Marie Javins's Blog, page 68
April 5, 2018
A Fried Ravioli Afternoon Tragedy
Sometimes I see terrible things by the food trucks at work.
March 31, 2018
Overnight Field Trip
My original interest in spending a weekend in San Francisco was fueled by the new sleeper bus, but then I realized that flying from Burbank to SFO and back from Oakland was actually cheaper than sleeping on a bus. I've taken a sleeper bus before, in China, and it really wasn't bad. The real problem with the US version is it would leave me in Santa Monica at the crack of dawn. The time it takes me to get home from Santa Monica by land is roughly how long the flight from Oakland to Burbank is so...yeah.
Maybe next time. Maybe if the sleeper bus has a sale at some point.
My secondary interest in spending a weekend in San Francisco was that my hair cutter just moved there. She'd been in New York first, then moved to LA a month after I did, and now she'd moved up to Haight Street, so this seemed like an opportunity to look a bit more civilized. Plus, I could sightsee and get to an urban environment rather than the quirky, confusing boulevards of Los Angeles county.
I booked a room at a tiny hotel in Haight Ashbury, downloaded a public transit app to my phone, made a list of places to look for new clothes, and off I went to Burbank Airport early on a holiday weekend. I had been up to the Bay Area for non-city reasons, like to visit Yancey in Cupertino or on the outskirts, camping and cycling, but I had not been into the actual city of San Francisco in DECADES, I realized.
It's lovely there.
Maybe next time. Maybe if the sleeper bus has a sale at some point.
My secondary interest in spending a weekend in San Francisco was that my hair cutter just moved there. She'd been in New York first, then moved to LA a month after I did, and now she'd moved up to Haight Street, so this seemed like an opportunity to look a bit more civilized. Plus, I could sightsee and get to an urban environment rather than the quirky, confusing boulevards of Los Angeles county.
I booked a room at a tiny hotel in Haight Ashbury, downloaded a public transit app to my phone, made a list of places to look for new clothes, and off I went to Burbank Airport early on a holiday weekend. I had been up to the Bay Area for non-city reasons, like to visit Yancey in Cupertino or on the outskirts, camping and cycling, but I had not been into the actual city of San Francisco in DECADES, I realized.
It's lovely there.
March 29, 2018
The Evil that is Social Media
I did that thing where you download all your FB data to see what the evildoers of the world are learning about you.
Here is some important information I discovered is out there in the world, about a location I created in 2012.
Here is some important information I discovered is out there in the world, about a location I created in 2012.
March 27, 2018
Pioneer Spirit
Remember this book I worked on a few years back? It’s being reissued with a new design. I can see they're tying it more into the once-popular video game, which makes a kind of sense even though it has very little to do with the style of illustrations in the book's interior.
Don’t die of dysentery!
Don’t die of dysentery!
March 26, 2018
The Dreaded Reval
I moved to Jersey City in 1988, right after the last property tax reval. I was still in college and knew nothing of taxes and real estate.
But my landlord complained frequently. She talked a lot about how she was going to lose the building I lived in. She put it up for sale and after that, real estate agents frequently barged in on me on Saturday mornings.
No one bought the four-story, three-unit brick row house then, and we were eventually thrown out by the bank when she was foreclosed on. The house sold in 1991 for $130,000. I think it was laughable even then. If I had any idea how anything worked, I'd have jumped on it.
The house continued to be taxed on that same $130k value until just now, when the state of NJ ordered a revaluation of all JC properties. That house is now valued at $1,545,200 and taxes went from $11,700 to $25,032.
There are a couple ways to look at that. One goes like this: Gasp, someone's taxes just went from $11,700 to $25,032. Holy shit. But that's the wrong way to look at it...the right way to look at it, as this reval generates no new income for the municipality, is SOME POOR SUCKER IN A LESS-VALUABLE AREA WAS PAYING THE DIFFERENCE, ALL THAT TIME.
And they'll never get that money back. So whoever bought my old building was skating by on a handsome advantage, a few blocks from the Grove Street PATH train. Lucky them.
Newcomers will tell you all kinds of bullshit about it having been a dangerous area or the perceived value being new. That's just total crap, of course. DTJC was a gem even in 1988. People tell themselves whatever they think makes their lives sound cooler, I guess. "I moved to an edgy area! I've been here for six years, I'm a JC veteran!" (Maybe try to sound less like a douche and try understanding you participated in gentrification.)
Anyway, 30 years later, the new reval happened, and my own taxes over by Liberty State Park went slightly down. I had challenged the taxes when I bought the place and had already gotten them adjusted. Now they went down even more, though the value of the place went up.
My old place, the condo I used to own on 8th Street near Hamilton Park, went from $100 a month in taxes when I owned it to $400 a month right after the roof was redone (and I had just sold, thank goodness), and now went to $585 a month. That's before the HOA fee and mortgage.
