It's raining in Los Angeles today.
As I sit at my new desk, in my new room, in my new apartment, I hear both the voice of my new roommate drifting up from downstairs and the sound of the rain on the other side of my little balcony door.
I arrived yesterday just after 1pm, after a fairly nondescript morning driving out of Arizona and into California. The Arizona sky was clear and bright over the red ridges on either side, while things grew more overcast and, yes, smoggy as I grew nearer to Los Angeles.
After my first welcoming taste of LA traffic, I turned into Los Feliz and down Alexandria Avenue to where my roommate Bing stood waving me down. He directed me into our driveway, past a row of cars on the left and in between a wall and a chain-link fence to the assigned spots. We both remarked that it was a tight fit for CJ's big build, with less than six inches of clearance for the mirrors on either side, but the spot sat right beside our front door, which helped with the unloading.
Bing showed me around the apartment, which remains way more than I could have imagined as I pored over empty, expensive studios several weeks ago. Even now, I'm sitting at a wall-mounted desk with my books in a bookshelf, a candle on a small chest of drawers, and my clothes neatly tucked away in a walk-in closet.
I spent every spare moment yesterday setting the room up, as I have always had a thing about unpacking immediately. All of the bankers boxes were emptied except for one bound for work, one full of personal files, and another half-full of kitchen stuff that now seems somewhat silly for moving in to someone's existing home. Did I not think Bing had knives?
I also got my social rounds going early, driving over to Hollywood to meet Seamus and Vince in the midst of their (and really mainly Seamus's) self-guided Raymond Chandler tour. After realizing we were all underdressed for Musso and Frank's and thus could not hobnob with the Marlowes of the present day, we reconvened at Stout for burgers and, in my case, a post-drive celebratory beer.
That dinner, this morning's trip to Target, even last night's walk over to Seamus's to watch Rick and Morty, it all feels so surprisingly normal. I could almost forget that I just moved my entire life across the country to resume my career, rebuild a settled life, and in some ways construct a routine from scratch. Despite this pleasant familiarity, the months to come will be filled with new adventures, or so is my intention in being here. With the traffic, the cost of living, and a million idiosyncrasies, LA demands you live a life worth the effort of residing here. I think I'm ready to give it a shot.
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