I was raised forty-five minutes from a city that many dream of moving to when they’re older, whether it be uptown or downtown, for finance or for theatre or for who knows what, they just want to move there.

And I went to college in an idyllic city designed to look good in the rain, where being a freak was encouraged and celebrated, and you could see at least two mountains from almost any given point downtown.

When I moved to Los Angeles, friends from both places that I used to call home turned up their noses. “Why would you want to move there?”  they asked.  ”Do you know what the air quality is like?  I hear there are a lot of carjackings.  And the people.  Ugh.  There’s no culture in Los Angeles!”

I’ve written before about the fact that it takes a while to get used to living La Vida Los Angeles, and that I believe that everyone, within their first year or two here, has some sort of breakdown where they think that they can’t do it.  For me, it was the minute I stepped foot into my first sublet, an apartment in Hollywood with rotting food in the refrigerator and absolutely no street parking.  I curled up under my pink tie-dyed college comforter, ate a lot of strawberry licorice, and watched Judge Judy on the one channel that my beast of a television got in with no antenna or cable.

This winter, I got together with friends in New York City, taking the same train that I used to take when I was in high school, or younger, traveling in for the day with my mother to see a show or go to MoMA.  And while it was good to see my friends, friends from high school who I hadn’t seen for years, all I could think about, as I passed out in an amazing, old apartment in Brooklyn, complete with dark wood floors and a feeling of antiquity, was that I couldn’t wait to get back to my drafty, but bright, apartment blocks from the beach in Santa Monica.

To those who complain about the traffic here, I tell them that that’s the only time in the day where I’m by myself, and can listen to my music at full blast or call my mom or just sit quietly and think about all the things I don’t - or can’t - let myself think about at any other time during the day.

And to those who complain about the air quality, I tell them to hike with me in Topanga or Malibu, and breathe in and see how it feels.

To those who complain about the lack of culture, I would take them to the Hammer and LACMA and to my friends’ improv comedy show ever Wednesday, and Bergamot Station and downtown LA, to see new art and new film and new people doing new things, all of whom make me want to pound the keys harder than I have ever wanted to before.

To those who suggest that LA is a vapid city with nothing to offer, I’d just show them the thousands of photos I’ve taken of some of the best people I’ve ever known, those who have been here long before me and those who have arrived since.  And I’d also ask them what they do on the weekends.  If they go to movies, well, guess where most of those film canisters came from?

I miss the New York/New Jersey area for the pizza and the egg rolls and my family.  And I miss Portland because I could be a freak there, and they have a used bookstore that’s a city mile wide, and there are some of the best people there too, not to mention four wonderful years of my life.

But every day in Los Angeles, I wake up proud and grateful to live under palm trees and sunny skies, bursting with possibility.

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