Pop Goes The Reality Bubble

Producer's assistant on movie set- 21 years-old, happy and carefree

Staying on theme with last Friday's post about twenty-somethings.

When I was a little girl, I always knew I wanted to work in the film business. When the opportunity surprisingly presented itself at 20 years of age, I jumped at the chance.

I was in my junior year at Ithaca College when I applied and was admitted to the communication school's LA satellite program. My father and I drove from New York to California with what I could fit in my '97 white Ford Taurus. Once settled in LA, my first task was to find an internship. I sifted through the database of internships given to us, but none of them appealed to me. I decided I would cold call companies where I knew I wanted to work (George Clooney and Steven Soderberg's Section 8, Ben Stiller's Red Hour, Drew Barrymore's Flower Pictures), but there was one actor in particular I was itching to work for. I called his office and asked if they needed an intern. They said not really but to call back in a week. I did and with little convincing got them to agree to letting me come in twice a week. The internship was painfully boring. I spent most of my time reading old scripts and surfing the Internet on an Apple Imac G3. I hated it. Is this what Hollywood is like? I wasn't learning anything!

The semester came to a close and our final project was to interview someone in the business. They suggested that we not be afraid to interview people other than the assistants, so I immediately asked if I could interview the president of the actor's company. The assistant scheduled a time for me to meet with the president and a few days later I found myself nervously asking him questions on the office rooftop. We talked for three hours and within that time the president asked me if I wanted to move to LA and be his assistant.

That very second has been the most pivotal moment in my life up to this point. If my story were a movie, that moment would have frozen in time and everything that came before then would have fast forward in front of my eyes. I reminded the president that I was only a junior in college and knew absolutely nothing about the business. He laughed and said, "You'll learn." I told him that I had to think about it and would give him an answer the next day. My memory has been escaping me as of late, but I'll probably never forget the 30 minutes after that conversation. The mix of anxiety and excitement. "She's So Heavy (I Want You)" by the Beatles playing on the radio. I already knew in the bottom of my heart what the answer would be, but I had parents, a boyfriend, and a college to explain this all to.

The first person I called was my mother, "Mom, I've been offered an opportunity that I can't pass up." I explained to her the details and being the wonderful mother that she is, she trusted my judgement. My father is gung-ho for anything so that took no convincing at all. My boyfriend suddenly knew it was the end of our relationship before I ever did.

I had three weeks after the end of the semester to tie up loose ends and move to Los Angeles. I spent most of those weeks crying. I was not fearful of making a mistake, but rather realizing that I was moving 3000 miles from the people I love and my life as I knew it was about to change forever.

Boy, was I right.

I moved to Los Angeles on June 1st, 2004. 12 days later I celebrated my 21st birthday alone and it set the precedent for a feeling that I would have for most of my five years in Los Angeles.

Being the young, idealistic 21 year-old that I was, I gave my life to that job. I worked countless hours and was proud of where I was. Was I always good at the job? Absolutely not. I didn't have the industry skills nor many of the life skills yet to deal with aspects of the job and living in Los Angeles. However, I was determined to make it work and gave it my all. I was going to make it in that biz.

Five years later, after consistent bouts of anxiety attacks, drinking myself to sleep, vapid relationships, and phone calls to my parents crying, "What does it all mean?!" I finally had to ask myself, "But make it to what in the biz? What do you actually want, Lauren?"

Director's assistant on TV set- 24 years old, tired and haggard

Having wanted to work in the film business my whole life mixed with the determination to make work the wonderful opportunity that was offered to me at 20, I was in absolute denial that I was completely and utterly unhappy.

If I wasn't happy working in the business I've dreamed of my whole life- the industry I went to college for- then what the hell am I supposed to do???

According to the NY Time's article, "What Is It About Twenty-Somethings?", we change jobs an estimated seven times in our 20's. Our parents scratch their heads when we tell them that we're unhappy with our jobs and want to try something completely different. Years ago you stuck with a job- just like a marriage- for good or for bad.

