Cue Randy Newman: 8 Reasons to Love LA

It was Girls' Night at mi casa last night (Four young women in sweatpants drinking tea and listening to jazz records - Take a step back, boys, you're embarrassing yourselves) and while conversation revolved around the usual (Five Strategies to Reboot My Career! Single Men in Los Angeles: Attractive, Creative, Elusive), my friend Anastasia made a comment that stuck with me: "I need to fall back in love with LA".

In the moment, we pleaded with her not to jump ship and promised to romance her with rooftop cocktails and trips to Palm Springs but it got me thinking: I've always believed that you can make a home wherever you are, that "home" begins with you and is your own creation, but as I settle into LA and enjoy a lightness and sense of belonging that I've never experienced before, I wonder...  should this be what we aspire to? Should everyone live someplace that they "love"? And, if so, what should we be looking for? What does it even mean to "love" a place?

I don't have any answers, it's just something I'm chewing on, but I do really love where I live and for me that means feeling like my community is a natural extension of myself. My LA is bountiful farmers' markets, cheap live music, margaritas by the beach and trail hikes with my dog. It's also writing and acting. LA has a bad rap for being "All About The Business" but I find it really stimulating to be part of a city that is so creatively charged. Being successful here demands your full intellect. You are called on every day to question, rework, edit, alter, innovate. You are also called on to provoke; whether it's laughter, tears or tension everything you create needs to be infused with emotion. It's at once exhausting and exhilarating and I find it really satisfying.

That said, my friend Anastasia is not part of the industry. The thrill of creation is not going to woo her. But I happen to think that, even independent of the entertainment business,  LA is an all-around wonderful place to live so, for her, here is my list of  8 Reasons to Fall In Love With LA:

1. Hiking. Right here. Like, really. Right. Here. No, you're looking too far. Here.
2. Strawberries in winter. I don't know about you but, where I'm from, you only get strawberries for about three weeks in June and they do not taste of sugary sunbeams like these do.
3. Pink sunsets. Especially driving the PCH. You are instantly transported to an '80s movie.
4. Night jasmine. It smells like the Moon is taking a bubble bath! This makes me so happy.
5. No bugs. I don't know where they are and I feel like maybe it's not a good thing that I never see them because aren't they an essential part of the ecosystem? but I definitely don't care. I accept whatever environmental apocalypse comes of this. You cannot put a price on a summer night without mosquitoes.
6. Average rainfall = 13 inches. Which means no mold, which is huge. Also, it means that precipitation becomes a celebration of woolly blankets and hot chocolate instead of a force of evil that ruins your favorite shoes.  
7. Cheap  beauty treatments. One advantage of living in a youth - obsessed city? Lots of competition driving down prices. Where else can you get anti-cellulite treatments for $40? I think there are entire states that don't even have anti-cellulite treatments available to them, never mind for $40. Count your blessings.  
8. Palm trees. Party in a tree. They look like Muppets or  a family of Dr. Seuss characters. I submit that your worst day is less worse here because you are surrounded by palm trees.

Now, I know you can find palm trees lots of places and go hiking lots of places and I'm sure those cities are all great, too. I'm not saying that I love LA to the exclusion of all other locations the world around. This is just my way of giving a warm shout-out to a city that makes me feel at home. Stay, Anastasia! Stay!

How about you? What do you love about where you live?

Happy New Year! We're All Gonna Die.

I'm feeling particularly mortal this New Year. Perhaps it's because I spent the better part of last week walloped by bronchitis and the flu and hazily wondering if I was dying. Perhaps it's because I'm officially riding the 5-year descent to 40 years old and feeling fragile. Perhaps it's because I've been watching marathons of Six Feet Under. However it came to be, the fact is that death has been on my mind, and is often on my mind, and I can't seem to shake it and no one else around me appears to share my preoccupation.

It came up just the other night at Starbucks with my friend Melanie. I expressed my horror over the recent story of a Northern California family being washed out to sea as they tried to save their dog caught in the undertow. The one surviving daughter watched it all unfold from the shore. "One minute you're playing fetch and the next, your whole family is dead?!" I squawked. The guy behind me reached for his ear buds.

We talked about the Newtown shootings and traded Tragic Death anecdotes: Melanie recalled a time when she was scuba diving and came upon the bloated body of a man in a swimsuit. "His lungs were full of sand. He must've been pulled under and panicked and breathed in. Don't panic; if you inhale, it's over." she advised matter-of-factly. I marveled at how she could dole out survival tips with the lightness of someone offering a cookie recipe. Why didn't she share my sense of impending doom? I told her about the recent death of a friend-of-a-friend; a perfectly typical 32 year-old girl who laid down for a nap with her fiancé and never woke up. Turns out she had a heart defect no one knew about. "So, now I have a ticking bomb in my chest?!" I wailed between desperate gulps of hot chocolate. Melanie shrugged. "When it's your time, it's your time." she sighed.

And that seems to be the general reaction when I hurl my terror at those around me. It appears that I'm the only one tip-toeing through life wondering if someone with road rage is going to pull a gun on me in rush hour traffic or worrying that my desk job makes me vulnerable to fatal blood clots. "It's the Life Cycle." stated one friend. "Everything has a reason." postulated another. "There's not a whole lot we can do about it." dismissed a third.

This New Year I have resolved to meet these Zen masters halfway. I cannot quell my paranoia but I can reduce it some by taking action: That is, telling everyone meaningful to me that I love them and getting my affairs in order. A friend of mine recently lost her father and it was heartbreaking to witness her scramble for months to make sense of his estate when all she wanted to do was look at photos of him and cry. I may not be able to spare my loved ones heartbreak but I can do my best to relieve them of a logistical mess. So this week, while everyone else is choking down a Master Cleanse and registering at 24 Hour Fitness, I am writing my Advanced Health Care Directive and compiling personal records. So far it's strangely empowering. I'm motivated to save more, consolidate accounts, pay off my car. I want my family to be given a gift, not a burden, if I get shot in a shopping mall tomorrow. Of course, if I don't get shot, then I will enjoy financial freedom in this lifetime so either way I emerge as an emotionally healthy, self-sufficient woman, coolly providing for myself and my future! 

That aside, WebMD says I'm flirting with a pulmonary embolism so I need to get these papers notarized, pronto.