Thoughts on Moving to California

From the moment I made the decision to pack up my life and lug it across the country to the West Coast, one thought dominated my brain for every waking moment of my existence: have I made the right choice? The reasoning behind my decision was sound: I wanted to be a screenwriter and the industry was in Los Angeles, but that fact didn't help assuage my doubt. I was leaving the city of my birth, all of my friends and everything I'd ever held dear, for a wholly uncertain future, and to top it all off I was bringing my girlfriend with me as well, separating her from her family and dragging her to a city that being an urban design major, she wasn't so sure she was going to even like.

Was I making the right decision? Or was I ruining my life, and more importantly the life of one of the few people I truly love?

As we began our road trip and passed through the Poconos mountains with the sun setting behind them, my doubt evaporated like mist. The sheer adrenaline-fueled thrill of a road trip made me feel alive and hopeful. The possibilities of my future seemed as endless as the road itself, and in all honesty I had rarely felt as alive as I did during those twelve days.

I never wanted it to stop, but it had to, and as we crossed the Nevada/California border and stopped at an In n' Out Burger in the shithole that is Barstow, the doubt returned and settled in my gut like a rock. Our sadness was palpable as we approached Los Angeles, and the week we spent in a Korea Town hostel didn't help much either. Alison was miserable, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get that nagging doubt out of my brain:

Did I make the right decision? Did I ruin Alison's life?

All things considered, we did pretty well for ourselves. In our first ten days in Los Angeles we found, rented and moved into a new apartment and I found and secured a job. Though low-paying, it was a steady, 40 hour a week position and at first I was overjoyed. I had spent the past two years searching fruitlessly for work, only managing to get shitty, low-paid or unpaid temp positions and getting fired from production gigs because I can't drive a pass van. I was convinced there was something wrong with me, something preventing me from getting even the most menial of professions. So getting a job right off the bat after moving to L.A. was a huge ego boost. Unfortunately, it's a terrible, long commute, and there's a lot more I wish I could say about it, but I signed an NDA, the company's super-secretive and I already spammed my website address to all my coworkers, so if I say anything about it I will surely be fired.

The point is, I was feeling more mature, and still do. Even my parents agree. Sure, there's A LOT I could still improve on, but overall I'm feeling like a mildly responsible adult. Unfortunately, being a responsible adult also seems to mean that you spend you're life being stressed and tired. I took this stress out on Alison for the first month of our new residency, as our roles had been flipped and I now had a job and was gone all day while she sat at home unemployed. I quickly realized she was suffering from the same depression I had experienced for two years and my insensitivity and hypocrisy shamed me. At the beginning of November Alison found a job, a much better one than mine, and since then, relationship-wise at least, we've been doing great.

Good times.

As an East Coaster, California is both inviting yet strange. The state seems obsessed with being different and unique from the rest of the union, from the lack of Dunkin' Donuts to the weird car registration rules and fascist-esque border control you have to pass through when taking Route 5 from Las Vegas. People here have their own dumbass slang like "radical," a word that makes me roll my eyes every time I hear it and one I refuse to ever say, no matter how long I live here. Oh, I'm sorry Californians I didn't realize we were still in 19-fucking-95.

For the most part, the people here are friendly and laid back, though with Angelinos their city pride is great to a fault. As a New Yorker, I obviously believe my hometown to be the greatest place on Earth, but I admit it has its faults, faults that made me leave it for greener pastures as it were. Angelinos think L.A. is the best city on the planet, even though it clearly isn't, and refuse to hear otherwise, admitting only that the traffic is "a little rough," a hilarious understatement. The argument I've heard more than once, including from fellow NYU graduate Ilan, is that "I can do things here I would never be able to do in New York," i.e. mountain climbing, surfing and other outdoors-y type activities. The thing is that the majority of Angelinos don't take part in any of this, don't even visit the beach (I haven't even been to the beach yet) and just drive to and from work in gridlock while eating a cornucopia of fast food. They also claim New York "smells" even though most of us pick up after our dogs and our city isn't blanketed in an ominous death cloud of smog. Just sayin'.

This isn't to say the city isn't nice. It's got a lot going for it, and I moved here because the brief time I spent here in the past really drew me to it. It's unlike any other city, and there's something inherently charming about it. One of the things I always liked about L.A. was the way it felt less like a city, and more like a bunch of very disparate neighborhoods smushed together and connected by a circulatory system of freeways. However, I didn't realize just how true this observation was until I moved here.

Angelinos are obsessed with their neighborhoods. Hell, it's about 50% of what they talk about. "Where are you from?" "Costa Mesa." "Oh dude, radical. I LOVE Costa Mesa. There's this great bar there. I went to high school in Huntington Beach..." etc., etc. Yes, New York has a lot of diverse neighborhoods, but it's not really the same thing. In New York it's all about the boroughs; neighborhoods are secondary and not as definitive to one's personality. Nothing felt as telling about this aspect of Angelinos than this conversation I had recently.

Work Friend's Friend: Where do you live?
Me: Valley Village.
WFF: Oh, I LOVE Valley Village.
Me: Really? Most people I speak to have never heard of it.
WFF: Nah, it's great. It's not Studio City or Sherman Oaks, and it sure as hell ain't dirty-ass North Hollywood.
Me: I know!!