Fair enough, I guess, for a place that just changed hands for $465k. I bought it for $125,000 in 2002, and here we are. The last owner was an interior decorator. The bones haven't changed, but she sure knew how to spruce it up after it took months to sell the last time for less than I'd sold it for a few years earlier. A new countertop, a few light fixtures, and she swapped out my shutters for curtains after her dogs destroyed them. The big change was the outside. They'd restored it to what more-or-less looks like the original facade, and buyers ate it up. It's still a frame railroad, so I am happier in my brick house in Bergen-Lafayette.
I've been watching message boards as people scream bloody murder about the reval. Imagine a world where people whose values went DOWN started demonstrating over wanting reimbursement on all those years they overpaid. That makes more sense to me. I am pretty pissed at people who were underpaying all those years and are now complaining. There's a guy on my NextDoor message board who bitches constantly about the taxes going up on his THREE UNIT ROW HOUSE. They went from pocket lint to real money. Poor boy, someone get him a lollipop. Better yet, maybe he can buy one with that money he was pocketing off his multiple tenants for so many years. Other people are complaining that their homes were valued at the highest rate because they hadn't let the assessors in. I'm not sure how they concluded this was a good idea, shutting out the assessors. I actually flew home for it, thinking it's better to be transparent and face the music rather than letting them assume the worst.
It worked. But I sure am glad at the moment not to own over in Hamilton Park. I never say that when I'm waiting on the horribly erratic #4 bus or dragging myself home from the Light Rail late at night. But when the tax bills are due...that's the one time I praise the gods of roofing and real estate for pushing me out of my 8th Street at the right time.
But my landlord complained frequently. She talked a lot about how she was going to lose the building I lived in. She put it up for sale and after that, real estate agents frequently barged in on me on Saturday mornings.
No one bought the four-story, three-unit brick row house then, and we were eventually thrown out by the bank when she was foreclosed on. The house sold in 1991 for $130,000. I think it was laughable even then. If I had any idea how anything worked, I'd have jumped on it.
The house continued to be taxed on that same $130k value until just now, when the state of NJ ordered a revaluation of all JC properties. That house is now valued at $1,545,200 and taxes went from $11,700 to $25,032.
There are a couple ways to look at that. One goes like this: Gasp, someone's taxes just went from $11,700 to $25,032. Holy shit. But that's the wrong way to look at it...the right way to look at it, as this reval generates no new income for the municipality, is SOME POOR SUCKER IN A LESS-VALUABLE AREA WAS PAYING THE DIFFERENCE, ALL THAT TIME.
And they'll never get that money back. So whoever bought my old building was skating by on a handsome advantage, a few blocks from the Grove Street PATH train. Lucky them.
Newcomers will tell you all kinds of bullshit about it having been a dangerous area or the perceived value being new. That's just total crap, of course. DTJC was a gem even in 1988. People tell themselves whatever they think makes their lives sound cooler, I guess. "I moved to an edgy area! I've been here for six years, I'm a JC veteran!" (Maybe try to sound less like a douche and try understanding you participated in gentrification.)
Anyway, 30 years later, the new reval happened, and my own taxes over by Liberty State Park went slightly down. I had challenged the taxes when I bought the place and had already gotten them adjusted. Now they went down even more, though the value of the place went up.
My old place, the condo I used to own on 8th Street near Hamilton Park, went from $100 a month in taxes when I owned it to $400 a month right after the roof was redone (and I had just sold, thank goodness), and now went to $585 a month. That's before the HOA fee and mortgage.
Fair enough, I guess, for a place that just changed hands for $465k. I bought it for $125,000 in 2002, and here we are. The last owner was an interior decorator. The bones haven't changed, but she sure knew how to spruce it up after it took months to sell the last time for less than I'd sold it for a few years earlier. A new countertop, a few light fixtures, and she swapped out my shutters for curtains after her dogs destroyed them. The big change was the outside. They'd restored it to what more-or-less looks like the original facade, and buyers ate it up. It's still a frame railroad, so I am happier in my brick house in Bergen-Lafayette.
I've been watching message boards as people scream bloody murder about the reval. Imagine a world where people whose values went DOWN started demonstrating over wanting reimbursement on all those years they overpaid. That makes more sense to me. I am pretty pissed at people who were underpaying all those years and are now complaining. There's a guy on my NextDoor message board who bitches constantly about the taxes going up on his THREE UNIT ROW HOUSE. They went from pocket lint to real money. Poor boy, someone get him a lollipop. Better yet, maybe he can buy one with that money he was pocketing off his multiple tenants for so many years. Other people are complaining that their homes were valued at the highest rate because they hadn't let the assessors in. I'm not sure how they concluded this was a good idea, shutting out the assessors. I actually flew home for it, thinking it's better to be transparent and face the music rather than letting them assume the worst.
It worked. But I sure am glad at the moment not to own over in Hamilton Park. I never say that when I'm waiting on the horribly erratic #4 bus or dragging myself home from the Light Rail late at night. But when the tax bills are due...that's the one time I praise the gods of roofing and real estate for pushing me out of my 8th Street at the right time.
