i moved to los angeles!
and will soon be finding myself in the process (if all goes according to plan)
Every day for two months now, I’ve thought about sitting down to write. I’ve had so much on my mind, so much to say, so much to document. But time, as time does, slipped by, and the days stretched on until it was May, and then it was June, and there was July, life happening wildly and sneakily in between.
The jumble of moving, unpacking, settling in, and having a runny nose to top it all off (ringing in my fourth time of having COVID-19) has made for a solid few weeks of headspin. I knew this time would come and I knew it would be hard, and it was—in ways I expected and ways I did not.
Not surprising:
Moving is hard. Your back aches. Your bangs stick to your forehead, and your lower back becomes a pool of sweat, eventually attracting settlers near its banks and a thriving tributary of trade via steamboat. Your lover shouldn’t see you like this, and yet he does. You feel pain in parts of your feet you’ve never been consciously aware of. You become so tired of moving glorified junk from one dusty corner to a box to a slightly less dusty corner that you decide to say to hell with it and get rid of everything you’ve ever owned. Well, not quite everything, but you tell yourself that a few lead-paint-riddled mugs you haven’t used in years is a good place to start.
Surprising:
How painful it is to realize that you have no close friends down the street or a short drive away, even after spending months anticipating that reality. For weeks before I moved, I’d lie awake at night, shaking with anxiety about leaving all my people behind.
I imagined how lonely it would feel: I pictured myself curled up, knees to my chest, melodramatic sobbing, and the camera rising upwards to an aerial view in a slow spin, Lizzy McAlpine playing, and I’m crying because I’m desperately lonely and I’m crying because I actually really like Lizzy McAlpine and I’m mad at myself for hating her music so furiously for so long, and I’m crying because the person inside me who makes such critical judgments of others art is the same person that once judged my art and somehow I’ve become that person both to my self and to others and that this criticalness stems from self-consciousness and my own preoccupation with who I am and how gets in the way of my brightest self and is why no one will ever truly feel comfortable in my presence because I’m not truly comfortable with my own presence, which is why I will never make another friend and be invited to have dinner with them in their home, ever again, for all of eternity.
I’m sure it comes as a shock to discover that this is not actually how it happened.
The realization crept in while planning how I’d spend my birthday. I have friends here, yes. Friends I admire and that I would like to get to know much better. I also have friends I have literally just made in recent weeks and even days, and I would like them to be at my birthday gathering, but I also just hung out with them for the first time less than 14 days ago, and imagining them singing “happy birthday” without knowing basically anything about me besides what was discussed in our quite nice but quite short time together fills me with intense dread and embarrassment.
Sometimes you just crave, no matter how good of company you’re in, a room full of people who already know all of your stories.
Not surprising:
I miss my friends, and it hurts!!
Surprising:
It hurt even though I knew it would hurt and somehow that surprises me!! Anticipating pain doesn’t make……pain…less….painful ????????? and perhaps it could be argued, that in some cases, anxiously anticipating pain can make it even more painful??????? and that perhaps one should live in the present and experience joy, boredom, contentedness, and pain as they come from moment to moment?????????
Nope! Not gonna process that one!
So, anyway, I am having this birthday gathering, and both new friends and near-strangers will be more than welcome. Maybe this will be a fast track to deepening our friendship! Maybe I should make everyone give a toast with their favorite memory of me as the prompt—just to see what happens.
At the very least, I’ll have Adam and Pepper by my side: the two beings who see me every day at both my worst and my best, who are in this whole new city/new state/new home/new dreams thing with me. I would desperately love to know what Pepper’s favorite memory of me is.
Not surprising:
Your dog freaks the fuck out when you move. She quakes with fear for hours at a time. Every noise is something that’s out to get her. Someone else has been peeing on this lawn, and she must secure the perimeter to make sure they never return via all-day prowl.
Surprising:
Your dog’s worst bite to date is on your boyfriend’s leg a day after you move in. She’s snapped at others and nipped a few friends throughout the past year (for which I feel endlessly sorry for not knowing how to properly prevent at the time of their occurrence), but had never bitten anyone this bad, let alone so out of the blue or with someone she’s been so familiar and affectionate with.
I spent my first actual day living in LA trying to figure out what I was supposed to do with my very bad dog. Was she too much of a danger to us? To others? Did she need to be put down? Could someone else handle her better? Was it all my fault? Was there anything, absolutely anything, that I could do?
