Southwesterly

Happy July! Brian and I have just returned from our six-day journey through a couple of places that were either tried-and-true faves (me) or brand new adventures (him). A good time was had by all. Where, you ask? The Vegas and the Angeles, of course! We started by renting a car last Tuesday and driving to Vegas, taking advantage of an internet-procured $19 room in the center of the Strip. Granted there was the whole Monday-through-Thursday aspect to consider, but it was nonetheless decidedly cheap and also a little sad, recessionally speaking. Then we headed to L.A. Wednesday night and stayed there through the 4th of July.

I had not been back to L.A., really, for YEARS. Since I moved away, in fact! I was in California one time since then, for my cousin's wedding in northern San Diego County, but although I flew into L.A. I basically only lunched and spent two seconds there and definitely did not get to check out the old stomping grounds or, you know, reflect. Nostalgically. This trip I did a lot of nostalgic reflecting.

Conclusion? I still like Los Angeles. I am not even going to get into dealing with the naysayers who "don't like" that city, because most of them have not been there. I have never encountered with any other city such vast numbers of people who have not been there but nonetheless feel qualified to comment on it. Also, of course, Los Angeles is a city that is one thing when you first get there and then quite another after you have been there a year or two. Those of us who have lived there always try to tell people they cannot, they MUST not, make a final judgment about it based on Year One, although regrettably some of them do, and leave, never to know the glorious goodness of it that comes with settling in. Can you imagine judging the entirety of high school -- or college, for that matter -- based on freshman year? Horrors!

The point is, I can very very very easily see myself moving back there. Soon. This is entirely bizarre, mostly because that would mean I am not going to live in a new city, and everybody knows I want to go live in a new city. (Now, but also always.) However, I have a possible new city job in the works that would come to fruition in a while, like maybe a year or so, which means I could be somewhere for the interim, and that somewhere could happily be Los Angeles, as far as I'm concerned at the moment.

This time around we stayed in Manhattan Beach and I tried to cover the basics with Brian: USC, Westwood, Venice, Santa Monica, El Cholo, Swingers, Tito's, Mulholland Drive, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, the Sunset Strip. We also randomly ran a 5K in Redondo Beach on Saturday and then spent the afternoon of the 4th feasting our eyes on the Hermosa Beach humanity in their various stages of celebration/inebriation. Plus we took a quick dip in the Pacific Ocean, of course.

Now back in Phoenix, our task is to continue to organize, work, and save money while we plot our next big move. My favorite!