I will never get used to the perpetual rain

The Hidden Homeless of Los Angeles

White is the new small project. A strip of white to replace the porridge-boring cancerous apartment ecru of the verge hanging in the living room over the sliding balcony door. Once it’s painted, it will be finally time to open the poster tube next to the couch, pull out the Etsy bought vinyl decal of birds on a wire I found on sale ages ago, and glue the image to the wall like a designer child’s shiny sticker.

I can only hope it will work. I am still too new at adjusting my surroundings to express myself to be proceeding with any sort of certainty. It makes me uncomfortable, even as I try to make the place a little more welcoming. The idea of settling into a place is too atypical of my thinking, my skills regarding the idea too primitive. When I moved in, I never intended on staying. Sections of my heart shout loudly in ridicule. “You think this is going to work? This will all end in disappointment.” I persevere in the face of my possible incompetence through sheer force of obstinate will, insisting to myself these renovations are agriculture, and my efforts will all bloom like a sunflower, something bright and cheerful, persistently reminiscent of summertime.

Vanity Fair on New York’s Greenwich Village