F that.

If I'm unhappy, if I'm having freakin' anxiety attacks, then I would be a fool to hang in there.
That's not to say that I haven't questioned my leaving Los Angeles. Did I make a huge mistake? Am I passing up a wonderful opportunity?

I spent the summer in between leaving the business and moving to Austin in a bewildered haze.
I'll never forget sitting at my desk realizing that I had no plan. I felt like a failure and a loser. For the first time in my life I had no idea what the hell I was doing.

After a bit of soul-searching I have now reached a point where I've again found career direction and feel optimistic with what the future holds. I also discovered that all of us- in one way or another- has become disillusioned with their major/career. I have an engineer friend who would rather be a teacher, a teacher who up and quit her job this year and had no plan B, a magazine writer who up and quit his job and moved to another city, a biology major working as a commercial editor, a comedy writer who left LA and moved to Austin for the same exact reason as mine. Not only have I found comfort in knowing that we're sailing this ship together, but that trying and discovering you don't like your profession is not failure, but just another step in getting to where you're supposed to be.

Are you working in the field you studied? Have you changed careers? Have you felt directionless before?

Tag: Narcissistic Twenty-Something Lament

"Mom, I just don't understand," I said, the phone nestled against my ear, millimeters from the tub water. "I'm living the life that I always thought I wanted, but why do I feel like there is something missing?"

I wanted to let the phone drop into the water, hold my breath, and pull my head under to see how long I could hold it for.
Under water, everything stands still for a few seconds.

Instead, I let my mother reply with her heartfelt motherly response; a response she's given countless times prior. Ever since I turned 20 years old.

I pulled the phone away from my ear and held it towards the window. Her words bounced off the pane and dissipated into the air.

I already know there is no real answer to that question.

___________________________________________

I remember the day it all stopped making sense.

It was the day I moved to Los Angeles.
It all began on the first year of my new decade in a new city.

Start line go.

Forward movement that sputtered with an untightened axle.

The feeling of dancing on wobbly feet through the streets of a wobbly city. A city that danced the same child-like dance.
And each year, the tango became more and more impetuous.

The decisions more desperate.
Drunken journal entries explained that I never understood it was part of the game. That what I was feeling was normal.

But how could it be normal?

Everything I have always known to be right and true was suddenly not.

Adults broke my heart.

The pedestal that I kept raising higher and higher, until I could no longer see what was sitting on there, came crashing down around me.

My foundation was set off by the knobby, old roots that struck through and had their way with me.

If life was going to get harder, then I would change. I would become easier.

I exited the city where the journey began, for a new spot to curl up into.

"I'm just an animal looking for a home".

And the road became less bumpy, the puzzle pieces started to fit together, and all the cliches started to make sense.

So I thought.

I've only come to realize that it will never truly make sense.

There will be many moments of clarity, but the picture will always remain hazy and off in the distance.

New experiences will happen time and time again. You will fail. You will succeed. You will feel unbridled joy and unimaginable pain. You will be good at your job. Maybe you won't know what the hell you want to do until you're 50. You will meet someone you want to spend the rest of your life with. Maybe this person doesn't love you back. You climb to the very top of the corporate ladder. You get laid off. You get married to someone you maybe didn't love as much as another. Maybe you live with someone that you never grow tired of waking up next to. Maybe you'll start your own company. You will have a child. Four children. Maybe you can't have children. Maybe you will get divorced. Maybe your spouse will die. You will lose all your hair. Maybe you'll get fat. Maybe you'll live in that 4,000 square foot house like you always wanted to. Maybe you stay home to take care of your aging parents. You'll get sued, win the Nobel peace prize, go into the Army, get arrested, save a life, almost drown, invent a special fry cooker, start a non-profit organization, go to psychotherapy, adopt a rescue dog, never know how to be a good parent, travel the world. You'll long for somewhere you once lived, or have never been. You'll dream about your first love. Maybe you will die at 40 of a heart attack. Maybe one day you give up. Or maybe you will live to 100, your life full of love and happiness and you will ease on understanding that it's all ok.

