June arrived, and I was ready for it. I had been counting down the days until I could leave the purgatory that Los Feliz represented for me. The bad lonely-girl juju of my apartment sublet. The swath of screenwriters and actors furiously seeking their big break…and possibly being ready to do anything to get it. My solitary walks around Vermont Ave, Hillhurst Avenue, Hollywood Blvd. Bad dates with nice people.

My landlord had taken a job writing for Comedy Central in NYC, and she was back packing her life away. She procured the registration for the car, the little Prius nightmare – soon the lease would be transferred to me, or so I thought. Not so soon.

I packed up my little life into my two suitcases. The big silver one has a big turtle and a turtle-like shell pattern molded around the sides. One wheel hasn’t completed fallen off, but it has lost 99% of its structural integrity. I thought about that Sunday in Palermo a year ago when my original suitcase, the one I had hauled all over the world, had broken. I lugged the bulging 50+ lb suitcase through the cobblestone streets with no data plan to guide me to the hotel I had booked that morning. I arrived dead. Tired. Wondering if I should push myself to explore the contours of a shuttered Palermo on Sunday. I needed a suitcase. I needed it that day. And so this shop magically appeared before me like a mirage. It was open until 8pm. Even more surprising.
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