The internet will answer all these questions a million different ways. I felt sick and grief-stricken coming to terms with the fact that, based on both California and Colorado law, she had already reached her strikes and would be considered out should animal control step in. But I wasn’t ready to give up—and I’m still not. Things had (and still have) to change.
I’ve never had an aggressive or reactive dog before, so I’m trying to give myself grace throughout this process. This is all our first time living, and I sure as hell wasn’t born with a solid understanding of dog behavior and how to navigate when they use their very sharp teeth to defend the places, people, and things they instinctively feel they must.
Not surprising:
Muzzles solve so many problems and quell so many worries.
Surprising:
How damn long it took me to get her one. It’s not that I was against it, it’s that it didn’t pop into my head even once as a comprehensible option until this past month. When your dog just sorta nips at a couple of people a couple of times, you’re not seeing them as this evil, bloodthirsty dog that needs a cage on their face.
Instead, you think, well, no one was actually hurt. It was a one-off, or maybe a two-off, and if you and your guests just walk on eggshells around her at all times, and no one slips up and forgets that she’s not a normal dog that reacts normally to normal things, then everything will be completely fine!
I wish it hadn’t taken a worse bite for me to realize she needed to wear a muzzle. And that it’s not that sad. And that she doesn’t even mind it anymore now that she gets treats everytime I put it on her. And that instead of being scary, she just looks scary, but in kind of a cool way now, like Bane from Batman.
If Pepper were a movie character, she’d absolutely be Suzy Bishop in Moonrise Kingdom, finding the “Coping With the Very Troubled Child” book above the fridge, and I’d be Frances McDormand, combing glass out of her hair, asking “Why is everything so hard for you?”
In many ways, I’ve also been Suzy in this process, and Adam’s been an exhausted Frances McDormand, wondering how the hell he ended up with two troubled women in his life, patiently picking glass out of my hair and Pepper’s fur. And in many ways, Adam is perfect, and I don’t know how he handles life and immense change with such grace.
A question I’ve been asked quite a few times since settling in is: how does it feel?
Naturally, it feels like a lot of things! But mostly very, very, very good—in some cases, even better than I could have fathomed. I knew it wouldn’t be all pain and loneliness and suffering, but I truly didn’t expect to feel so at home here so quickly. The people I’ve met have been kind and patient and honest. The nature is stunning. The food has been excellent.
There’s a street taco stand just minutes from me that makes the best tacos I have eaten in my entire life. I am not being hyperbolic. $18 will get you eight of them (which Adam and I share, of course), plus a cup of horchata (which I selfishly take extra large sips of when he’s not looking).
In this economy???
Truly, a last vestige of pre-inflation America, dripping on my jeans as I shovel another one down.
My neighborhood is nestled in a valley between dozens of rolling hills, all adorned with the cutest hilltop homes you’ve ever seen. I walk up a nearly perfect 90-degree angle slope, calves burning, lower back tributaries flooding, heart racing, Pepper chugging along like it’s nothing, and suddenly I’m at the top, seeing all of Eagle Rock in all its lush green glory.
There’s a dog park within walking distance that’s prettier than most human parks I’ve seen. It’s the one place Pepper runs freely in all her silly and goofy glory, and the place I feel most proud and confident to be her owner, especially as she’s jumping around and over other dogs, running back and forth in her strange spasmatic way, causing everyone watching to laugh and sometimes point saying, “What the hell is that dog doing?”
Pepper is an entertainer, at heart.
Adam and I are happy with the life we’ve built and are still building. We love our little home with color and light just about everywhere. Against all odds, we still love our very bad dog. I’m finding my bearings. I’m slowly unlocking new parts of my game map by walking down a new street every day. I’m sitting outside on my patio every morning, hearing birds sing in the hills, thinking, “How the hell did I get so lucky, to leave one beautiful place for another?”
There is still so much left to do. There is still so much to discover. There is still so much more to say. I have a gut feeling that I’ll get around to it, eventually. For now, I’m off to see a Sunday matinee marionette show with friends—because that’s just what you do here.
✶
One of the many Lizzy songs I can’t stop listening to. I’m sorry I ever doubted you.
The song I listened (and cried) to as I drove out of Laporte. Because of course.
And finally, the song my neighbor was blasting from his parked truck at full volume as I wrote the bulk of this. Usually, he’s blasting rap or corridos, so this one was an unexpected addition to the playlist. I’m not even joking when I say this song might be best when played at full volume from an idling truck at 11pm on a Friday night.
proof of life!
^kinda cute, right? haha.. right??