*sigh* Mondays.

Whoa, wait a sec...this is my second to last Monday of work. 'Last full week as Operations Associate/Editor/Bitch. Final week after four and a half friggin years. It's so surreal and hard to fathom - these four-plus years have flown by as if someone fell asleep with their finger on the fast-forward button, a haze of workdays blurring from one to the next. I can't imagine not working here. I can't imagine not living here.

Which is exactly why I need to move on, I guess.

(Or at least that's what I need to keep telling myself, right?)

It's usually the other way around - people flock to LA, not flee from it. Unfortunately, unlike so many peers I've met in the last few years I didn't have the luxury of "discovering" LA post-college. LA embodies the Destination with a capitol D for so many living here, a place to move on to, a fresh start, even a place for semi-egotistical dreamers to improbably "make it" in the industry, whether they be filmakers (i.e. waiters), writers (i.e. busboys), actors (i.e. Starbucks cashiers) or producers (i.e. formerly neglected children).

To quote the sage and observant Rob from Swingers:

"Look out the window. It's sunny every day here. It's like manifest destiny. Don't tell me we didn't make it. We made it. We're here. And everything that is past is prologue to this, all the shit that didn't kill us is only - you know, all that shit..."

Alas, unlike so many others I was cruelly deprived the opportunity of discovering this fertile land of milk and honey. And the subsuequent opportunity to complain about the crowds, the traffic, the lack of public transportation and a "city-feel," and the lack of resemblance to any one of several thousand other hometowns.

No, instead I had the crappy luck of having forward-thinking parents who anticipated manifest destiny, moving west and raising me here from birth in the perfect seaside climate, exposing me early-on to rich cultural diversity, and a wealth of character building activities and opportunities unique to LA. Great. Thanks Mom. Thanks Dad. Yeesh.

LA's one of those strange anomolies you have to escape to appreciate...actually, scratch that. As usual I'm an idiot and have no idea what I'm talking about. ANYBODY's hometown is the place you have to escape to appreciate. I guess that's the reason so many people living in LA bitch about it here.

Anyways, I don't know if I'll utimately wind up in my hometown or not. All I know is I seem to need to keep leaving after a few years - to renew my appreciation for the place and dream it all up again.

And yes, I do realize I'm a whiny little bitch. And yes JD, I'm looking right at you.