I pulled the phone back to my ear just in time to catch the end of my mother's reply.

"It never gets easier, Lauren. You just learn how to deal with life."

The World is Really Wild at Heart and Weird on Top, Lula Thought

I'm sitting in a cracked leather booth somewhere in the desert of west Texas.

I squint through the blinds and a faded sign tells me that I'm at Papa's Pantry in Van Horn.
There are three ceiling fans in Papa's Pantry.

They're lazy, just like the tongue of the waitress who brings me my iced tea.
Wait, aren't I still in Los Angeles?

Who are these two guys sitting behind me with cowboy hats?

Typically such a scene would mean I wandered onto a movie set.

But there are no lights and cameras in Papa's Pantry.

I take a deep breathe and let out a slow exhale. Somebody has finally released the nozzle and let all the air out.

It feels good.
It feels terrifying.

I slept in Lourdsburg, New Mexico last night. A railroad town, a border town. Not a ghost walked the lone sidewalk. I drove down the main drag to one cheap motel after another. Neglected and outdated signs guiding the way. They all looked the same. Midnight and stucco. Cream and rot. Somewhere in the dark, I spotted a florescent beacon that told me that was where I was to sleep.

It takes a lot to work up my nerves, but I felt I'd seen my room before. In a movie where cops discover the body of a young woman lying on the floor. I checked underneath the bed but turned up only black beetles and locusts. The room had a distinct smell, one I couldn't quite explain. It would be easy to say it smelled musty, but it didn't. It smelled frightening. Like sex and death. And I longed for someone to be here with me. Dangerous, macabre motels should not be experienced alone but with cheap liquor and someone else to feel the scratch of polyester comforters on bare skin.

Horny and melancholic, I set out on the main road to find picture-worthy landmarks to add to my epic road journal that will mean only something to me. Everything was desolate and forgotten. The motel pool hadn't seen water in years and what was left of the nearby gas station boasted $1.85 unleaded. The only signs of life were the humming of the crickets and the rhythm of the freight train. I took a few pictures in case they'd be needed as evidence when my bludgeoned body was found shoved in a dumpster around back.

My room was sweltering. I stripped down to my underwear and texted a former lover that he should be there. I drifted off to sleep but was awoken at 4AM to my TV turning on. I glanced sideways at the nightstand and noticed that the remote was still sitting there. I calmly turned off the television but told myself I should be more concerned that the TV turned itself on. I'd occasionally opened one eye to to see if a shadowy figure was standing over me and fell back into the uneasy sleep only a motel room like that could bring.

At 9:45AM a wake up call that I didn't ask for. I was hesitant to pick it up. I expected to hear on the other end a crackly voice asking where Billy was and that if I didn't put Billy on the phone right now, the crackly voice was going to come down to my room with a shotgun.

I let it ring and ring and decided it was time to go.

As I packed my car, an old John Wayne western on in the background, a gentleman with 4 teeth in his mouth introduced himself to me. His name was Ron and, "Yep, I am the owner of this here place."

"Well, Ron. It's nice to meet you."

"Where you headed?" he asked.

"Austin, from Los Angeles. Doing some soul searching, I guess. I don't know. You live here in Lourdsburg for long?"

"Grew up in Oklahoma, then spent some time at the casinos in Vegas, then bought this place. Now it's my home. See, I live directly above you."

He pointed to door above room 104. I could see through the opening that his room had the same bedding and artwork as mine. A Native American woman in pastel tones.

He wished me a safe trip and I told him that if I ever find myself in Lourdsburg again, I will stop by.

I got back in the car. Another leg. Another journey through the heart of the American Southwest. Another day of questioning. Another day of listening to "This Must be the Place (Naive Melody)" on repeat.

I followed the barrelling freight train through the desert and hoped I could muster up the same energy.

