Hi, this is Christina.
Welcome to my Sweet Digs, before you come in, just make sure to
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Alright, come on in.
I live in the Highland Park area of Los Angeles.
And I pay $850 a month for a one bedroom apartment.
Which is, very little.
This is my living room.
I don’t really have a decorating plan.
All this furniture is either like, you know, from Target or Craigslist or given to me.
This chair I found on the street.
My desk and my chair are from Craigslist.
The only thing I actually bought with any intention, is this ridiculous chair that’s
shaped like a hand.
When people see this chair they’re normally like, “Woahhh, is that comfortable?”
And, it is.
So, don’t worry about it.
It’s pretty silly and I feel like it’s the kind of thing that’s like, really hard
to square away with like, a roommate.
Every other person I’ve lived with, or like, guy I’ve dated is been really into like,
the minimalist thing.
Wanner pattern chair, cowhide rug, uhhh.
I kind of just like stuff that makes me happy.
A lot of things that are on the walls are either, art that people have given me,
or I’ve purchased.
I am a writer and a comedian.
I was an art critic for like, 7 years before I got seriously into comedy.
I love it.
This print, um, is by an artist and a dear friend of mine named Meghan Gordon.
That is actually, my hand, doing an awkward dance.
I like the contrast of stuff that is really nice that I’ve, like, paid to get framed,
versus, like, stuff that I just threw up there.
There’s 3 closets and they are all big.
But, this is the first one, where I hang all my coats for these harsh LA winters.
I have a thing for cheeseburgers and hotdogs.
My phone is a hotdog.
Cheeseburger piggy bank.
Purse in the shape of a Pink’s hotdog.
My favorite is in the kitchen.
This is President Little Hamburger Man, and it’s actually, a marionette puppet that
my boyfriend made when he was a kid.
Kitschy stuff is always been something I’ve been into.
Just stuff that’s shaped like other stuff.
Oh, a purse that’s shaped like lips.
Here’s a teapot that’s shaped like an elephant.
I just really like it and brings me to joy to have silly things around.
The floor in this place was like a really gross vinyl floor from the 70s, so I actually
paid with my own money to just put, like, a slightly cuter vinyl floor in here.
The thing about this kitchen, is that it’s very small.
And, these are fake drawers.
Everything is kind out in, like, jars,
and on the walls.
Mostly this is a place for more stuff because not a whole lot of cooking goes down in here.
This is a pantry, but the bottom
is the comedy cubby.
Props, or costumes, or anything I need to use for my act.
A fake mustache, fake blood, nipple pasties.
“Laugh at me because I’m different…I laugh at you because you’re all the same!”
And I bought two.
I can’t even get in there without, like, having a bunch stuff spill out.
Come this way.
This is the hallway which is just a more of a liminal space.
This is closet #2.
It’s the biggest one and it’s where I shove things before people come over,
such as yourself.
And then here’s the bathroom,
which is pretty small as well.
This is really where the magic happens.
Nothing too fancy about it.
My favorite part though, is the floor, which I also paid to have the floor done myself.
This whole place is cheap enough to make it worth it.
Finally, got to go to Linoleum City.
This giant warehouse that only sells, like, different types of floor.
A lot of the fun floors were really expensive, so I went to the scrap section and there was
just this scrap of flooring that was like, leftover from an airport bathroom.
I spend a lot of time looking at it.
Here is the bedroom.
Some of the most sentimental pieces in my apartment are in this room.
The paintings on the wall.
The one at the top there is a painting that I did when I was like 12 or 13 years old.
The more I look a other paintings, the more I realize that was a great painting
that I did.
The final walk-in closet is here in the bedroom.
Oh, look!
It’s more clothes and shoes.
There’s no light in here.
So I can only open it during the day.
I found this place through, uh,
a friend of a friend.
There’s an artist I was working with at the time.
His assistant overheard that I was looking for a place to live and said,
“Oh, I live in this really great little building and it's very cheap.
The apartment at the end of the hall has been empty for like, a month.”
I called the owners. I just said,
“I’m gonna move in.”
I think I was here for like, a full week before the owner actually came by with the lease.
And we signed it.
By far the best way to find a place in LA is to just know somebody who knows somebody,
who knows a guy, who knows a girl.
Everyone else who lives here has lived here for a very long time, and we’re very neighborly.
They’re a few times when I first moved in that, my neighbor would knock on the door
and be like, “Hey, I uh, I made too much ziti so, you should a- you should come over
and eat some of this ziti.”
I think cause the building is small and everyone’s pretty close together, it feels more neighborly
than most places I’ve lived.
I do live here alone.
Santi is my boyfriend and we actually tried living together here.
We nearly drove each other nuts cause this place is very small.
So, he has his own place now and we’re sort of regrouping and trying to figure out how
to make it work.
We both work from home.
I feel like the only thing that can make this space work for us is getting, like, a separate,
like, studio or office space.
Which would kind of, cancel out saving money on rent, but, saving money on rent should
not be the primary reason for moving in with someone in the first place.
Reconciling, like, love and real estate in Los Angeles is a cruel math and we’re still
trying to figure out how to do that.
My favorite part of this neighborhood is that it’s very walkable.
Within, like, 3 blocks there is coffee, breakfast, a nice bar, and a 24-hour taco stand.
And the train station!
So why I would go anywhere else in the city
is beyond me.
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And, um, I’m gonna check my email,
but I will see you around.