Here in Hollywood, it’s earthquake season and Mercury Retrograde, which in our culture is also a season of sorts. If you don’t understand what that means, I will illuminate you through story. The other day I got an email from a weird address. Like, a dark web, encrypted type address. It was sent to my personal, private email, not through Substack or social media DMs. The subject was: License plate exposed! It seems that when I made a tiktok video from the Trader Joe’s parking structure, making fun of myself for locking my keys in the car, I’d accidentally flashed my license plate. I watched the video again and still thought my body was blocking it, but I guess not well enough. So I did what the message suggested and took it down. Still, I wondered why this anonymous person went through the trouble of sending the license plate number, make, model and VIN of my car. They mentioned having my home address too. A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door. It was the landlords. A husband and wife team — one of the craziest I’ve ever encountered. I braced myself for the ensuing insanity. Even though I was expecting them, one can never fully prepare for an encounter with these two. The other day I found mushrooms growing in my shower. Upside down, underneath the built in shower seat, I noticed an entire garden of various sizes had sprouted up. It had to be a recent thing, seeing as my procrastination-from-writing tactic is to run around my apartment with a spray bottle of bleach, scrubbing at the grungy tiles, and dusty porcelain in the crumbling, century old building in which I reside. Some might call my cleaning habits anal. But seeing mushrooms in my shower triggered some fear and shame in me that I’m dirty. And poor. So rather than snapping a pic and sharing this unfortunate finding with the landlords and the world online, like I often tend to do, I rushed to destroy it. With a broom, a roll of paper towels, and my trusty bottle of bleach, gagging and crying all the way, I slaughtered that little mushroom garden, rolled it all into a paper Erewhon bag and disposed of it in the bin outside. Then I tried my best to forget. I have a book to write. No time for distractions. Two days later, I turned on the shower to prep for the ritual of getting myself clean, when something shimmered white in the corner of my eye. Another mushroom. A GIANT MUSHROOM. TWO DAYS LATER.
This time, I stopped, had a logical think and decided this was a bigger problem than I alone could handle. I knew for a fact I had just bleached the shit out of that region. I am not dirty! So, I took and sent a photo to B, the person I rent the place from. I’m subletting this two bedroom apartment from a girl I met in a memoir writing workshop, who has since become a friend. She stays with her dude, who conveniently lives down the street, but she still has all her stuff here. I pretty much live here alone, with her stuff. It’s interesting. It’s rent controlled. That last sentence is all that really matters for an up-and-coming freelance writer. Anyway, it’s all above board, the landlords know me, and B emailed the photo, alerting them to the issue. So, they showed up, marched into the small bathroom and invited me into the cramped space along with them so I could further explain. Even though I believe the picture is worth a hundred thousand words - mostly expletives. Seemed pretty obvious too, as there were already more shrooms popping up.
