“Must be nice.” Quitting your job. Getting rid of all your stuff. Living on a converted school bus with your girl, your dog and your girl’s cat. Going wherever you want. Not working a “real job.” Leaving everything you know behind … “Nice” is a...
After another Nor’easter dumped a foot of snow on my parents’ house and knocked out the power, my nephew Barry (“Bernardo”) goes down in the basement to assess the situation. “Oh no.” Simplifying and minimizing, it’s a never-ending process when...
Three to six months. That’s how long it’s going to take to build my “skoolie”, the tiny house we’re making out of a retired Arizona school bus. Ten months later, there’s still work to be done. But as the weather turned and the skies grew darker and the snow...
We walk through the empty outdoor amphitheater by memory, the jingling of dog tags spooking any actor ghosts up ahead. The sun had long set over the Santa Monica mountains and left the salvaged wooden pier planks of the stage in darkness. Jameson the wonderdog, my 3-year-old American Staffy,...
The Box. I unearth it in the basement of a Venice Beach hotel, hidden behind cartons of newspapers, Christmas ornaments and a …fondue set. (Seriously?) It’s a great box, if you’re into that kind of thing. A curled metal lip softens the cold, brushed-metal edges and a lid rests...
“What would you attempt to do, if you knew you could not fail?” I’ve been called a New-Age fruit loop many times, but truth be told: I loathe many New Age platitudes and slogans. Mostly because I find many the New Age ideas shallow, lazy and fear-based. Take for instance, the above question I...
Fresh from the wooded workshop under the sun. This repurposed beauty was a construction cable spool before we got a hold of it. Restored and handcrafted in the Topanga, California mountains, this one-of-a-kind table is distressed with natural imperfections from its former life. This table is...
In our continual strive to be as minimal as possible, who knew a freakin’ crock pot would make the cut? You know, the crock pot — that curious orb gifted you as a house warming gift and promptly placed beneath the kitchen sink behind the Febreeze bottle and rust remover. But the OG slow...
That’s how every call from my boss began. We both knew I wasn’t anywhere near where he wanted me to be — babysitting a vacant office building in Southern California. Being a Property Manager never fit, as if I’d been wearing The Talking Heads’ oversized suit. Maybe he...