Los Angeles Isn't So Bad
Welcome back to our regularly scheduled programming.
I think it’s good for a writer to fall in love with their city. At the very least, it gives them something to talk about. At most, it provides Babitz, Didion, and Chandler with the passion behind their wildly different prose and makes the reader determined to see the landscape through their eyes.
I am deeply, hopelessly, irreparably in love with a city. It’s just not this one.
After four years of hot to mild weather, being three hours behind, long lyft rides, and even longer waits at crosswalks, Los Angeles has grown on me like black mold. Things I never thought I’d understand (how a fifteen-minute car ride can take an hour by train) have become commonplace. Some days I can even see why people like it here. After all, I live here. I feel overwhelming affection for the irregularly open bodega on our corner.1 My front-facing room in our little blue house feels a lot like home. And yet…
It’s not quite.
When I arrived in L.A. in 2018, I was the most disturbed by the lack of people on the street. No one walks, and even when they do, the streets are so wide that you feel completely exposed. You might see one or two other people per each mile-long city block, and as a woman who has been frequently catcalled, followed, and shouted at throughout her life, there’s a very real strength and safety in numbers.
A friend once asked me if I feel nostalgia for small towns or wide-open natural spaces. To me, inner peace can be found walking up Fifth Avenue along the park as my black heels clack against the pavement. A quiet cloudy Sunday with cars and people abuzz in my periphery is all I need. It took four years to find the equivalent here but walking down an abandoned Jefferson at golden hour comes pretty close.
Still, L.A. and I keep clashing whether we mean to or not. L.A.’s soul exists on the “freeway.” Not a highway, like you’ll hear me call it every other day of my life. Although I’ve pushed my way into bus and train transportation here, the public transit is thrown into random neighborhoods and isn’t the veins circulating life into the city. Ask Babitz or Didion. If you really want to find real freedom in L.A., you better learn how to drive.2
As much as the city and I have come to an understanding, I doubt I’ll ever be an L.A. woman.3 I’m not the sort of person who fits with this seasonless, relaxed, spread-out sort of place. When it comes to cities, I’m wound tight, overdressed, overlit, and like living on top of people. Yellow cabs, Nuts for Nuts, and Central Park are my idea of paradise and it’s overdue that I return to them.
But not yet! So as long as I’m still 3000 miles away let’s reflect on the best and worst of what L.A. has to offer.
The Best of Los Angeles:
The beach. Nothing - and I mean nothing - beats the availability and beauty of the beaches this close to a major city. Sorry Coney Island and Rockaway. You don’t quite compare.
The entertainment jobs. Oh, the jobs that all seem to fall in your lap once you decide to leave town. I know one of you will force me back here one of these days.
Being able to wear any shoes (no matter how impractical) because I’ll barely be walking in them. This is the one thing cars are great for!
The proximity to screenings and movie premieres. I once reserved free tickets for a screening only to find myself at the premiere of The Harder They Fall with Jonathan Majors and Jay-Z, feeling like a proper L.A. girl about town.
Finally feeling like I understood this city. A man held the bus for me, and in between my transfer, I gave a homeless woman a few dollars for Easter dinner. Then another man got me into the subway station after I realized too late my tap card was empty and was about to be late for my train at Union Station. I can’t explain why this experience made me believe in karma, but it did.
All the wonderful friends I’ve made here.
Tacos.
What I Won’t Miss:
Those fucking endless waits for crosswalks. My first week here a history major tried to convince me diagonal crosswalks were actually more time effective. He did not understand who he was talking to, and I can’t wait to be back in a place where jaywalking is a God-given right.
The seeming distaste for taking public transit. I’ve perceived a certain stigma around admitting you came to the business meeting by bus, and I hate it.
The lack of community. Would someone step in if I was in a dangerous situation on a city street? I don’t know, but probably not because there’s no one on the street to begin with.4
Being so incredibly far from everything no matter where you are.
Needing to be picked up by friends or blind dates with cars and then feeling tied to them for the next five hours. This phenomenon is the true enemy of an Irish exit.
Sweating through the fall.
So what will I remember about L.A.?
Crammed Lyft rides at 2 pm and am. People clipping their nails on the Vermont bus and E line. Amazing Mexican food five blocks away and an unfortunate lack of sushi. Expensive coffee shops. Fireworks flying from every yard in our neighborhood on the 4th of July. Year-round outdoor house parties where you never have to worry about getting cold. Being late. Getting lost. Smog. People in places but never on their way somewhere.
Having a great view of the sky.
In her chapter on New York, Eve Babitz would say there’s a certain way Los Angeles allows you to think,5 but it’s no fun if you don’t want to think that way. I don’t need the extra time or slow days to linger on a reverie. I’ve trained myself to comprehend at a mile a minute, and all this time waiting around feels like a waste. Maybe New York is crowded and fast and so humid that you find yourself encompassed by a second skin and the smell of melting trash in August on 34th street, but the heat here bakes you until you’re dry to the bone.
Maybe L.A. knew this whole time I never loved it, and therefore it never loved me back. I think that’s fair. I’ve embraced it as much as I can, but cities always know who is and isn’t in them for the long haul. Los Angeles probably sensed she’s only my mistress. My study abroad boyfriend. One chapter in a three-hundred-page book devoted to my love for someone else. I don’t blame her for refusing to invest.
I walked home last night after 9 p.m. just to prove I could. Barely anyone was on the street, but I’m not as scared of being alone here these days. It was peaceful. Even beautiful. Of course, I’m starting to miss it now that I’m about to say goodbye.
Hopefully, a New York bagel clears that right up.
Reading List for this Era:
I’ve been reading books inspired by L.A. to celebrate the final days. So far, I’ve read:
Eve’s Hollywood by Eve Babitz
The White Album by Joan Didion
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
What should be next? Slouching Towards Bethlehem? Sex and Rage?
Let me know!
Recommendations for This Era
Of course, I have to recommend Eve Babitz. By far my favorite of her’s is Slow Days Fast Company, but L.A. Woman and Eve’s Hollywood are also great.
The Academy Museum! I would live in their theater if I could.
Grand Central Market. It’s touristy, I know, but every time I go I have a fantastic meal.
The Last Bookstore.
Pickles.
A date at Griffith Observatory. I never did this, but someone should.
Going on a walk to the podcast “Keep It.”
Befriending your neighbors.
Supporting your local businesses - especially a corner bodega!
STAY TUNED for part two of my reflections on the farewell tour. We’ve covered the place. Up next are the people.
It’s really a market, but it will always be a bodega to me.
Whether Maria Wyeth finds anything resembling peace in Play It As It Lays is certainly up for debate (spoiler alert: she doesn’t), but you get my point. Freeway is king.
Had to throw some love for The Doors in here.
I do believe there’s community in L.A., just not one I’ve been able to crack. I see the passion people who are from here have for this city and truly admire it, but in my experience, I haven’t had the same sense of community I’ve felt in New York.
This Chapter is called “New York Confidential” in Eve’s Hollywood.
This was an absolutely beautiful read. I have some cherished memories with you and this city, and I am saddened we didn’t get more time together. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors. The East Coast will be lucky to have you back. Thank you for being an incredible roommate and friend.