Small Town Girls With Small Town Realities

So it's nothing new that I left Atlanta to come to La La Land for school and life. Blah blah blah. But I was on Myspace - the dreaded enabler of cyber-bullies, child predators, shitty bands, and self indulgent emo kids - recently and I saw something that messed with my head a little. So anyone who's still using Myspace nowadays has noticed how it suddenly has this shitty Facebook-esque feature called People You May Know in which they display the profiles of people in your area/who listed the same school as you/whatever.

The scariest thing is the fact that I recognize half these "people I may know" because they went to my high school. Ugh. I hated HS because the people there were narrowminded, judgmental, cliche, and boring. No one got me. No one tried to. I was that one alt fish in a sea of mainstreamers. Anyways, the fucked up thing isn't the fact that those stupid kids are suddenly popping up again, the crazy thing is the fact that they haven't left their homes.

I went to HS in a retarded backwards area called Duluth, in North Atlanta. It shares its name with Duluth, Minnesota because the rail line runs through both of them. Ugh. It was a stupid place. It was suburban hell. Basically I spent any and all my time downtown or in the East, where people didn't judge and everyone was cool.

When I was a senior and I told people I was moving to CA, they would always get wide-eyed and say, "That's so far!" In a ridic semi-Southern accent, natch. But basically everyone funneled into three schools: Univ of GA, GA Tech, or GA State. Anything besides that was unheard of, and actually moving downtown to attend said schools was equally rare.

So what I am trying to say, in what seems as drawn out and muddled a way possible, is that leaving behind that security was the best thing for me. What if I had stayed there? I could still be living with my mom in the suburban pit o' doom. Take my old HS friend for instance. Homegirl is 19 and she lives with her mom and takes the train downtown because she's too afraid to drive on the highway.

Chances are, I wouldn't have ended up like that because I am so independent and urban. But it's scary to think that if I had stayed there, I might have.

E

"Chik-Fil-A Doesn't Exist Here" And All The Other Reasons Living In More Than One City Is Confusing

I took this picture while driving around. I had time to kill so I just drove and drove and drove through three counties. Funnily enough, I don't even remember in what county this picture was taken.

So I have been feeling really out of place here in LA. I haven't found anything that just makes me feel like I belong here. Not yet anyways. I think I want to leave, and then come back. I also think I want to go to New York. There's no denying how amazing it is. What I love is how you can live your own life and yet stay connected to the city simultaneously. It's such a living, breathing city. You can tell when its sad, or happy. You can feel it when New York holds its breath, and you can let out a sigh of relief when it does.

Anyways, totally NY unrelated, I have also been seriously thinking of going back to Atlanta. I will admit it has gotten a little bit funner (although the vast amounts of fun are still reserved for those 21+), I still feel like I should stay in LA a little longer. That is one of the things I love about LA. Not only are there OODLES of things to do for the under-car-renting-age crowd, but it's all right there, in your face. In Atlanta, you have to dig deep and seek out the fun. It takes time and patience, but then again, those aren't as popular in LA as they are in the South. Which brings me to something else. The South is sloooowww. LA is FAST! Move fast, live fast, meet people fast, do things fast, fast food, fast women, fast money, fast everything. ATL is slow cooked, slow churned, strolling along, hard work, perseverance, patience, blah blah and so forth. I don't know if I can handle that.

But I have been looking at apts in Atlanta and I could save a ton of money by moving back there. We're talking 800 for a studio apt to 675 for a one bedroom. With a washer/dryer in it!

A part of me feels like if you go to LA, you should be ready for it. You have to be prepared to fully open your arms and your mind to everything it has to offer, or else you'll be sad, disappointed, and lonely. Only now am I ready to immerse myself in LA, and funnily enough, I'm not really ready at all.

So Alex, if you do want to write that book about me, don't do it in pen, because you'll probably get tired of scratching things out over and over again.

E

I'm Not Sure Why I'm Feeling So Introspective/Depressed Today...

This is something I told my boyfriend a few days before I left for California.

We sat on his bed and I looked at my watch. It's the same watch I'd had for about three years, and had been through a lot with me. The wear and tear was starting to show.

I said, "See this watch? I've had it forever. It's the only watch I've used for about three years. But now it's starting to get old and soon, it'll break and stop working and I'll need something new. This watch is Atlanta. I need something new. This one has had enough."

A few weeks after I moved to California, my watch broke. Well, the actual watch part is still ticking, but the strap broke completely, despite desperate attempts to mend it.

I think it means that you really can't hold on to the past forever, but that life keeps going regardless.

E