how i lost my virginity, pt. 10

[part nine]

the next day, i awoke after erica had already left for school. as i was sitting around the house doing nothing, as usual, i got another text from johnny asking if i wanted to go apartment hunting with him. he would be starting art school in the winter in pasadena, and he needed a place to live. so i said sure, and he came to pick me up. as we were leaving, we passed erica driving into the parking lot. "where are you going?" she asked. "just to hang out," i said. she nodded, and continued to drive towards our garage.

we drove up to sherman oaks to visit heidi, one of the people from the valley arena show. it turns out that she is married to a guy named teran, more specifically, teran noah smith, the guy who played the youngest kid on home improvement. he had grown up since i had last saw him on television. he was 21 now, and he had gotten even cuter (i used to have a crush on him when i was about 10).

they lived in the coolest house. it wasn't especially big, but every inch of it was decorated with sculptures or murals or some other form of art. they had a stripper pole in the dining room, and teran taught me a few tricks. their dining room furniture was made of compressed cardboard, and they had a mountain of pillows in the corner of their living room. they had a projector that shone its images onto a tryptic that took up the entire wall. their back deck was like the dance floor in saturday night fever, with colored lights underneath each panel of fogged glass. they also had a pool, but i think they were in the process of renovating that. in their kitchen, they had a microwave that used the power of light to cook food. it was like and easy bake oven x100000. instead of normal refrigerators, they had the ones that you'd find in a 7-11 with sliding glass doors. they also had a slurpee machine that could make two flavors at once. in the front yard, they had a giant trampoline with a giant geometric metal cage around it. it was unlike any dwelling i had ever seen before.

heidi made us vegan sandwiches (being that she, teran, and johnny were all vegans). it was surprisingly tasty. normally, my experiences with vegan food had been rather bland, but heidi and teran have their own food company called "play food," and they specialize in making tasty vegan substitutes. after eating, me, johnny, heidi, and her chihuahua victory piled into johnny's car. the first place that we found was in a shady neighborhood, and before we could get out of the car, johnny got robbed of a whopping $3 by some kid with his hand in his shirt pretending that he had a gun. we took that as a bad omen.

the next place that we looked at was located inside a castle. it was huge. as we passed through the rot iron gates of the entrance, the yellow glow from the inside lit up the fountain in the garden out front. when we walked in, we were greeted by the doorman, who was wearing a slightly old fashioned, yet classy uniform. it was the kind with the little tasseled shoulder thingies. he also had a matching hat. looking around, i realized that all of the employees were in uniform. the floor was covered in fancy red rugs, and there was a fire blazing in the adjacent room. we walked towards the elevator, which was the old kind with the gate that has to be closed manually. there was an elevator attendant to do that and press the buttons, who was also in uniform.

the room we wanted was on the sixth floor. it looked like a hotel, and it kind of creeped me out when i remembered the image of the twins from The Shining standing at the end of the hallway.

the apartment itself was rather small. it was owned by this guy named General, who was a locally famous artist. his artwork was laying around everywhere. there were unfinished pieces everywhere, covering every surface. i had to clear off a seat so i could sit down.

the place was really old fashioned; it had a mini fridge from the 50s, and the tiles and bathtub were from the 1920s. and it had a view of the garden below.

general wanted to take us to a speakeasy, so he made a few phone calls. we couldn't go because they had changed the password, as speakeasies do. so we just left.

heidi, johnny, and i had gotten pretty hungry by the end of the day, so we went to a vegan fast food restaurant and ordered it to go. we ate it at heidi and teran's and proceeded to get very stoned. teran was a huge pothead, and had a couple gallon-sized ziplock bags of it. he also had a vaporizer, which he explained the science of to us as if it were the most fascinating thing ever. he hooked the projector up to his computer and moved the giant mural over so that the images could be projected onto the white wall. we watched that for a while, then johnny drove me home.

[part eleven]