Thought of the day:

LA: It beats moving.

Think I could sell it to the chamber of commerce?

Sorry, just bitter today because of some particularly bad doses of LA traffic lately, much of which can be blamed on the outlying suburbs (bluch!) rather than the actual incorporated city of Los Angeles.

Someone told me this week that the LA suburbs were all cities, because there weren't any cows. Uh huh. She also said I just needed to get out of LA and into the suburbs and I'd like it much better there. Right, since the things keeping me sane in the land of smog and nuts (fruits are fine with me) are non-mainstream things the suburbs completely lack, like seedy ethnic restaurants full of food I can't identify and people speaking languages I don't understand.

So almost 7 months later, what about LA have I decided I really dislike, rather than simply needing to get used to it?
1) The need to drive to so many places, either because time is money (hmm, three hour bus ride or twenty minute drive?) or because you honestly, truly Can't Get There From Here on public transit.
2) The traffic resulting from point #1.
3) "Actors" taking all the odd jobs away from the rest of us.
4) The city's emphasis on beauty and youth (see point #3), resulting in pages and pages of plastic surgery ads even in the "alternative" newspaper.
5) That points 1, 2, and 4 are true, thus making LA much closer to its stereotype than I'm comfortable with. I hate it when people/things conform to type.
6) Segregation, gerrymandering, the gap between public and private schools, and various other social policy/urban planning ills I don't have the time/space/full understanding to get into just now.
7) I've met more people I don't want to know than I have since...high school.

Okay, so why does anyone live here?
1) Duh, the climate: 50F is "freezing cold," it never snows, it rarely rains, it's usually sunny. The smog isn't much of a factor on my side of LA. Plus, you can't feel most of the earthquakes.
2) Unlike many LA gringos, I like the Mexican influence and the fact that there's no 50%+ ethnic majority. It gives the city an interesting flavor I've seen nowhere else, not to mention dirt-cheap burritos.
3) Since the traumas of the early 90s, I believe that even inner-city LA is on the rise, not declining. The city in general feels positive in a way that Boston and San Francisco certainly don't.
4) I live five miles from the Pacific Ocean.
5) The regional travel opportunities are amazing. A few hours' drive to San Diego, Mexico, Las Vegas, the gorgeous central coast, and a whole slew of deserts, mountains, and national parks. Short, cheap Southwest flights to places like San Francisco and Phoenix.
7) It's cheaper than anywhere I've lived since central Connecticut.
8) Look, it's the second biggest city in America. It's like someone threw New York on the kitchen table and squooshed it with a rolling pin: somewhere in the sprawl, you'll be able to get anything you could possibly want at any hour of the day or night.
9) With 9 million people in LA county, I'm bound to make a friend or two eventually.

Rick and I agree: after he's got his PhD, we're outta here. Until then, it'll be an interesting five or six years -- and no moving.