It's the end of the world as we know it

Southern California, much like Manhattan, is known for its high cost of living. I know people who pay close to $1000 a month for a room--a single, undersized room, I say--in Los Angeles. It's hardcore down here, let me tell you. All these people falling all over themselves to pay out the nose for the privilege (hurumph) of living in California...it boggles my mind.

Fortunately, I am not one of those poor fools.

We live in a debatably cool city--Palm Springs, home of the 117-degree summer days, haven for the gays and grays. While it's no San Diego or Rancho Santa Margarita (I'd live there for the sake of its name alone), it sure as shit beats Beaumont, or Fontana, or San Bernardino, or Hemet. And not only do we live in a cool area, we rent a pretty damned nice place for a (relatively) cheap rent. Two lovely patios, three bedrooms (one of them, admittedly, small enough to house my bookcases, the litterbox, and not much else), a fireplace, a big kitchen, all for a price that still allows me to waste a sinfully large amount of money on dining out and lipsticks I promptly lose.

The only drawback to our happy little home is that it's right by a service road which leads to one of the local ritzy hotels frequented by the film crowds. All hours of the day and night (why a tree-mincing truck feels the need to lumber past at two in the morning, I've not figured out, especially since we live in THE DESERT and there's not too many trees to mince), delivery trucks and landscaping trucks and, possibly, elephants and blue whales rumble past, and their engines are powerful enough to make the bed tremble and the windows rattle.

And we live in Southern California. Have I mentioned that?

On the San Andreas fault.

Which is dangerously overdue for the next Big One.

And when that big mother hits, we're going to be so royally fucked, because if it happens while we're at home, we'll be buried under the rubble of 1000 books and two tons of cat fur because we just made the merrily misguided assumption that the Parker Hotel was due for its next big delivery of posh-people food and booze.

I never should have watched 2012 last weekend. Nuts.