I forgot to pay my electric bill in Venice. But I didn’t suddenly remember that I hadn’t paid it. In fact, I thought nothing of it. I assumed I’d paid it before I left town. I get a bill every two months, and I’ve been gone a couple of months, so no big deal . . . right?

I got my latest package of mail shipped to Santa Fe from Venice. As I sorted through the bills, I notice the electric bill is red. Uh-oh . . . final notice. It’s May 7th. I had til April 29 to pay. No further notice given before power is cut off. Whoops. Hope the power’s still on for the house-sitter.

I call the electric company and pay over the phone immediately. “Hey,” I said to the customer service rep, “I’m just curious, how long has it been since I’ve paid my bill anyway? I thought I just paid it.”

“Hang on one second, ma’am.” I was on hold for at least one full minute.

He came back on the line, chuckling. “Well,” he said, “It looks like you gave us twenty bucks back in August of 2007 . . . .” 

Last year I worked on a film shoot where we had a mock-up liquor store scene. So, the show purchased several thousands of dollars’ worth of two buck chuck and King Cobra Malt Liquor in addition to having multiple liquor distributors pitch in truckloads of freebies for product placement.

After the show ended and the liquor store set was struck, all the good liquor went home with various crew members. No one ever called accounting . . . no, I’m not holding a grudge about that . . .  However, later I found that no one wanted the cases of King Cobra (or the chuck). Ain’t these people never hear’d o’ malt licka? Anyway, the set decorator was just going to throw the stuff away . . . and that’s when I had an idea!

I took all the chuck and any cases of old, hot beer that I could find and gave it away to my friends. I also took all the King Cobra home. And I saved it til the night of the next full moon. Then I put it all in the freezer for about 45 minutes, til it was nice and frosty. Then I went outside to take a peek onto the night time streets of my lovely Venice ghetto ‘hood, where, sure enough, there were crack dealers and prositutes galore. During the summer, there is alot going on out there and for some reason, the street activity picques even more during times of the full moon. So I thought I’d help out.

I brought the King Cobra outside, lined the street corner with it’s frostiness and left it sitting there for all to enjoy. I checked an hour later. No malt liquor on the sidewalk. Music pumped up a notch in the hood. Hookers dancin’ in the streets. This is how we roll in Venice.

Jetting into LA last Friday, hours after quitting my job in Albuquerque, I needed a weekend ‘home’ in LA and didn’t even know it. Every moment was GOLDEN. Here are but a few highlights:

1. Running up Washington Blvd, the heaviness of the salty ocean air hits me like an old friend.

2. The door man at Hinano didn’t need my ID; he said, “Girl, where you been? I know them blue eyes. Get yo’ ass in there!”

3. Group hug after group hug from my Venice peeps while I caught a 3BB (three beer buzz).

4. 15-mile solo oceanside mid-afternoon bike ride on my yellow Schwinn, which I miss very much.

5. Riding my bike on Speedway in Venice just after sunset and running into at least 7 close friends within 5 minutes. That’s more than 1 friend per minute!

6. Being fed tri-tip and Austrailian wine at Theory with yet another group of awesome friends.

7. Dog-piling the couch to watch Lawrence of Arabia.

8. Being woken up at 4AM by a herd of drunks who landed near my couch.

9. The shenanigan at Barnes & Noble.

10. Taking a nap at my Mar Vista art studio.

I hate to keep harping on the whole housing in Albuquerque subject, but folks . . . ! It ain’t easy findin’ good digs in The Burque, yo!

I’ve finally settled into this awesome condo, but it too has it’s definite down side. It’s VERY expensive for ABQ. It’s exactly 35.29% more expensive than my bungalow rent in Venice Beach, California, just six blocks from the water and in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in all of Los Angeles. This sleek, newly constructed place in ABQ is architectural dreaminess with it’s sexy concrete floors and tall ceilings of openness and light, be sure. But this is Albuquerque. No offense to ABQ, but my pad in Venice Beach is sweeter.

The ad said it was furnished. It’s Ikea. Does that count? I’m not sure.

The neighborhood of Nob Hill rocks. I like that, but even though it’s a cool ‘hood and all with a co-op and great coffee shops, there is still a noticeable tweeker contingency. That, and well on Saturday night there was a guy on the street with a high powered telescope, herding everyone who was walking by to take a look at Saturn in the sky. That was fuckin’ cool. It felt very Burning Man like. But also on Saturday night there was some wierd murder down the street. Both incidents are kinda like my ‘hood in Venice . . . in California . . . near the beach. Where I pay 35.29% less. . .

