As of today, April 17, I am officially suspending my campaign for Tenant of Echo Park. I fought a valiant campaign and had a lot of supporters, and I’ve learned a lot over the last four months. I would still be grateful for an old bungalow to take care of, but these are evidently hard to come by, and since I’ve been turned down several times now I’m taking the hint and staying put.

I’m trying not to feel resigned or a failure. I have a great neighborhood with great neighbors, and I should feel lucky to have a reasonably-priced apartment with parking in a safe area. It’s such a first-world middle-class problem to not be able to move to the exact neighborhood you want, when you want. So, I took some new pictures of what will still be my home for a while to enter in the AT small cool contest. These are the rejects (I will refrain from making comparisons to myself under the circumstances):

Is there anything that chalkboard paint can't do? I use this to write grocery lists and to draw things.

I like this photo, but with no context it's sort of weird, right?

See? It’s not so bad. It’s true that I only have 500 400 (I just measured for the contest!) square feet and no outdoor space and a postwar building with drywall and bad plumbing. But I can paint, I can build, my commute is only 35 minutes, and I don’t really need heat.

Still, if you know of anything opening up on the east side, let me know.