LAssumptions

There are a lot of assumptions about LA- that it's big and dirty and dangerous. That it's the city of dreams but no one tells you that a lot of the dreams are broken, discarded in the struggle to get by. That you don't know your neighbors and the traffic is so awful you basically have to learn a new language in order to converse with a native.

While some of these things may be true, it's also a city of opportunity if you play your cards right. It's a city that doesn't ever stop GOING and will go on without you just fine if you choose to sit down and wallow, but it still beckons and teases you with hope while you're down.

Yes, we have friends that get flashed as they park their car, the friends who work two jobs to get by, the friends who turn around and see Amy Adams at the Starbucks counter behind them or Ginnifer Goodwin at the gym. But these are all just facets of what it's like to live in this city.

We can be found pretty much at this exact spot every other weekend.

 Then there are our friends who are living the LA experience, Hollywood-style. Our friends who have converted a loft space in the Fashion District into a four bedroom apartment with roof access to a view only seen in movies or GTAV. Their alleyways are littered with unmentionables at any time of day and they use shopping carts to carry the groceries up the freight elevator. They decorate with odds and ends from sets they've worked on and giant framed posters of the movies that inspire them. Day-playing, for them, isn't something to dabble in, it's a necessity and they're always looking for work to pay the bills (of which, their parking is astronomical!).

I am incredibly grateful that I'm able to live with Mr. E in Burbank along the outskirts of LA. We visit and do laundry and grab a drink at the local brewery, play dirty card games and debate about director's intentions or set politics but at the end of the night we pack ourselves up and go home. We get to dip our tippy-toes in that swirling water and congratulate ourselves on getting wet without ever really feeling the current beneath us. The exposure is on our terms all the way up until it's not- until you see the bum squatting behind the tree and you realize that this city is just a big old murky puddle with a pretty sunset.