What I've Learned: The look on a person's face seeing a green-eyed black girl for the first time after speaking to me on the phone can be daunting. A Los Angeles rental story. In 1988, after my dream apartment fell through, I went looking for another. This was before the internet, kids, so I did it old school:  scouring the newspapers' want ads, circling in red those that looked interesting or driving around a neighborhood…