Los Angeles: A post-mortem

I've lived in Los Angeles for 6 full months now. 6 months and 24 days, by the time I leave for Japan on the 24th. I'm working on transitioning in order to make this blog into my Japan Blog(tm), but Hella Angeleno's original purpose was to document my LA experience, my first big move to a new city. So what did I get out of the whole thing?

I think a lot about the part of Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love" where she says that each person and each city has one word that describes their way of life. (In Rome, where she is first introduced to this theory, the word is SEX, in New York, it's ACHIEVE.) If your word doesn't match the word in your city, you're in for a lot of frustration and disappointment. I don't know what my word is, or LA's word, but I do know that this city and I don't match up on a fundamental level.

People come here to make it big. In San Francisco, most of the people I knew were from the Bay Area, with a few from Southern California and fewer still from other parts of the US. (These last ones were mostly gay people, who seemed in general to be willing to travel farther for the kind of freedom San Francisco affords.) Here, everyone is from the Midwest, from Toronto, from New York, from Honduras. Everyone--EVERYONE--is in the entertainment industry, whether as a writer, a production assistant, a producer, an office drone, a coffee-fetching intern. When the guy next to you at a coffee shop is working on his laptop and you glance over at his screen, nine times out of ten, he'll be working on a screenplay. At my old Gap store, my coworkers were mostly students; here, they're actors.

There are a lot of things I hate about LA. I hate how far apart everything is and how you have to drive to get anywhere. I hate the billboards for crap movies that no one in their right mind would want to watch. I hate the idiots lining up for American Idol (though I love American Idol). I hate how no one can stay in their fucking lane when they drive.

But to be honest, the reason I was so unhappy in the beginning wasn't because of those things, or even because of the disconnect between my way of life and the LA mindset. There was a lot of dumb luck involved, too. It rained for about a week straight when I got here. Then I got sick for a week; then it rained for another week. I couldn't find real work no matter how many resumes I sent out, and my retail coworkers were unfriendly and hostile.

There are some things I like about LA, things that wouldn't necessarily make me want to live here all on their own, but that are pleasant enough, since I'm here anyway. I like the jacaranda trees and magnolia trees and bougainvillea and honeysuckle and yes, on a good day I even appreciate the palm trees. I like the cute 50's style homes in my neighborhood. I like Melrose and Santa Monica and Silverlake and Hollywood.

And then there are things that make me think I've been wrong about this city. The main branch library, with its cozy workstations and wealth of books. The Kogi truck (seriously). Most importantly, Little Tokyo and the Japanese American community. It's so different from the community I'm used to in San Francisco. There, I sat in a stuffy back room transcribing interviews with people who had been in the internment camps; here, I handed out parking validations at a Jero concert and poured drinks for VIPs who had donated $10,000 or more to the organization I was volunteering for. I still can't quite believe how sleek and well-funded everything is (for example, the Japanese American National Museum). But despite these differences, volunteering in Little Tokyo was the one thing that made me feel at home in LA, and the one time when I met people I could really relate to. When I think about it, it even makes me look forward to coming back.

I won't lie--I'm still a little sad that I'm going to be coming back here, and not to San Francisco, when I finish JET. But I think I'll be better prepared this time. I know where to go when I'm homesick, and where to avoid (I'm looking at you, The Grove). I'll have a built-in network in JETAASC, and a more detailed plan than "get a job that is not at Gap." I'll have savings instead of debt, and Japanese language skills (useful for volunteering, getting random admin jobs, and talking to old ladies, who totally make my day).

You and me, we might not get along, but we're not through yet, LA. I'll see you around, and you better be ready for me.

Presented without commentary

A year ago, probably bored out of my skull at work, I wrote myself an email using futureme.org. It arrived in my inbox this morning.

...I'm writing this from my desk in the Diversity Office, and I'm entering an uncertain phase in my life. Ryan moved to LA a week ago, and since then I've been filling the time: learning Japanese again, transcribing interviews for the historical society, copy editing for Hyphen, watching Sex and the City, reading Anais Nin, writing in my journal, attempting to hammer out a short story. And of course driving myself crazy trying to decide whether to go on JET or not, whether to move to LA in January, etc, etc, as if I can even make these decisions right now. I think I just want to be imagining something other than this cubicle, but I am happy now, even if I constantly want to be moving on to the next thing. I hope by 2010 you've learned to breathe and take things as they come. It is not a skill I have at this point in time.

I hope you and Ryan are still doing okay with this long-distance thing (assuming it is still long-distance). That's what really kills me—I can wait to know about JET, and my career and all that, but knowing that I'm taking a risk on what I have with him by possibly leaving for Japan for a year makes me question whether it's worth it. This is something I've always wanted to do, but right now, I just wanna live with him and come home to him every day.

I hope all these concerns seem silly to you as you read this, that you've long since worked out everything you need to worry about. That's why I'm really looking forward to being you—even in the worst case scenario, by July 2010, everything will be certain. In fact, if I think about it, the only situation where things will still be uncertain when you get this email is the one I want the most. If you're going on JET right now and still with Ryan, you're probably scared to death about what will happen. I hope Japan is worth prolonging that anxiety and uncertainty for another year. I think it is.

It is, Past Me, it is. 

I climbed out of the Gap

And may I never have to work retail again.

(Actually, I still have 3 days left, which is why I went for the picture of John Krasinski instead of one of them typical Gap ads with the healthy-looking people in matchy sweaters. I was given 8 hours after I gave my two weeks notice, my budget is all thrown off, I'll have to go out of my way to pick up that pathetic paycheck on my last day in the United States, and I'm a little grumpy right now and could use the cheering up.)

誕生日おめでとう

Last year my birthday was my first day of Japanese class at Soko Gakuen.* I was in Beginning 3.

This year, my birthday was the day of LA's pre-departure orientation for departing JETs. I got to dress up,

and eat a fancy lunch with people from my region in Japan (including two going to Niigata Prefecture).

Sometimes it doesn't feel like I'm moving forward at all in life, but sometimes I'm surprised by how far I've come. 25 days till Japan.

*I highly recommend Soko Gakuen for anyone wanting to learn Japanese in San Francisco! The books they use (Basic Functional Japanese and Situational Functional Japanese) are a little ridiculous, but the class sizes are quite small (7-12 people) and the teachers are great. They're quite reasonably priced, and not nearly as overwhelming as the 5-unit classes at CCSF and SFSU, for people who want to learn but aren't able to devote their ENTIRE LIFE to studying.

Whenever I get a card from someone I haven't spoken with in a while, I can usually tell before I open it if my parents have already told them I'm going to Japan.

My aunt makes beautiful cards like this one by hand. I think I'm going to use the crane ribbon as a bookmark.

The package also included some stationery to keep in touch. First assignment: write to my dad to get him to stop laughing at my aunt.

Japan is becoming more and more real every day. I just received a welcome letter from the Joetsu Board of Education--including me, there are 8 new ALTs coming to the city this year and they haven't figured out our specific assignments yet, but they said it should come in the next week or so. Pre-departure orientation is in two weeks (on my birthday!), and I'll be putting in my two weeks' notice at work soon after that. I'm buying clothes for school and starting to think about packing. Everything is coming together.