Heaven vs. Hell

What does heaven look like to you?

I always imagined that heaven looked like a big city filled with lush trees and crystal lakes, beautiful people riding bikes and hanging out at coffee shops, music drifting through the air, art being created around every corner, and a transgendered homeless man wearing a leopard print thong parading around downtown.

For all accounts, I have reached heaven. 

Austin is heavenly.

So why do I daydream about hell so often?

Hell being Los Angeles.

I don't imply that it's "hell" to live in Los Angeles, I allude to the Biblical sense- fire, brimstone, lost and torched souls, all that jazz. I'm convinced that the devil lives in the basement of the Chateau Marmont. I think I saw him getting a Bloody Mary at The Body Shop strip club before it mysteriously caught on fire in December.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to hell.

Austin, I need to be saved! 

Wipe these dirty daydreams of driving down the Sunset Strip at 2AM from my memory. Take away my longing for the cool Venice Beach sand smooshed between my toes. Show me your path to a bare toed, bicycle riding, plastic recycling, no make-up wearing future! I repent!

From November 17th:

"I miss Los Angeles.

That day, when I watched the lights of Downtown get smaller and smaller in my rear view mirror, I thought I was leaving behind all the coagulated love and hate for the city that I had accumulated inside.

I guess I was wrong.

These past few days, while listening to the music that gave soundtrack to my last year in L.A., I felt the sting in my heart for a love I thought I gave up on.

So, I've been thinking about all those nights we drove down the PCH, coked out of our minds, listening to The Cure with the top down and the warm air wrapping around our necks, holding us firmly in our place.

Or the spur of the moment trips to Palm Springs at 3AM, watching you, with your hand out the window, your sunglasses on though it was pitch black in the desert, and thinking there was no greater moment than this.

I remember the limo trips through Hollywood, driving up and down Sunset, rolling into the Whiskey, the Viper Room, the Roxy, and crashing at the Chateau Marmont where a beautiful boy and I would watch the lights flicker around the bend and head straight towards the ocean.

And then I think, "Oh shit. None of these things happened to me."

My nostalgia for the city doesn't belong to me, but to the movies, books, TV shows, and music videos I grew up watching. Just like New York City, the charm of Los Angeles is not always the reality, but the fantasy. If you believe the fantasy, you will be ok.

I guess what I miss was the feeling off holding my breathe every single day. Literally and figuratively, I grasped for air. It was dizzying. It felt good. It felt scary. It felt like at any moment ANYTHING could happen."