Rosa & Reseda

We used to smoke on the fire escape
 Now we just smoke in the living room
 In the plastic patio chairs, that the last tenant left
 I came to Reseda for the cheap rent and the distant listless gloom
 I answered a Craigslist ad for a roommate
 Rosa was it
 She waits tables on the weekdays
 Picks up any shift she can
 I paint houses that I can't afford to live in
 Scraping by, with what we've got, to pay the rent
 We used to smoke on the fire escape
 Now we just smoke in the living room
 And I play her the songs that I wrote last year when things got dim
 And her boyfriend's a real great guy
 He works down at the jiffy lube
 They teach me Spanish at night
 We eat what she takes from her shift
 They both think I can be something if I try
 They come out to all the open mics
 He's looking around to help me find a van that I could buy
 She waits tables on the weekdays
 Picks up any shift she can
 I paint houses that I can't afford to live in
 Scraping by, with what we've, got to pay the rent
 And mom wants to know how sunny California is
 Says the Island's been cold
 It sounds like she's over it
 Tells me Catherine's moving home
 Her husband's been pretty sick
 There's a doctor they hope
 Has better luck diagnosing him
 We used to smoke on the fire escape
 Now we just smoke in the living room
 And the lease is up and we'll never see that deposit again
 Rosa's moving in with her boyfriend
 I'm going to drive off somewhere new
 When I so desperately needed a friend
 Rosa was a friend