Dispatches from the desk of a ne'er-do-well student-housing manager and struggling artist

It’s moving in time for new students and roughly my one year and six month anniversary of managing a house residing on a dingy block in the sketchy neighborhood that surrounds a well-known private college in Los Angeles. This oppor-doom-ity came as a necessity for survival and remains so. With drastically reduced rent I can scrape by each month paying comparatively piddily increments on my nearly 100,000.00 dollar art school student loan debt, keep the cupboard stocked with black beans and rice, and splurge on discount wine.

To describe the property as fit and modern is to flip the calendar back to the turn of the 20th century. What was then cutting edge, well designed and detailed in craftsmanship, has been pulled down a few notches by age and neglect. Then there were those incidents of more neglect. And then, well, mutilation. Prompted by a changing and expanding city, the rich and white and rich moved out. Firstly and most notably a famously uber-democratic governor and twice presidential candidate who was born here and therefore made this humble home the target of the Cultural Heritage Board who have thusly declared it a “historic-cultural monument”.

Most recently the economic principal of supply and demand pointed its finger at this neglected house, demanding its conversion into 12 separate units of tetras shaped floor plans with mini stoves and chronic roach problems to support the growing student population.

The street and adjoining blocks bare the evidence of a time where detailed, solid craftsmanship and great visions of suburban living were in full swing. Alas time and pressure have left their mark. The hood has had its ups and downs since 1900, and the last half-century has been one of its downs.

So here I am. Exempting myself, lucky13 tenants in all. All students, or former students, of the aforementioned well-known private college, except for me. I just work there and skulk around the food court at noon. There is that struggling artist part of it too. I’ll elaborate on that one soon. For now know that I am a drawer. No, not a drawer, as in, “I just banged by goddamned knee into that drawer you left open!” But a draw-er, as in, “Draw your characture miss for a brass farthing? You see that I can because I’m a Drawer.”

Here, some proof:
-Shan