I'd pimp Florida, but if you don't like it hot it would not be so good for you.

Yeah, the only way I'm willing to do hot is if it's also dry. Also, the fewer insects the better. I know there's no way to have none (short of moving to Antarctica, where I hear there aren't many schools), but at least if there are cockroaches they shouldn't be able to fly. That's my stand.

I don't know Portland, so I can't comment. What bothered me most about LA is that it is such a car place. I never saw anyone walking anywhere. What appealed to me about SF was that I coould walk and bump into things. what I like about the bay area is that you don't have to be in the middle of a city. - dense suburbia if you want to be close to a city, but you can have your own space. so you can teach in oakland, but be ufrther away ( though there are some very comfortable areas of oakland). Honestly, if you come to the west coast , even if you ( correctly ) chose the bay area - there is enough variety for exploration

My refrigerator is not cooling. All the freezer stuff is thawed. I have another fridge in the garage, but it has stuff in it too. Ugh. The veggies and stuff I don't think will matter I am stuffing in the freezer next door. I'll have to cook the other stuff. Annoying because I bought a bunch of food to cook this weekend already.

It's less than a year old, so it should be covered. Still. Very annoying. I think the big lightning stuff yesterday may have damaged it.

Whether you walk or not in LA depends on where you live. My last apartment, five minutes by car from where I am now? I could walk to two different grocery stores, a million restaurants, a couple bookstores and two movie theatres...that's the thing about being so spread out--one's daily reality in one part of Santa Monica is nothing like what it may be in Brentwood.

I am so frustrated right now. I got in fine from SF yesterday and was so tired that I didn't have a chance to look through the place I'm staying (one of my parents' places). But this morning, it's like misery on a platter. My parents have no idea what it is like to live in this place--my dad just wanted a fixer-upper to work on for the weekends, and offered it to me for the summer, rent-free. There's no shower, only an ancient claw-foot tub; the hot water in the kitchen sink wasn't on, there's no air conditioning (and a high of 90 today, plus humidity), and this place has been the family storage area for more or less two years, which means everything is in complete disarray, nothing's organized, and there's no furniture anyway.

I mean, this isn't the worst place I could be living, really, and there's only so much you can complain about when it's rent free; but they just have no clue what you have to put into a place to make it comfortable for a resident--because they've never lived here, and they're not going to.

We got an air conditioner put in the bedroom, but that's going to be the only comfortable place in the house; the toilet was turned back on, the hot water in the kitchen is back on, and there's food in the fridge and the cable is on. But there's still so much stuff that I can't even conceive of how to make it comfortable--and there's no shower. I bought a showerhead, thinking I could attatch it to the spigot in this ancient tub, but it's so old that it doesn't fit. And there's no visible spout for me to attatch it to otherwise. I just want to take a shower, and I think I'm going to have to drive about twenty minutes away to take one. Sigh.

I am guessing that you can get the shower on a hose thing done- just not instantly. and how big is the place. big enough so you can ignore one room? make that the junk room . get some friends and some beer and pizza and haul everythign you don't want into that room. if you are left with clashing furniture - that what sheets are for. and it will get better. and then you go to Ireland.

sorry for killing the thread with my frustration! obviously I didn't know it's power. I think the worst part is that I just want to take a shower, and there's no way I can right now with the state of the bathroom.

It's only two months, though. I can do this for two months.

And Emily? I think my vote would be SF or Portland, if it were me.

SA, what beth said about a shower on a hose. That's what my parents had for years. It actually makes washing just your hair a lot easier.

You can also rig it to hang from a hook on the wall or ceiling so that you have a more regular showery experience.

Well, I bought a shower head with a hose that I figured would work, but there's no place to screw the hose in to get water. I'm wondering if there's some alternate kind of attachment for the really strange antiquated faucet on the tub.