TSSF- Twenty-Something Shit Fest

For the love of God! I don’t think I’ve ever been this depressed before! This has to be the lowest I’ve ever felt in my entire life! I am so unbelievably lost and lonely right now! My brain hurts and my heart perpetually aches! I don’t think it can get any worse than this!

Just when I think my twenties have reached the pinnacle of patheticness, I flip through my diary and am surprised to discover the same sentences, word for word, written every couple of months for the past five years.

What the fuck?

Have I been this whiny for awhile now? Or do I just have a pension for exclamations and dramatic adjectives like most girls my age?

Can someone please explain to me why during the most exciting time in our lives, we are positively convinced that we’re doomed to a lifetime of soul-charring careers and vapid relationships that culminates in a house filled with an array of pets named after our favorite soap stars and a refrigerator covered in pictures of other people’s children? Jason and Melissa’s adopted Taiwanese toddler with a $50 haircut and Iggy Pop t-shirt waves at you every time you go to the fridge to grab another tub of cream cheese and mouths, “Look! You don’t even have an Asian baby with a faux hawk!”

Can anyone please explain why our decisions feel so permanent, our loneliness so detrimental, and why we feel like we’re running out of time? We all know it’s silly to feel this way, that these problems really aren’t that severe, but try telling that to a twenty-five year old who can’t hear anything because her head is so far shoved up her ass.

The Twenty-Something Shit Fest (otherwise known as the “Quarter-Life Crisis”, though will not be referred to here out of copyright and overly-used cliche concerns) doesn’t suddenly show up on your doorstep with a flaming bag of dog shit the day you turn twenty years old. No, typically at twenty, you’re still in college, maybe have a “serious” boyfriend or girlfriend, spend Mom and Dad’s money on entertainment and beer (or on DVDs starring Crispin Glover and dessert wine), and only an iota of the responsibilities and worries you will have in a couple of years. TSSF rears it’s ugly head usually when you’re about twenty-one, newly legal, out of the institutional bubble, and into the real world.

Then the fun really begins.

You jump onto dodgeball field with grit and vigor.

“Ha! This is easy!” you shout as you coolly thwart off any ball that comes your way.

Suddenly, the balls start to drill in faster and harder. Some start to hit you in the face, then the vagina. You assure your friends and family on the sidelines that you’re fine, that you can handle this, but you begin to wonder if there is machine gun of balls being shot at you. A tooth gets knocked out, then a black out. You start mumbling “I’m fine.” over and over, while you try to raise an enthusiastic thumbs up to the crowd. It isn’t until you wake up one morning next to an empty bottle of Stoli and the words “When will this end?!?” written in lipstick on your mirror that you realize that maybe this has been difficult for you.

Eh.

It’s truly awe-inspiring how dramatically one’s life changes in the short period of time that is your twenties.

In my twentieth year I was a college junior on her way to finishing her degree in film. I had a long-term boyfriend who I figured I was stuck with forever, dreams of becoming a screenwriter in New York City or Toronto (what?), only a cell phone bill to worry about and no freakin’ idea what I was in for the next few years. My twenty-first year found me quitting school, moving to Los Angeles for a personal assistant gig, leaving my boyfriend and family, and diving face first into muck of Hollywood. Ok, this is where it gets good. My twenty-second year found me fooling around with a married producer who treated me like a $40 whore, racking up credit card debt in order to survive, working fifteen hours days, and drinking myself to sleep on Friday nights by 9PM (not before calling all my friends to tell them “I’m sorry” for no reason). My twenty-third year found me going to a psychotherapist to take control of my life, learning to tell myself I’m taking control of my life when I really wasn’t, accumulating a lot of interest on my credit card debt, and still working fifteen thankless hour days. My twenty-fourth year I began doubting everything (Am I pursuing the right career for me? Am I living in the right city for me? Am I drinking the best vodka for me?) and became increasingly unhappy at work. At this point I had a series of failed mini-relationships that made me question whether dating the opposite sex was the smartest choice. My twenty-fifth year found me leaving my career, wandering aimlessly around Los Angeles trying to figure what I wanted to do with my life, deciding to move to another city then changing my mind, working at an anti-war non-profit organization for validation, deciding on moving to another city then changing my mind, deciding to focus on my writing, and ultimately jumping in my car and driving east on route 10 to Austin, Texas to find some answers. Why I thought the meaning of my life would be unearthed in Texas is beyond me.

