Somebodygetmeouttahere

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Somebody help me get me outta here

"Can I help you?"
"Yes I’d like a pizza delivered?"
The voice on the phone is Middle Eastern, “Is that to 15555 N. Dancer Lane?"
How did he know that? "Um, let me call you back"
Dial again. This time the voice is Mexican “Domingo’s Pizza”
"I’d like a pizza delivered?"
"Okay what's your name?"
"Uh, Kay… K-A-Y."
(breathy voice:) "Hmm, It says here your name is Kathryn."
(HANG UP FAST!)

Yikes, I'm pounding around shaking the ceiling downstairs. “I want 'em to bring me a pizza, and what, they see my financial history on a computer when I call? My social security number, criminal record? I just want a pizza!"

Pacing, I need food, sustenance, I can’t survive in here on nothing but Meals on Wheels Monday through Friday. I have to go into the neighborhood to find food. An Armenian pizza maybe or even a Thai hot dog. Logic and Experience are talking to me saying, No, don’t do it. You know what always happens when you venture outside.

I shouldn't have, but I did try to go out on foot in my neighborhood again yesterday evening, and again returned shaking crying - cringing.

Everything- the shop entries, sidewalks, fences, signs, boarded up places - everything is covered with a layer of grime. No one has cleaned off anything in years around here, and then on top of it, across this endless terrain of grime and dust blows all the trash.

So as I walk along Sunset Boulevard, before long I am walking inside this what must look like a huge black tumbleweed from space, the ever blowing swirl of dirt and trash that lines Sunset Boulevard, soon you are covered in it. You look up and see there are other humans in here with you, living in this pile of trash, now eerily intimate with you as you are there with them. They're after years of homelessness so grayish black in hue themselves, you almost don't see them at first in the twilight.

I'm sure people driving by don't see them at all.

A whole population of people live on the sidewalks and in alleys inside this pile of dirt that is Los Angeles. The guy I encountered yesterday had a string of grocery carts, a structure made of old clothes tied together attached the string of carts to each other, and the stuff was piled was so high you could call it a two-story string of grocery carts.

Three times as I walked on Sunset Boulevard yesterday evening I turned around and started to go in a different direction. Whatever destination I thought of, as I approached it, I realized, I don't want to go in there. Either the places were too dirty, or last time I was there I saw a dripping condom in a corner, or - just - vibes.

Dark.

It’s not just the end to end grime globules in the sidewalks that make it dark. Something about Sunset Boulevard is so dark-

There’s a vegetarian Indian restaurant in the middle of all this, in a little house, a shack almost, with the door right on the sidewalk that is so totally surrounded by steel security fence and padlocked doors, it looks closed. Can’t go there I want MEAT. Shaky’s Pizza Parlor parking lot is always so full of nice clean RV's, inside it’s wall to wall kids playing the games, families drinking pitchers of beer, too upbeat for me, I’d be out of place in there, other people's kids make me uncomfortable, I feel like I'm covered with detritus from writing about pedophile priests, plus, I walked to this place, most these families drive to Shaky's.

I'm covered with Sunset Boulevard grime.

I end up at the Chinese place but the dish I want is cooking, I’ll have to wait. Sure, I’ll wait. I look down at the remains of other dishes sitting in their buffet bins, little colorful pools of Exxon product oozing around in the sauce.

I exit and right outside the door, the guy with the two-story grocery cart is on top of me saying, “Hey, give me some change.”

I’ll wait over here, I think, no I can’t, I'll wait over there, no I can’t. I can’t touch anything, I can’t look at anybody.

I don't even want my feet to touch the ground, and they almost don't, I'm back home so fast. Right away I'm in the shower scrubbing and scrubbing, and can’t seem to get the layer of grime off of me. There’s some particle stuff that keeps coagulating and forming more film into a kind of string, so I'm scrubbing and scrubbing.

It's a lot like a scene in a crime story: rape victim afterwards in the shower, can’t get the dirt off, can’t get the dirt off.

Someone get me outta here.

Single little old lady, quiet, writer, sober except for medical marijuana which you won’t notice as I never exhale- Seeks shared shelter. Mother in law unit behind old house would be great. I pay rent on time always, am compulsively clean but a little messy. Seek place to live where I can take a walk outside without having to sanitize afterwards. Seek fun loving individuals to share rent, who will also occasionally join me in stimulating conversation in the kitchen.

Someone help me get me outta here.

I want cold weather, I want neighbors who speak English, I want clean sidewalks.

But for now it’s back to space ship Kay. Now and then while I'm on this planet, I forget and go outside, and end up having to make an emergency return to vehicls, causing distress. The way to survive on this planet is to enter a kind of controlled hallucination. In this case, it’s Spaceship Kay.

Just don't leave the cabin, I'll stay safe as long as you stay inside the cabin, don't venture out while I'm on this hostile planet except when absolutely necessary, like to pick up medicine.

For now, It's perfectly alright to not want to go outside in this part of town. It's not augoraphobia, it's an instinct to survive. So call out for a pizza.

But use your daughter’s cell phone.