On the other hand

I know I bitched and moaned about L.A. not more than a couple days ago. And there really are some things I'll be only too glad to leave behind (see below).

But I've also lived in Santa Monica longer than anywhere else in my adult life. The last seven years have been some of the best of my life, and I'm only leaving for Virginia because the best thing of those years is there (yeah, that was tremendously shmoopy. I apologize for nothing). So there are certainly things I'll miss. To wit:

Random celebrity sightings. I think my two favorites are my first-ever, when I was in town for a friend's wedding -- Fletch co-star Larry "Flash" Jenkins at Jerry's Deli by the Beverly Center, and the time a couple years ago when Donald Sutherland walked into the mailbox place up the street from my apartment to pick up a package.



The tremendous burgers this town has to offer. I had me a double-double, animal style, the other day, and also love Fatburger, Big Tomy's on Pico and Sawtelle and the fancy ones at Father's Office and The Counter. If you haven't spent time here, chances are you don't know that for all the hippy-dippy stuff that filters back to the rest of the country, this here is a burger town.

This guy.

Average February temperature: 57.6 degrees.

I can walk to the beach, and to get there I descend a cliff and walk over (or under, if I go a little out of the way) one of the iconic roads in America. That is pretty cool.

And, of course -- and here comes the shmoop again -- the tremendous friends I have here, both ones that were already here and those I managed to make after I arrived. Five months after I moved here the job I moved here for evaporated. Had it not been for the likes of them, who took me to my first Comic-Con and got me the job I'm taking east and hung out at Jumbo's Clown Room that one time, I'm not sure I would've lasted this long. So thanks.

(A version of this post, along with the one below it, also appears on Big Action!)

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Things I won't miss about L.A.

It's six days and counting till I vacate the premises in Santa Monica, for the greener ('cause it actually rains there) and more humid (but air-conditioned!) pastures of Charlottesville, Va., where there's no beach but where the coolest girl in the world lives (that's her over in the right-hand column. So I'm starting to look around, think about my time here and whatnot, and I realize that, for all the cool stuff that's here, there are certain things I really won't miss a whole lot.

Such as:

Pizza. I've lived here seven-plus years and never found a really, really good local pizza within delivery range of my apartment. I like Dagwoods, I like Bravo on Main Street, I like a couple other places just fine. But I've been to C-ville once and have already had better there.

Traffic. I know, duh. My ultimate L.A. traffic story: The night we all were going to gather to toast the life of Hunter S. Thompson at the Marmont, I left here about an hour before the appointed time. Forty minutes later, I had reached Bundy -- which is a little over 2 miles from me. I turned around, came home, poured myself a bourbon and toasted over the phone.

The fact that I know the names of people who design restaurants and clubs -- not just chefs, not owners, but people who decide what colors the walls are. There are many aspects of the cool-chasing douchebag culture of this town that bug me, but that I might be as interested in the person who hung the lantern above my table as the person putting the food in front me is right near the top for me.

Frozen yogurt wars. I will leave Los Angeles never having tasted Pinkberry, not caring whether it's really yogurt, not having entered any of the other places with names that sound sort of like they're translated from another language and definitely not having ever stood in line for frozen fucking yogurt.

The possibility that an addled starlet might run me off the road, and that it would lead the local news if she did.

This guy.

Stories like this in my local paper. Love that subhed -- "You needn't have just emerged from a rehabilitation center or a jail cell -- or both -- to dress like you have." Just ... I don't ... seriously? ... because ... oof. I really, really hope this is tongue-in-cheek, because otherwise I just might have to cry.

The deeply annoying tendency of businesses around here, whether radio stations or car dealers or beachside eateries or cheesy tourist traps, to call themselves "world famous."

This isn't a complete list. I could go on at length about, say, hipsters or how many times I've almost been struck by cars when I was out running, because people don't seem to realize Cher's "I totally paused" line from Clueless is not, in fact, the rule of the road. But that's enough for now.

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