That's another thing. I technically live in the City of Los Angeles, but most Angelinos, at least those that live in the more centralized areas of Hollywood, Downtown and Santa Monica, don't consider the San Fernando Vally to be L.A. We're kind of like second class citizens (not really, I just wanted to say that) and of course there's the whole stereotype that comes with it, i.e. "oh-my-god-get-OUT" Valley girls. In fact, I find it kind of ironic that I went to all this trouble to move to Los Angeles and ended up getting an apartment in what is essentially the suburbs. However, all the apartments we looked at in places like Hollywood were really scuzzy and overpriced- the one we have now isn't amazing, but it's great for the price and worlds above what we were living in in New York. Can't really knock L.A. on that front- for the most part the real estate is cheaper and superior to NYC. Alison and I are satisfied with what we have right now, but we're thinking about moving to Culver City if I start making more money, as it's a really nice neighborhood that's a bit more centrally located and closer to where we both work in El Segundo.

The hardest thing about the move has been making friends. This task has been laid solely on my shoulders, as I actually knew a few people here before heading out and Alison is quite shy, and while I've made some strides, I would be hesitant to say I have any true friends yet. There's possibilities, but nothing like the buddies I had back in New York. Obviously that was a different situation entirely. My group of friends back home were comprised mostly of people I had met in college. When we first met we were young, adventurous and lived in close proximity, so we bonded quite quickly, a bond that never really broke. We were also quite similar in a lot of ways, mainly on our philosophical/social outlook. We had overlapping interests like music and videogames and the like, but what really kept us together was the fact that we shared a very similar liberal point of view, and could agree with each other on nearly every social and moral issue.

I haven't really found the same sort of kinship here yet, and it's making me realize just how much I miss and love my NYC friends. I've had a weird history of friendship. As a child, I never had that "one best friend who you're friends with for life" like you see in movies, rather I would have a best friend for a year or two, and then move on to another. I was also friends with a lot of bullies as a kid, who bullied me, and in turn made me bully others. It was not a healthy relationship. This sort of crossed over into high school, where I was part of a clique that was definitely the most interesting and artistic kids in school, but also the biggest assholes. We were terrible to each other and I only ever really made bonds with a few of them.

But my college friends were true friends, friends I hope don't forget about me while I'm gone as I would like to be friends with them for life. And since the circumstances of our friendship were so specific, I'm worried I won't be able to replicate it here. Don't get me wrong: I have met a lot of very cool and interesting people here, mostly through work, and could end up being good friends with some. I've appreciated hearing a variety of opinions and points of view, many I'm not used to hearing, and discussing a wealth of topics and issues with people whose opinions differ from mine. And I keep telling myself: everyone's entitled to their own opinions. Most people don't agree on everything, and even you and Alex and Max and Bob and Jordan would differ on things from time to time. Put your differences aside, for the sake of friendship. These are good people at heart, even if some of their thoughts and opinions seem "bad" to you from a philosophical point of view. It may be frustrating that they don't agree with you on everything, but it's not worth it to stop your budding friendships.

But it's hard. I'm a really opinionated guy, and I take my opinions and convictions very seriously. I find it a lot easier to forgo cultural tastes than social viewpoints- for example, my friend Jordan (who has the most bizarre taste in culture, I might add) didn't like District 9 but I'm still his friend, and Alex Deschamps doesn't like the Arcade Fire and once said he doesn't enjoy bands "with girl singers" but he's still my best friend. But it's a bit harder when someone questions whether bisexuality is real and says things like "once you stick it in the butt, you're gay" or when you realize some of your work friends are a bit more passionate about the death penalty and state-sponsored torture than you might like. That being said, I do work with 99% guys, guys who vary in their maturity and like me, are all obsessed with videogames and other facets of the geekosphere, not to mention that men, particularly American men, are notoriously insecure about their sexuality. I'm not, and I am very supportive of gay rights, so much so, that I now cringe every time I hear someone use "gay" as a euphemism for "lame," which let me tell you, I hear A LOT. Hey, I'm not perfect- I used to do the same, particularly when playing videogames, though to be fair I did it mostly as a joke. But once I decided that I support gay rights I realized I had to stop saying it, and it's hard interacting with people who haven't made that step forward.

But this talk of homosexuality is a discussion for another time- the point is that I feel in order to make some new friends, I may have to bite my tongue from time to time, and anyone who knows me will tell you that is a very, very hard thing for me to do.

Overall, I wouldn't say I'm depressed here, but I am stressed an I am nervous about my future. I'm a sucker for the news, so world affairs and politics bum me out to no end and add to my anxiety, but I'm worried that essentially: I'm 25 and my life is basically already over. I'm destined for a life of menial corporate desolation, and like my parents before me, will never be able to make it as an artist. I know, I know- that's a very irrational way of thinking, and I don't truly believe it- in fact, in general I have been much more optimistic than I once was. But after making this trek, a trek whose main purpose was to get me a job as a writer- I haven't written a single thing. For a while I tried getting some contacts to help me find a manager or agent for my script The Dead of Night, but nothing ever came of it. Then I decided I wanted to revisit a neo-noir novella I had been writing for a contest before I left NYC and flesh it out into a full-fledged novel, but after reading James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia and taking about thirty pages of notes, I decided I just didn't have the creative spark for the project and shelved it for the time being. Now I'm planning on writing another spec script, this time for American Horror Story and will probably actually go through with it, but I'm still plagued by doubt, and doubt is a cancerous thing. I doubt my own work and my talent (or lack thereof) and that makes me paranoid that I'm not a born writer, because if I was, I would be an arrogant dick who thought he was god's gift to screenwriting and could end a television show with an existential scene in a church, but I'm not, so I feel like I'll never succeed because most of the people who succeed in life, especially artists, are total dickbags. And then I wonder: would I rather be a nice person who's unsuccessful and unhappy, or a dickbag who has a shelf lined with Emmys and Golden Globes?

The doubt is always there, and I always find myself thinking:

Did I make the right decision?