Seems hard to believe we've arrived at the final L.A. dispatch. A full month. Might as well have been a week. Or an hour. Again with the whole mutability of time thing. Given that it's 11:30pm and I have to get up at 3am to head to the airport, I don't have a full-blown post in me. Just a few final thoughts on my time here....
- My last day was spent returning my rental car and packing, followed by sushi dinner with M.J. and Tera in Marina del Rey. After, we grabbed some Cold Stone in Venice and took a sunset stroll along the pier. Perfect way to end the month.
- To be honest, I'm having pretty mixed feelings about heading back to my NY life right now. L.A.'s really been making a case for itself in the past few days. I think I've just started adjusting to the SoCal lifestyle and am finding myself enjoying it in a way I hadn't expected. As M.J. put it, "It looks good on you." I think a month away from my job, NYC summertime humidity, rain, noise, antagonism and crowds has had more of an effect on me than I've realized.
- I've met some really cool people out here and have found myself much more at ease meeting new people than I usually am. One of the cool people I met is a friend of Eion and Raf's named Dave. Dave is a photographer and music producer with a super sweet studio space on Hollywood and Cahuenga. (His website is pretty rad.) I mention him in particular because he produced an album by an artist named Kerli, a young, Estonian, Bjork-tinged, emo/pop starlet whose music (for the most part) is totally not my cup of tea. However, I got COMPLETELY HOOKED a song of hers called "The Creationist" which has been stuck in my head for two weeks now and has become the defacto theme for my entire trip. Two versions of the song are below: the studio version and an adorable webcam video made in Dave's studio (and featuring Dave in the background) that Kerli made for a sick fan whose sister wrote her a letter. There is NO LOGICAL REASON FOR ME TO LIKE THIS SONG. But for some reason, I DO.
- I have come to really enjoy the weather here.
- I got a haircut from someone other than my NY stylist for the first time in about 12 years.
- I did not get to explore L.A.'s donut culture in the way I had hoped. I'll put it on the list for next time.
- I went to Amoeba Records twice. I found three out-of-print albums that I'd been looking for for years. In the USED section. For $5-$7 each. If heaven has a record store, I can't imagine it being much better than Amoeba.
- I am fairly dreading returning to my job at the American Express Company, BUT am VIGILANTLY attempting to reframe my approach to that situation and the feelings surrounding it to avoid falling right back into a Pavlovian pattern of knee-jerk despair.
- I deeply value the chance I had to reconnect with my L.A. friends. I will miss them dearly.
- I very much look forward to reconnecting with my NY friends. I have missed them dearly.
- Beyond anything else, I need some face time with my wife. Right now, each of us is a table with a missing leg trying to hold a lot of heavy shit.
In the end, I'll simply say THANK YOU, Los Angeles. Your charms did not go unnoticed. Nor did your shortcomings. But in the end, the person who leaves you is not the same person who landed 33 days ago.
And that's a very good thing.
-IMBA
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