Yesterday was the epitome of a lazy day. I slept in, I drove over to the house on the Avenue to watch the Mets game (11:05am PST start times are the best), drove to Soy Cafe with Ilya and Nick for lunch, then helped Ilya narrow down the list of people who wanted to sublet his room for a month while he’s gallivanting in Europe. Ilya, being the consummate slacker, seemed wholly unprepared (or disinterested) in the process of interviewing people, so Nick and I tried our best to maintain an air of attentiveness.
The first potential suitor was a young girl who seemed very nice and very straight. A little too straight, but she laughed at all our weird jokes and didn’t seem to mind that she was being interviewed by two people who didn’t even live in the house where she would potentially reside. She went to Brown University and didn’t know Grabiner. Other than that, I thought she’d fit-in really well. Her comment about how she always wanted to try out Ninteno Wii tennis was a huge selling point.
The second suitor was a tatted-up bro from the Midwest was into punk rock. While he definitely had the most interesting background, he probably would not have meshed well with the other people in the apartment. I secretly wondered whether or not he was the type of blue collar dude who drinks PBR and doesn’t think it’s ironic. I don’t know how well he’d fit in in Echo Park. Not enough style. The conversation went pretty well. Nick and I were finding a nice comedic groove and Ilya was, I imagine, thankful that we were taking such an interest in the process.
Before the final suitor arrived, I asked if it would be okay for me to record the interview and surreptitiously take some photographs to mark the occasion. Actually, someone else might have suggested it jokingly and I decided to go forward with it, thinking it would make a hilarious blog entry. The third and final suitor was a girl from New York who spins a yarn about how she was betrayed by a Craigslist housing ad, riffs back and forth with us, and didn’t seem to mind when I make stupid or awkward remarks without self-censoring myself. Hell, why don’t you listen to the entire 55-minute conversation. I won’t post the pictures I snapped because I would feel bad about it. A voice is just a voice. It’s like when you call up technical support and you know you’re being recorded for quality assurance.
“An Interview With A Potential Roommate” – Starring Evan, Ilya, Nick & Tom plus an unidentified female. Sorry for the background noise, I tried to remove it but it added a glitchy sound to all the voices so I re-added the noise.
Well, that’s it. Oh, and I shipped two more care packages today. Old Man Neil in Pennsylvania and Tyler in California can both expect to find a fat envelope in the next 3-5 days. I’m slowly working my way up, from the smallest donations to the largest, and the zany prizes you will be receiving (along with completely unique and personalized letters handwritten by me!) are getting weirder and weirder. I just mailed out a DVD I found in the street, and someone will still get a skin and body cream set. Also, a record brush, bacon-flavored toothpicks and a stranger’s wallet that I found (not including any IDs or credit cards, I’m pretty sure someone stole those before I found the wallet) are still yet to be mailed. So if you haven’t gotten a ‘Thank You’ package yet, you’re still in the running for one of those items, or something entirely different.