March 25, 2018
West for Work
I headed down to Wondercon for the DC Super Hero Girls panel. Most of the creative team was there, and my job was to moderate their panel and keep them on-track.
We had a marvelous time celebrating this incredible achievement—only the best in super hero graphic novels for little girls. After years of making comics for kids via Kuwait, making more comics for kids made sense for my next step.
We are at the end of my run on this—I'm on main DCU material now. So this was a bittersweet group outing for me.
Yancey stayed overnight in my Hilton room with me. The barn door style bathroom door didn't really shut all the way, but it was still better than the half walls we once had in a cabana in Belize.
I headed to the Anaheim train station on Sunday to head back to Los Angeles. The Pacific Surfliner was standing room only, but the Metrolink came along ten minutes later, and it wasn't even half full.
We had a marvelous time celebrating this incredible achievement—only the best in super hero graphic novels for little girls. After years of making comics for kids via Kuwait, making more comics for kids made sense for my next step.
We are at the end of my run on this—I'm on main DCU material now. So this was a bittersweet group outing for me.
Yancey stayed overnight in my Hilton room with me. The barn door style bathroom door didn't really shut all the way, but it was still better than the half walls we once had in a cabana in Belize.
I headed to the Anaheim train station on Sunday to head back to Los Angeles. The Pacific Surfliner was standing room only, but the Metrolink came along ten minutes later, and it wasn't even half full.
March 23, 2018
A Belated Souvenir from Mali
In 2011, during the earliest days of the second MariesWorldTour, I went overland from the northern tip of West Africa all the way to Kinshasa. Mali was particularly challenging, and I was exhausted the day I dragged myself into Djenne Djenno Hotel, which was the real name, but the locals called it Hotel Sophie.
Sophie was the owner. The hotel was outstanding, truly remarkable, made from traditional materials, featuring nightly music, great food, a number of local projects, and delicious peanut butter made in the kitchen. Sadly, Sophie'd had to close the hotel last year and had left Mali for London.
But she has an
And when I got my new sofa, I decided it needed a mudcloth. I went on Etsy looking for a Mali mudcloth, and found Sophie's shop. I was thrilled to get a mudcloth from someone I'd met (she didn't remember me—I only stayed one night), from something I had a personal connection to.
Here is the mudcloth on my sofa. I had planned on trying it out as a curtain in Jersey City, but I think it's destined to stay right here.
Sophie was the owner. The hotel was outstanding, truly remarkable, made from traditional materials, featuring nightly music, great food, a number of local projects, and delicious peanut butter made in the kitchen. Sadly, Sophie'd had to close the hotel last year and had left Mali for London.
But she has an
And when I got my new sofa, I decided it needed a mudcloth. I went on Etsy looking for a Mali mudcloth, and found Sophie's shop. I was thrilled to get a mudcloth from someone I'd met (she didn't remember me—I only stayed one night), from something I had a personal connection to.
Here is the mudcloth on my sofa. I had planned on trying it out as a curtain in Jersey City, but I think it's destined to stay right here.
March 20, 2018
Out on a School Night
Slipped out of work a few minutes early to see the Decemberists in Hollywood. I grabbed the Burbank Bus to North Hollywood metro, took the Red Line two stops to Highland, saw the Decemberists play a few songs for one of those nighttime talk shows, then jumped back on the train to Universal, where I caught the 155 bus to Toluca Lake to join colleagues at a work event.
I would have spent that long looking for parking in Hollywood. Go transit!
I would have spent that long looking for parking in Hollywood. Go transit!
March 11, 2018
Supermarket Games
The supermarket I go to is part of a chain that has an annual game involving collecting game pieces.
I won!
I claimed my prize. Now I own frozen waffles. Ten of them.
All in all, I’d rather win Powerball.
I won!
I claimed my prize. Now I own frozen waffles. Ten of them.
All in all, I’d rather win Powerball.
March 10, 2018
Furnishing Out West
I have a sofa! I looked and looked for a sofa I liked. I didn't find any until I did, and then I found Very Expensive Sofas.
Finally, I was wandering around the outskirts of DTLA after going to an art supply store near the Greyhound terminal, and I stumbled over an old factory converted into a fancy thingy. A destination. A hipster habitat. A place with more food trucks than Alameda Avenue on a Tuesday.
And in the middle of the circle-the-wagons food trucks were vendors.
And one of those vendors was a furniture maker.
I took a month to make up my mind, and by then the sale had ended. But they honored the sale price and I got myself a sofa, which was delivered today.
Here is my sofa, both naked and dressed for church.
Finally, I was wandering around the outskirts of DTLA after going to an art supply store near the Greyhound terminal, and I stumbled over an old factory converted into a fancy thingy. A destination. A hipster habitat. A place with more food trucks than Alameda Avenue on a Tuesday.
And in the middle of the circle-the-wagons food trucks were vendors.
And one of those vendors was a furniture maker.
I took a month to make up my mind, and by then the sale had ended. But they honored the sale price and I got myself a sofa, which was delivered today.
Here is my sofa, both naked and dressed for church.
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