“It’s not mold,” she said. “It’s dirt. You need to clean with bleach.” “I do clean with bleach and it’s LITERALLY MOLD,” I responded, immediately defensive and filled with rage. “Mushrooms ARE mold. Google it.” “It’s not a mushroom,” he said, factually. “IT IS TRULY, UNEQUIVOCALLY, AN ACTUAL MUSHROOM,” I shouted, pulling up the picture on my phone. I told myself to breathe before speaking again. “This isn’t up for debate. You cannot tell me this anything but a mushroom.” “The tiles are broken on the side. B should have told us. That’s the problem. Don’t worry. We’ll replace the tiles and problem will be solved.” “Please no, that’s not going to work. You can’t just tile over this. There’s a world of mycelium in there. I wake up sneezing, I go to bed sneezing. It’s mold. This whole place is moldy and dusty and rotting.” SIDENOTE: Several months back, the wall on the other side of the shower in the hallway became so warped and mottled with black I relented into getting these nut jobs involved. Initially, they wanted to paint over it. After much arguing and begging, they agreed to replace the wall. I had covid at the time, and told them they needed to wait to fix it until I recovered. Still, she scheduled their guy while I was bedridden, saying it was his only available time and I would need to leave. She suggested I go hang out at the mall. I didn’t let them in. They eventually fixed the wall, though probably not the leaking pipes within. At this point exhaustion was kicking in. A special kind of stress reaction/defense mechanism where my body starts shutting down. Dealing with them is reminiscent of the circuitous arguments I used to have with my stepdad (a similar type of person, from whom I’m now estranged), so painfully illogical my only respite was Heroin. Feeling hella triggered, I thought it best to forget the mushrooms for a moment, and move on to the next order of business. “About a week before the mushrooms showed up, the shower began leaking badly,” I informed them. “It won’t shut off all the way. The bathtub also leaks, which I’ve told you many times. The sound of the dripping alone is enough to make you insane and the moisture is causing the mold.” “You need to take down the curtain from the window and leave the shower door open,” she responded. “No, the open curtain has nothing to do with this and I need to be able to close the shower door. You need to fix the leaks.” “No, B put up this shower head and it’s too big. This shower head is meant for a mansion. That is the problem.” “No, it only just started leaking like this the other day. You need to fix it.” Exasperated and getting nowhere, I pushed past them and out of the stifling bathroom. Foolishly, I thought I’d alert them to another issue. In the kitchen, there’s a loose wire in the light. When I flip the switch on, it doesn’t turn on. Sometimes it does. It’s not up to me when it works though. “We didn’t put this switch in,” she said. “I don’t care,” I responded, forgetting my manners. “You need to fix it.” “No, we didn’t put it in.” At this point I’d given up completely. Every molecule of energy had been drained from my body along with the realization that it’s probably time to figure out a new place to live. My mind raced like a trapped rat, in search of a plan to make a quick 100k so I can afford to move. (This is LA. It’s expensive.) Maybe I’ll livestream myself writing in my underwear on Only Fans. I’m not joking. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it,” they said as I ushered them to the door, desperate for them to just go. I simply didn’t believe they’d take care of anything. The woman stepped outside and I was nearly free, but then the little old man came back in, closed the door behind him, and got all up in my face. I froze. “Listen,” he said. He was so close I had to hold my breath so not to smell his, as he loud whispered. “She had colon cancer last year. Part of her colon was removed. Please don’t stress her out.” I took two steps back, put my hands behind me so not to punch him in the face, and spoke slowly in my calmest, firmest, kindergarten teacher voice. “You listen to me. I am just trying to live in my house where I live quietly and pay my rent on time. I am simply trying to take a shower without having to clean up MUSHROOMS growing out of the goddamn walls. THIS IS STRESSING ME OUT and YOU NEED TO NOT STRESS ME - YOUR PAYING TENANT - OUT. YOU NEED TO FIX IT.” Then I felt bad. I finished with, “I hope she’s feeling better,” and gave him my most winning smile. So, now some dude from the internet has my home address. The home in which I have an unsolvable mold situation and no money to move. Happy mercury retrograde to you all. All that said, there are people in my life, that I love, going through real things right now. I also have had real problems before. I mean, I used to do Heroin for fucks-sake. My bar for problems is high. Shower mushrooms are nasty, but I’ll take them. I love having silly problems. Mercury retrograde is hard on most everyone. If you’re bogged down with troubles that don’t have obvious solutions, try making a gratitude list and then just fucking surrender. It really works. And if you have real problems, hang in there. Someday, they will be behind you and you’ll have new stuff that might feel bad in the moment, but then you’ll remember when you had serious problems and a light feeling will come over you. Life will never not have be full of surprises and obstacles, popping up overnight like a shower-mushroom-garden. Like the 5.2 earthquake that just happened! Surprise! More photos on Instagram! Another fun place to follow and hang. You’re currently a free subscriber to HollyWould . For only six bucks a month, you could upgrade to paid!
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