So what I have I learned in the first half of my twenties? No matter where you go, there you are, writing the same crap in your journal as you did yesteryear. I’ve learned that this life isn’t going to get any easier. I hear good things about your thirties, but that waits to be seen. I’ve also learned that all of us are in the same boat- the U.S.S. Narcissism and that everything I’m writing about it quite simply…normal. Gasp! That’s the last thing my vintage-wearing, fake eye-glass sporting, Woody Allen referencing ass wants to hear!

Cat Piss on My Bed

After putting together a costume of Little Edie from Grey Gardens for Halloween, I realized something: as a child, the only thing I was sure of was that I was to have six ex-husbands, no children, and ultimately die alone.

While playing the game MASH with my peers, I secretly wished I could have all of my potential mates and we'd live in a big dilapidated mansion in Georgia. One big happy family. I never really thought about the logistics of it though. Where would Doc Brown, Crispin Glover, Elton John circa 1972, Beetlejuice, and I all sleep?

It looks like I off to a bad start with my Elizabeth Taylor ways (I think I had a boyfriend once a long time ago), but my feelings have not changed since I was the precocious little child lusting after fictional characters and/or gay men and wearing ties. The only thing that has changed is the slow realization that I will most likely become that crazy aunt.

Oops, never mind, I don't even have any siblings.

I will be that crazy surrogate aunt.

You know who I am talking about. We've all seen them or have them in our lives. I regularly catch them at my store with their long, wispy gray hair, lime green and mustard yellow striped socks, floor length skirt, and dark-rimmed circle eyeglasses. Their hips still small due to never bearing children and crystal blue eyes still vibrant clutched in the webbing of weathered skin.

They've had fun times, oh boy have they! Probably lived on the LES, took photos of street artists on a 35mm, and slept in a shoebox with Glenn O'Brien. Then moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico for a bit, trying to detox from a short heroin stint and created metal art. Bought a Volvo wagon and drove across country trying to write a thesis about the positive attributes of adaptive reuse. Dabbled in feminism, maybe dated a chick or two on the road. Tried Buddhism for a bit, didn't eat for four days in a row, got delusional, drove the wagon off into the desert, had an epiphany about something that was later forgotten. Ultimately landed in Austin opening up a dream catcher earrings business out of the back of an Airstream trailer.

Or, I'll end up as Little Edie. With four hundred cats pissing on everything and quietly judging me (I can proudly say that I don't currently own or feed any cats...maybe there is hope...).

Home is Where I Want to Be, Pick Me Up and Turn Me 'Round....

I've been working a lot. A LOT. So I'm recycling old stuff. I'm sorry. Here you go.

--------------------------

I wrote an essay arguing the quote, "You can never go home again". I stated that Thomas Wolfe didn't know what the hell he was talking about and you can indeed go home again. In fact, I wrote that home can be in multiple places and I took the opportunity to quote my favorite Talking Heads song in the title, "Home is where I want to be, but I guess I'm already there" (I will use any excuse to quote Talking Heads in my writing).

Actually, I think I'm the one who's full of shit. I'm 25. Why I thought I was an expert on this matter is beyond me.

As I write this, I'm in Upstate New York at the "home" I grew up in. I'm visiting from where my current "home" is in Austin, TX. However, I'm missing my "home" in L.A. where I have left most of my large possessions and a brick-walled studio apartment in Koreatown. So, one could say that my heart is in three places- New York, California, and Texas. However, my heart is broken into three little pieces and doesn't feel whole anywhere I go. 

Maybe Thomas Wolfe was right. You can't go home again. You just lay your baggage wherever you go.

September 17th, 2008....