So, why didn’t I go for something less expensive in a dull neighborhood? Well, here in Albuquerque, it’s either some squat, cold adobe in a really scary and especially drab part of town . . . or this trendy part of town, that’s still kinda wierd and rough, which I like . . . sort of. I live in a rough neighborhood in Venice, which I love and feel mostly comfortable in. I’m here to report that so many more white girl alarms trip inside my head in Albuquerque than they ever do in my gun-toting cracked-out Venice ‘hood. Those freak-o’s understand me. Here I’m on guard.

There is no in-between kind of neighborhood here, not unless you want to rent an unfurnished four-bedroom soul-less house out in the vast Intel sub-divisions of Rio Rancho. No, Thank-o.

So, basically - as I throw my hand against my forehead dramatically - I have to live in the lap of luxury. Except, with Ikea furniture. And a sub-standard model TV. Shocking as I proudly have not lived in a televisioned home for about seven years now. I’m going high-tech. More on this later. The TV needs serious updating. Oh, and apparently ‘furnished’ also means you get four sets of silverware, again Ikea, but no cutting board or kitchen knife. I’m a grown-up. I cook. The agent who furnished this place is probably all of 23. I know, I’ve met him. I don’t think he cooks.

Ahh, luxury . . . sort of. Except come on - thirty-five point two nine percent.

Venice. ABQ.

And hey, in Venice, utilities are included.

Last night, my friend Stu and I were having a bit of late, post-dinner conversation for my last evening in Venice.

“I’m gonna have to look up your blog. Read the stories. Because I know I’m in some of them!” he said with a big grin.

“But, not necessarily,” I told him. “the ‘really good stuff’ doesn’t make the blog. That’s the material for my books!”

So just imagine what’s NOT making it up here. Ah, ya’ll will know soon enough. I’m sequestering myself inside a kiva in Albuquerque in the coming months, all with the intention of doing some serious writing. Don’t worry - I’ll change the names/identifying characteristics of all guilty parties.

OK, but since I’ve told you about Stu, here’s a picture of us causing trouble several years ago, one night during an episode of the Santa Ana winds. That’s one of the stories too good to make the blog. Coming soon to you in another format.

I’ve been getting up early every morning with sunrise. A new Anna. But yesterday morning, I kept waaay hunkered down beneath the covers, even though my plan was to get up early and do laundry. I’m forever looking for an excuse to not do my chores, but this was not a reason for sleeping in that I welcomed.

I was awakened this morning at 5 AM by the sound of a good ole-fashioned gunfight in my charming Venice alley. The alley, let’s face it, is only a late-night haven for hookers and crack-smokin’. I don’t mind that my neighborhood is a little rough; it has helped to slow down the gentrification process, but I will admit that I don’t think the idea of bullets flying down my streets is fun, romantic or good in any way.

I always say with pride that I’d rather have the crack-heads walking around my corner than the little yuppie lady with the yappy dog. It’s all fun and good to say that until something sobering like this happens. I’ve seen bodies in the street here, a few years ago. It’s not pretty. I don’t feel personally at risk, per se, but it’s sad to get in your car at daybreak and see a dead guy in the next intersection reflecting back at you from the rear view mirror.

I covered my head with pillows after hearing one shot whiz past my house. Then the sound of a close-by gun retaliating from another direction causes me alarm . . . it’s close enough that I can tell one shooter is facing east and the other west. In fact, my bedroom sounds like it’s right in the middle of the whole mess. Then dead quiet. Then I hear the sirens. Mind you, it’s 5 AM - (historically right around the time when Venice gunfights usually break out)!! And just when I thought I should be hearing helicopters, sure enough, I hear a low . . . whop, whop, whop . . . right on cue. I bury my head further. That chopper is gonna be circling my house, I just know it.

And then I hear something I have never heard before . . . voices. Close voices of people moving around outside, on the other side of a simple cinder block and lattice wall that separates my little piece of Venice heaven from the ‘hood. The next apartment over butts right up against the back of my place, with just a narrow, two feet at the most, space between. It’s gated and never used. But I heard whispers, cracking metal and voices moving behind my house. The voices keep moving past as the helicopter noise gets closer.

I go back to sleep. There were media trucks and cops and lots and lots of my African American neighbors at the community center today. One of the last flop-houses, the one directly across from the community center, was torn down last week. Like the end of an era. I’m just wondering - where do all the poor people go at the end of this land grab? No easy solutions. And the gunfire really disrupts the inherent symbiosis of an artsy-rough-cool neighborhood like mine, making all sides empassioned and uneasy.

Today was a classic Venice Sunday, and the final one I will be experiencing for awhile.

Classic in that I awake early to a blue sky and decent temps even though most of the rest of the country is experiencing snow and a winter wonderland. I call my aunt in Iowa.

