Traffic Thoughts

I was sitting in my car on La Brea the other day, having hit my sixth straight red light, when the fact hit me that I miss New York City and am pretty much over LA.

What can I say? To me, at this point in my life, NYC is novel and exciting. By comparison, LA seems boring and tired. I went away for a year and fell in love with a sexy new city, while simultaneously falling out of love with my frumpy long-term locale. If I was Chevy Chase in VACATION, New York would be my Christie Brinkley; LA my Beverly D'Angelo.

Now, I could tick off all the reasons why I feel this way - the traffic I mentioned earlier is a good starting point. But that's not what I'm here to kvetch about. What bothers me is that this is yet another development in my inevitable march towards becoming someone I hate. Man, did I used to loathe all those people who pontificated to me about how wonderful New York is, sneering down with pity upon those of us who had yet to be enlightened.

And yet, here I am. I wish things had turned out differently, I really do. I wish I had come back here and thought, "Yeah New York was fun, but I'm a California boy, and this is where I belong." I tried for awhile, but I have to admit truthfully how I feel: I may not be long for this town.

Or maybe next time I'll just take Fairfax.