LA is Everything I Wanted

This is a repost of a blog that originally appeared on my now-defunct lieawake.com blog. I’m posting here because it contains backstory for my upcoming book.

California. I miss it so much. I took a quick vacation to LA in February and fell in love. To be honest, I’m not even sure how I got there. By that, I mean LA has never, ever been a place I have wanted to go. I’m fairly certain I spent the better part of my 20s making fun of LA on the reg. Just because. It’s the place where souls go to die, no? In my mind, LA always struck me as flimsy, unreliable, and plastic. 

But at the end of January, I was nearing a breaking point. I had worked myself to the bone (again) and hadn’t taken any time off in over a year. I love being self-employed but sometimes my boss is a Grade A bitch.

I spent some time hemming and hawing about the details around getting away to recharge. What details? Glad you asked! One of the biggest stressors when planning for a vacation is not this bougie “omg, what fun locale should I visit??” nonsense. It’s figuring out to do with my surly, geriatric, mama’s boy of a dog. The idea of leaving his 12-year-old furface alone at the vet or with some strange people at a random doggie daycare makes me want to step off the Golden. But I was about to snap, so I convinced a friend to dog sit at my house (hi Clare!). I was ready to bounce.

So back to LA. I, for the life of me, cannot figure out where that idea burrowed itself into my overactive brain, but it did. And when I finally snapped and decided that I needed to jet out of the Chi and jet now, LA is what I typed into Hopper. Tickets were $98. I bought them immediately and began to lust after palm trees and Chris Evans (don’t judge me!). 

I made no plans for this vacation and anyone who knows me understand that this is ba-na-nas. Why? Because I made a spreadsheet for my last trip to Europe that organized every single day into 30-minute increments. Hi, my name is Ashley and I plan for fucking everything. Oh, the itinerary says I was supposed to sit down for lunch at 12:15 and it’s 12:28? TOO BAD WE’RE MOVING ON TO MICHELANGELO’S DAVID YOU TWAT GET WITH THE PROGRAM. Ahem, so to not plan for a vacation is, um…unusual. 

I arrived at LAX with a suitcase and a dream one too many bags.  I got in and Uber’d to my Airbnb, which was essentially a guest room of a house in Mount Olympus. I chose this location because of its close proximity to Chris Evans’ home, which I found on some shady website killer views and um, location, generally. 

My host was a doll and helped me get settled while offering up some touristy tips. My first goal was to finish the book I had purchased at ORD, so I cozied up next to the pool and dug in. It was exquisite. I followed this with a walk down the hill and into the heart of WeHo (see, I’m basically a local already with the lingo and whatnot). I was exhausted after this, so I snagged some food, went back to the crib, and passed out to some Netflix. 

The rest of the trip was a beautiful blur. I went to the Hollywood Walk of Fame and high-fived about 17 Supermans. I snapped some shots of the Hollywood sign from the third floor of the Hollywood & Highland Center. I engaged in all the stereotypical shit and loved every second of it. I hiked up to Griffith Observatory and took an inordinate amount of photos. I hiked Runyon Canyon and remembered my fear of heights. I chatted with a guy shooting a music video with a drone. I hiked some more. I visited Santa Monica, walked the pier, and photographed everything. I zipped around Mulholland Drive (Jay Leno, was that you?) and paused to take in the view at the Universal City Overlook. I visited a friend who lives in LA full-time (hi Josh!). I shopped for snacks at Trader Joe’s and drove aimlessly around town, envisioning what it would be like to live there. And on nearly every drive, Eilish’s ethereal voice sauntered through the speakers in the car. That song seared itself onto my soul during those drives, her atmospheric beats blended against the backdrop of mountains, palm trees, and sunsets. 

The palm-tree-lined roads and Mediterranean climate lured me in. The hills enraptured me. The ability to swim, surf, hike, or hunker down in one of the city’s infamous eateries locked me in. That city encapsulates the extremes of everything: high and low, wet and dry, loud and quiet. I love extremes. I love LA. 

I fell head over heels in love with that town. It’s been a good run, Chicago, but I could never be with someone as cold as you long term. It’s time for us to both move on.