“We’re having a blizzard,” she says. Here is a picture of her yard.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Classic in that I call Mike, my local coffee buddy. We meet at Abbott’s Habit, one of my local coffee shops. After a two hour heated discussion on the paradigms of the information age, we decide that . . . we’re hungry. So, we step over two shops to Abbott’s Pizza Company, one of the best pizza joints in all of LA, and only one block from my house! We get a couple of slices and sit on the sidewalk since all the tables are taken. Local dogs try to snatch the crusts off our paper plates. We abide.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Later, I think about roller skating the boardwalk for my last Venice Sunday (for awhile), but the Venice boardwalk gets more foot traffic than Disneyland on a sunny Sunday. Unless you get down there early, it’s almost too many people to skate through. Being 3PM, I decide to walk and snap some pics.

As I walk down my street, I can’t help but smile because I love my neighborhood. You’ve got one house with a meticulously manicured yard, doors wide open and jazz blaring on one side of the street and a tricked-out Yukon thumping club music on the other side of the street. One house has a Delorian parked in the drive. Another house has alot of kids and almost as many pit bulls playing in a grassless front yard. The pit bulls know me and don’t bark at me anymore.

Approaching the boardwalk, I see that, as suspected, it’s a busy day in Venice. The boardwalk is almost viscerally overwhelming on days like this - a mish-mash of tourists, whistles, color, seagulls, bums, shouts, bike horns, incense, blue sky, ocean, performers, music, skateboards and dogs. The boardwalk is like this every day actually. However, on sunny Sunday afternoons, the masses are multiplied until the strip is fully congested, the people appear as one wriggling mass from afar.

I head down to the beach, to the rocks and the ocean that is the end of my street. I wonder what will be at the end of my new street in Albuquerque?

I walk past groups of people huddled on the sand, talking and laughing and watching the waves. I’m a bit disturbed by the beach today because of the endless stream of trash lining the shore, from doll heads to milk jug caps, endless bits of unnatural bright colors. And the most amazing part to me are all the people frolicking all along the trail of junk.

I head up to the spraypaint wall. The walls in this park are a constantly changing surface for spraypaint artists. The walls are never the same from day to day or sometimes, from hour to hour. I’m eager to see what today’s messages are on this last Venice Sunday (for awhile). This is my pick for the day!

I’m content to head home before sunset because I’ll have a few low-traffic days to enjoy the sunset this week. On my walk home, again, I break into a smile because as the wind blows in from the beach, it brings with it the faint sound of hundreds of drumbeats from the Sunday drum circle on the beach. My classic Venice Sunday is complete.

I spend a lot of time in my kitchen. Sometimes, I just stand in there and hang out and look through the window, where my view is a little pocketed slice of blue sky. Yesterday afternoon, as I was finishing up some dishes, I hear a flutter of wings about 6″ away on the other side of the window . . . . I look, and sure enough! They’re back! It’s like greeting old friends, and I suppose in a sense they are. This will be the fourth season that a bird family has built a home literally right in front of me.

And what perfect timing! I’ve been spending much time around the bungalow, having the handyman fix endless little annoyances, and not two weeks ago did I have him remove the old abandoned nest, which had been sitting up there for three years. It had become tattered and ragged from three seasons of use. Besides, after what happened last summer I wasn’t sure if any birds would ever return.

It’s been an interesting three years for the bird families living on the other side of my window. Sadly, only one of three years has shown successful breeding. But they are fascinating to watch and to just be near. I go about my business as I normally would, which includes sometimes standing in front of the window. The birds don’t seem to mind and they, too, go about the business of singing, nesting and eating a mere six inches in front of me. Frank the cat sits on the kitchen floor all season long watching my bird friends too. Sometimes he will cry like he wants to get them and when he does it’s a clicking sort of meow, a completely different kind of sound than any other time.

The birds sing in the window occasionally, and the sound carries as though it’s in the house. It’s like having my own personal random cuckoo clock. The songbirds hop from the protection of the latticework covering my patio, down onto a lamp wire strung below it and directly into their nest. Because of their unique front door, I see a window into their life. And what drama!

The first year was the most successful, with a brood of constantly squawking hatchlings by midsummer. I came to enjoy the sound of the babies; they grew quickly and soon their cries were no longer constant. The second year, in the middle of night - BOOM! I hear the sudden pound of an animal on my roof and loud thumps of feet bounding across it. Two seconds later I hear one solitary sharp half-squawk from the nest. And then dead quiet. If my cat weren’t curled up at the bottom of my bed when this happened, I would have blamed him for sure. But no, he is just as curious as I about the noise and is crying to get outside.

