I’m back from my east coast excursion. My brother is all freshly graduated and off to Cape Cod for an internship. I’m back here, drinking Starbucks like it’s my job. I missed you all and I missed this blog. Did you miss me? I kind of hope that you did. Oh who am I kidding, I really hope you did.

I hate flying from LA/to LA because everyone waiting in the terminal is on their mobile phone blabbering about their industry jobs. “She requested that we get the costume designer from ‘The L Word'”, “I worked on that project”, “She was a menace on set”, “He almost got it but he was too auburn”, “My foot hurts”, etc. No one cares about your job. You are not a special snowflake. You are one of thousands working on some project. And if you really were that important, you wouldn’t be flying Jet Blue.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get it, man,” says the heavily tattooed man sitting beside me at the gate, the “it” of course being THE role in something. “They said they were looking for someone younger.”

Guess what, buddy? They’re ALWAYS looking for someone younger. I guarantee you if they got Justin Bieber in for a meeting, as soon as he left they would be saying, “He’s great but it’s too bad we can’t get the Justin Bieber from two years ago.”

This almighty “They” will decide what happens to you. In this industry it is all about “They.” “They wanted a name”, “They need to reschedule”, “They aren’t taking on any new clients”, and so on and so forth until we’re all dead. They don’t care. If Hollywood was burning down and they could only save three things, they would save Tom Hanks and two cans of Diet Coke. Welcome to Los Angeles.

I wanted to get on my phone and talk about something ridiculous too. “We need more bees,” I would say. “There aren’t enough bees.”

There was a gorgeous (and frankly, rude) couple flying with me. The woman was blonde and looked like Sienna Miller. And even though she was obviously pregnant, she was still thinner than I was.

This is my city though. I’m not moving. I was born and raised here. Sometimes I like to flee to New York but I’m not ready to live there full time yet, though I did while I was in college and I loved it. But every now and then I would think about how cramped everything is and I would get nervous. I would pass furniture stores in the village the size of my bedroom at home in LA and I would think, “How do they get all that furniture in there?” and then, “How do they get it into those walk-up apartments?” Remember in Annie Hall when Alvy is worried that the universe is expanding and his parents are shouting at him not to worry about it? “What has the universe got to do with it? You’re here in Brooklyn! Brooklyn is not expanding!” his mother snaps. Why should I worry about how people get furniture into their apartment when it has nothing to do with me? But every once in a while the sheer density of Manhattan hits me and I feel a little trapped.

Los Angeles comes with a different trapped feeling. But I do love it here. I think perhaps I will stick to being a writer. Because if you’re a writer you can get really, really fat and no one will care. Until your publicist does. Oh LA, you’re great, don’t ever change, just keep getting younger.

I Wish I Knew Natalie Portman — K-OS