They say, "You can never go home again."

Who says that?

I want to know!

According to Quoteland.com, it's a dude name Thomas Wolfe, but that's not confirmed.

Ok, so Thomas Wolfe maybe once said, "You can never go home again."

Well, Thomas Wolfe, you're wrong!

I think you meant childhood. If you actually wrote "childhood", you'd be spot on.

Because I'm discovering something, Thomas Wolfe- you can go home again!

When I first moved to L.A., I immediately transformed into a discombobulated head floating in the smoggy atmosphere of the city. As I waved good-bye to familiarity, I continued swimming deeper and deeper into the grey-orange abyss, only occasionally brushing against solidity. I'd touch down for a moment or two, only to be shot back up into the clouds, letting them take me wherever they'd like. My feet weren't planted here, but they were no longer planted in my hometown either. Every trip back to New York, I felt a deeper disconnect all the while reading "Less Than Zero". While I was in NY, I'd long for the bustle of L.A. traffic, the lights under Mulholland, and the smells of Venice Beach (no matter how good or bad they may be). And though I could barely wait for my plane to land at Long Beach Airport, I'd feel the energy instantly sucked out with the opening of the plane door. From there, I'd climb back into my little empty, plastic bubble waiting curbside that would carry me back through town and into daily life, always keeping my feet from touching the ground.

It wasn't until 3 years in, I noticed that the plastic film had shed away. I looked down and saw that both feet were firmly planted in the Los Angeles dirt. How my roots penetrated that compacted, dry dirt is beyond me, but they had forced through, wrapping tightly amongst the few stable anchors I could find. And there those roots have laid and will continue to lie, though I'm moving to a new city in a few days. I can't pry them, I can't sever them, I can only extend them. In contemplating this, it was then I realized that I had roots still firmly planted somewhere else too. In the place I thought I had pulled up in years ago. I traced back to my hometown, where I did some much needed cleaning and nurturing of my roots. And for the first time, I saw the beauty that lies in my hometown, in Central NY, in the place I once so desperately wanted to leave, but now felt such an undying connection to. Appropriately, I spent the entire trip looking at the grass. Something L.A. doesn't have.

Then I realized that you can have more than one home...and you can go back any time you like.

Letting the Days Go By

Shit, man! 

I just realized I ain't a kid no mo! 

And it took a 1987 sing-along at the Alamo Drafthouse to notify me.

Though the Atari and Dunkin' Donuts commercials gave me a good nostalgic beating last night, it was the first few seconds of George Michael's "Faith" music video that pushed me down into my seat. My smile faded as I watched the black and white jukebox fade into a long tilt up the ripped jeans of our impeccably groomed hero. I imagined myself at four years-old, sitting on the living room carpet watching this man shake his finely sculpted ass back and forth and thinking, "Now that is what a man looks like" (could explain some of my dating problems).

It was at that moment I realized I was a long ways away from being a child anymore.

Up until that moment last night, I was movin' and groovin' to the créme de la créme of 1987 music videos. 

Michael Jackson's "Bad"

White Snake's "Here I Go Again" 

Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive" 

After each song finished, our hearts would skip a beat waiting for the next music video to pop up. What would it be? Pastey-armed Bono in a leather vest? Adorable Whitney Houston pre-coke phase? Smoldering Billy Idol in full blown coke phase? The next video would appear on the screen, a moment of silence as recognition set in, then full crowd explosion of laughter, cheering, and dancing.

 

Then there was me.

In the very last row of the theatre, wearing a black tuxedo jacket in a weak attempt to look like Blair in "Less Than Zero", standing there, dancing anxiously, my hands clutched to my chest. As each song played, a dusty layer of blanket would lift away from the vault of childhood memory, until all that was left when "Faith" came on, was an exposed open container of the past twenty-two years that stood in between where I stood right then and the day I sat in front of that television screen bewildered by George Michael. 

I look at this picture of me and I see a woman's body and face.

And I wonder where the hell I went.

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."