I flick on the back porch light just in time to see a long, grey furry paw reach through the lattice, trying to get to the nest. Rushing out the back door, I shove a broomstick up through the lattice and yell to scare the animal. I shine my flashlight onto the roof. A curious raccoon face greets me with blue eyes and a serene look, which seems to say, “Hey, I was just tryin’ to get some lunch . . . ”

The next morning Frank the cat is hot to get outside. I let him out and he immediately comes back with a dead baby bird. The eyes aren’t open yet.

They look like cartoony bulges and I imagine them as black X’s. The scene in the garden is a sad one - the birds twittering all around, looking for any sign of their offspring. Soon they leave and do not return all summer.

And then there was last year - a bad year for Daddy birds. Frank, who also hangs out in the garden, showed up one day with this in his mouth . . .

While I don’t expect the birds in my window to sew or salivate in order to build their new nest, like the birds in this article, (make sure you scroll to the bottom of the page), it will be fascinating to watch them rebuild from scratch. My granny always taught me to put the hair from my hairbrush outdoors so the birds can line their nests with it. I’m going to try it and see if it really works.

1. Do not talk on your cell phone while giving your name to the Roster Clerk. This actually happened to me today. I said, “I will help you when you are finished with your call. Next?” And the guy got pissed off, asking, “Tell me where there’s a law?”

2. Do not huff and puff and crowd old people in line. Come on. That’s just wrong. They are old. Someday you will be too. Oddly enough, the rudest people tend to be middle-aged, between 40-55. I did not have this problem from our Venice youth.

3. In fact, do not huff and puff at all.

4. Yes, there is only one Roster clerk. Do not pester the other Clerks in an attempt to jump ahead in the line. You must wait your turn in line. Everyone is busy. Relax. Having one Roster Clerk (person who checks you in) is one of the measures that helps to keep the vote correct and fair. Don’t be impatient.

5. Do be nice, it makes our day when people smile. The pollworkers have a long day, from 6AM til 9:30PM. They might be living on shitty coffee and doughnuts and potato chips and no bathroom breaks in a cold auditorium. The job gives a small stipend, like $60 for the day or something. We’re not there for the dough, folks . . . We’re there so you can exercise your right to vote. Or rock your vote, if you must.

6. Don’t hang out for an uncomfortably long time. One of the many things I love about working the polls is meeting my neighbors, truly! But please - know when to go home. Don’t try to chat up the pollworkers. There was a creepy lady today who would not leave. I wouldn’t look her in the eye and so thankfully she didn’t engage me. Finally she waddled her orange pant-suited self right outta the gymnasium.

7. Do bring cute five-year-olds. I said, “Hello! How are you, lil’ man?” to the cutest little kid. And I swear he full-on winked a perfect wink at me, with absolutely no hesitation. Made my night!

8. If you have to vote provisionally because you don’t have it together and you are only vaguely sure of where you might maybe could be listed as having a last address and you aren’t on my roster, then don’t make a scene. Vote provisionally. Every vote counts.

9. Know that there is little training for pollworkers. Understand they are doing the best they can, especially early in the morning. Don’t be argumentative about the process. We’ve got booklets. And a cell phone . . . and a . . . hey, just don’t get in our faces, K?

10. If you must drone on and on regarding some issue over which I have no control, like parking or crowd management, please do it with the inspector in the middle of the auditorium, and not in my roster line. This is for the benefit of your neighbors who are all around you, voting, so they can see how much of an ass you are.

Why am I up before the sunrise when I am gloriously unemployed for the next two weeks? Well, it’s Super Tuesday . . . am I am working the polls today in Venice.

So come on down . . . VOTE! People will roll in via wheelchair, blades and skateboards. I worked the polls about a year and a half ago when the democrats took the house back over. I figured that because it’s California and everybody knows how the California vote will turn out that numbers showing at the polls would be low. But, we were busy all day long.

The other pollworkers had been working that precinct for years and said that turnout was unusually high. This was encouraging for me, someone who never used to care about our political system. And that day, I did become someone who cares about our political system. For a variety of reasons, but mostly, to be informed and to be part of the process. Small change leads to big change. Not only in the political system, but in one’s self.

And the people . . . I met people who live in my town. I even ran into one guy who I used to vaguely know from Nashville. We had no idea we lived in the same town again. I met voters who had just turned 18 and I was the one handing them their ballots for the first time. The precinct manager pulled me aside and spoke to me for a very long time, telling me that I should apply for a Fulbright Scholarship and giving me advice about it. Later, he introduced me to a community leader of a non-profit that deals with something I’m passionate about.

So, I’m excited I’m working the polls again. Maybe I’ll get to be the one who gives out the little “I Voted” stickers today . . . .