I want to be Kato Kaelin

It's not that I want to be forever associated with O.J. or the excruciatingly bizarre murder trial or have awesome surfer hair (actually, I wouldn't mind the surfer hair...) or even have my claim to fame be "professional mooch." What I do want is to live in a guest house. It doesn't have to be the guest house of a celebrity on the verge of a murderous rampage, but a little guest house where I could crash--write and get a decent night's sleep--in exchange for watering your plants, collecting your mail and making sure the pool boy adds just the right amount of chlorine. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Yeah, yeah--I know. Dream on. Given my current situation, there's plenty of opportunity for that--just not while sleeping. Tucked away in West L.A. in a fairly good sized studio, invite guests over and the only place to sit is the bed. Some people are cool with that--some get a little weirded out. Like my friend Dave who actually brought a portable chair when he came over to watch a marathon of episodes of Entourage. Consequently I don't entertain much...

But it's not the space or lack thereof that's the issue. It's my neighbors. I hate them. First you've got the guy in the building next door. Rises each morning, goes out onto his balcony. And then starts hacking up a hairball. Lovely way to wake up in the morning. Then he lights up a cigarette--hair of the dog no doubt. The putrid stench of smoke wafts into my apartment. Sigh.

Then there's the guy who comes home at 2 am with pickup engine roaring and earthquake-like reverberations emanating from the bass of his sound system. And the guy in the building on the other side who has to turnover his engine no less than one dozen times before it catches in the morning. Dude--get a new car! But my all-time favorites are the slammers.

You see, I live above my building's laundry room. And not only do my fellow tenants believe that midnight or 5 am is a perfectly acceptable time to do laundry, they are under the mistaken impression that it requires a significant amount of force to close the door. Said force makes my floor shake. I've tried complaining to my landlord--it took him THREE YEARS to tape up a sign stating the laundry room hours are 8 am to 11 pm. Not that anyone bothers or cares. Of course the admonition to be "curtious " to your neighbors might make more of an impression if it were spelled correctly. I'm not sure what "curtious" means, but breaking the word down to the root of "curt" meaning "rudely brief in speech or abrupt in manner," it's no wonder the sign is not achieving the desired effect.

So I'm left to fantasize. About consequences. Like, my stupid neighbor slams the door and a large metal object falls from the sky and hits him on the head--ala Wile E. Coyote of Road Runner fame. Or she slams the door and a jolt of electricity courses through her body. Another Wile E. Coyote scenario. Hmmm---did I watch too many cartoons growing up? Or maybe there's a wasp's nest above the laundry room door. Open and shut it quietly and all is fine. Slam the door, you wake up the wasps and they sting the shit out of you.

Sigh. This is why I want to live in a guest house. I think my fantasizing skills are better utilized elsewhere.