details here, but that morning it stopped being our home. We were too scared and traumatized to stay. It was "tainted," Eloy said. "That's a wrap on Glassell Park," I said.
We are so grateful to have made so many friends in those 7 years, because we had so many options of places to stay until we found a new home. We quietly moved out and into a storage space and stayed with our dear friends Sean and Erin for the month of May aka the month Erin was due to give birth. TIMING!
That month we went through the motions of working, touring, house hunting, helping our friends out, etc. while we cycled through various stages of disbelief, resentment, and defeat. This time I didn't call my mom crying. Instead I laughed and cried about the ridiculous situation with my husband at night on Sean and Erin's pull out couch. I will always cherish this weird transitory time in our life together; eating dinner and watching TV at night with Sean, a very pregnant Erin, and Pizza, and taking turns showering in the morning while listening to Howard Stern and laughing together, just Eloy and I in their guest house.
I was touring California in my band Upset with Charly Bliss ahead of the release of their first album, Guppy, while Eloy looked at what would become our new home. We decided since we would likely not move again for a while, we should take our time and find somewhere with more room in a good school district to set ourselves up for the next chapter together. The married 30 year olds who finally feel capable of starting a family chapter.
We wound up getting another amazing back house in the Adams Square neighborhood of Glendale. I immediately started sketching out each room, brainstorming which of our existing furniture and decor would go where, determine what we'd need to start buying, and started scheming about our new home. It took me a while to adjust, but it finally feels like home. I'm antsy to complete it with special new rugs and curtains, but there's time for that.
It doesn't have a cute nickname yet, but we've already had a few sleepovers, BBQs, and a poker night and it's just...perfect. I'm really happy to be here.
Enough with the words, here are some boards...
No comments:
Post a Comment