I never really felt like I fit in in Chicago. Don't get me wrong, I love it and think of it as one of the greatest cities in the world. I love the architecture and people and pizza and its museums and culture and there's so much to do and there is much sportsball. But it has its issues. It's too cold, it's too hot, it's violent... In 2003, I was living in the western suburbs, I was surrounded by a lot of people who had no problem dropping racist or homophobic language around to the point where I was really uncomfortable being around them. And I think because I was uncomfortable, I had a hard time being me. I was quiet in conversations and never expressed my opinions and to be completely honest, I felt unappreciated. And then one day in winter, I hit black ice on an overpass while driving home at night and almost wiped out, and I decided I was moving.
I'd been to California before. I don't even know how it happened, but I got it into my head as a kid that I wanted to be famous and live in a house by the beach. You want a lot of things for yourself as a kid, but this stuck. And when I graduated from high school, three months later I was on a plane to LA.
It didn't go well that time. I was living with an online friend who couldn't decide if she wanted me as a roommate or not, her live-in boyfriend harassed me, I didn't know that having a car was imperative there, and so I was never able to find a job because I was limited to basically the mall because it was in walking distance. I lost a lot of weight because I was too poor for food. But I loved it. I'd walk to the store and talk to people on the way. Once I was walking late at night, and there was a group of four black girls across the street who spotted me and called, "Are you alone? No, no, no. We'll protect you," and crossed the street to walk me home. I never felt unsafe in my neighborhood in Culver City, but it was one of the nicest things people have done for me. I had a couple friends, who unfortunately lived in Orange County and so one of them would pick me up and drive me to the other friend's house like they were sharing custody of me. Sometimes I'd have to go to work with Steph because she couldn't drop me off, which was fine by me because I got to go to Disneyland for free then, where I mostly people-watched. We'd hang out on Hollywood Boulevard and pick up things meant for tourists that meant that I could be an extra in a movie, or run around on Aliso Beach too late and night and lose our shoes. Once we drove to the desert for a party where I found I actually had no problem talking to people I didn't know, and I demolished them at Star Wars trivia. I was chubby and had always thought that I wouldn't be pretty enough in LA, but I got dates off the street and got an invite to an industry party that I wasn't able to go to. I began to notice when one friend became jealous of me and started trying to sabotage me and my self-esteem, and I learned how not to stand for it anymore.
And then because I ran out of money, my mom had to fly out and come get me to move me home. But I saved. I lived at home and worked, and put that money towards moving me back to California at some random point. I was more open now, too. I began speaking out when things bothered me, and when my friends went back to not appreciating me, I ditched them for ones that did, until they came back to me. If I hadn't fit in before, I really didn't fit in now.
So in August of 2003, I picked up and moved back. I lived with some guy from Roommates.com in Redondo Beach, though that friendship fell apart pretty quickly. I worked for a temp agency that put me to work at UCLA, where I found one of my favorite jobs ever working for the maintenance department of off campus student housing, where our office moved around from a frat house to the converted first floor of an apartment building. I wrote a book at a Coffee Bean on my lunch. I knew someone who knew I wanted to act, so she arranged for me to be a production assistant on a low-budget movie that she was working on, and I realized that I didn't want to act, I wanted to run the show. I worked seventeen hour days for three weeks for a grand total of $200 and it was some of the most fun I've ever had in my life. It ended with me having to drive Peter Weller home at the end of the shoot. I talked about cell phone service with Robocop. That led to other jobs, including one that let me into Universal Studios for free and had me running around the park in order to find a specific flavor of Gatorade for Brendan Fraser. My friend Karyn, whose friends I'd ruined at trivia years earlier, worked on Sunset so when I was working up at UCLA we'd meet at the Virgin Records on Sunset and have coffee and talk about writing until traffic died down.
After a year with a roommate who turned out to be kind of a misogynist, I moved to Long Beach, and that's where I really hit my stride. Roommates came and went, but Rebecca and Jasmine were the best. And, I got my place by the beach. It was a 20-minute walk down Anaheim to the actual beach, which became a thing I did especially when I was upset, and I had a lot going on then. I had a favorite coffee shop called Portofino, I was friends with people at the Ralph's, I went full-on nerd around Rebecca and then when she was out of town, Jasmine and I lived like frat boys who partied too much. I was in LA when marriage equality became a thing, and witnessed the anger that happened when Prop 8 yanked it away, and got to celebrate with friends again when it was given back. People would come to visit me and I'd struggle to figure out what to do, because I was so used to being there now that it was hard to come up with stuff. I found out that I was pretty much a natural when it came to earthquakes, and where natives would freak out I'd be totally fine, and I developed a new appreciation for rain because we didn't get a ton of it, and when we did the streets would flood because the city planners hadn't understood things like drainage. I was mostly friends with my roommates' friends, and I'd follow them to parties or clubs, not because I was a follower but because that's where the cool stuff was.
When I moved to Downey, Rebecca and Jasmine were long gone, one having moved to Texas and another in with her boyfriend, though we're all still friends. Downey I was never that impressed with, to be honest. I was really poor at the time and it was close to work, and I got a discount through there and they weren't going to run my credit. But I met a couple of my best friends there, and started going out more. I became a regular at the Largo in LA, seeing the Thrilling Adventure Hour every month and Eddie Izzard every time he was in town. He used the Largo as his way to run through new material, so in three shows over about a year I saw his latest show from its very earliest incarnation into something that was polished and real. He even did fifteen minutes at the end of one show in Spanish, and I stayed because I was wondering if I'd learned enough Spanish by osmosis to understand it. (No.) And maybe I became a little more aware of my looks, but I don't know that that's a bad thing. Instead of making me self-conscious, it made me aware of how to pull myself together, to dress myself and actually make my eyebrows look like they belonged on a human face. People expected a certain thing of me in LA, and it meant that I take care of myself now, and I consider that a plus. Sure, it's kind of shallow and you're going to have to hear about the new religion trend or how someone you know knows someone famous or what's new in yoga, but for a place that can be so focused on looks it's also really damn inclusive.
And when I decided I had to move back to Chicago, even for a while, I started my bucket list and discovered so much more to California than I realized was there. I took several road trips, and went to Catalina, and visited a Frank Lloyd Wright house, and did all these things that apparently caught everyone's attention on Facebook. If I'd actually made myself do these things the whole time, I might not have left. I didn't feel like I was having enough experiences, and that I'd grown stagnant, and in leaving I realized I just hadn't been trying hard enough.
I'm actually pretty happy in Chicago. Things have changed since 2003, which helps a ton. If someone's an idiot, I can call them out on it and they'll probably realize that yeah, what they said was probably assy. I go out a lot and see a lot more of the country than I did before, and I get to be around while my friends' kids grow up, and I'm around family, and it's all pretty great. But I really wish I could just move everyone I care about to LA. I miss the weather and the people. I miss getting dragged to K-Town and getting amazing pastries from some bakery where I'm not sure what I'm eating because no one spoke English. I miss vegan restaurants and food trucks. I miss seeing amazing sunsets that I should be Instagramming along with every other person in LA, dammit. I even miss getting to parties and spending a lot of my conversations talking about how I got there and what the parking is like. There is this feeling to LA, this energy, that I can't recreate here. I really just belong there.
I only have four days, and most of my agenda is seeing people. But there are places I need to revisit, and I'm working on finding time to go back to Long Beach and get a Thai iced tea at Portofino, and maybe trying to head up to Echo Lake Park and The Last Bookstore because I didn't get to them before. While looking for things to do with some friends for a day on this trip I discovered all this other stuff I still want to do.
Next time, LA. I'll be coming back for you.
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