when i first got to los angeles i thought there was no weather here. it was an easy mistake to make, with months of "perfect" temperatures and sun lulling me into wink-and-nod compaining about missing rain and missing cold and wishing just once that we would have the sort of dramatic thunderstorms that my mother, in a bizzare bit of pavlovian engineering, taught me to cherish when i was an infant and that i still find as lonely and romantic as a canopied bed or a leonard cohen song.
but i was wrong about the weather, and as an aside i don't really miss the east coast meteorolgy either. after two weeks on the east coast, in new york and dc, i got off my plane in burbank and was, on Jan 4, unbearably hot in a long sleeve t-shirt. unbearably hot. jan. 4th. long sleeve t-shirt. this, after 2 weeks of piling on layers and still freezing my ass off and getting rained on too many times, was a bit of a breakthrough moment for me: I do not miss the east coast weather. this does not make me weak. it just means I'm not stupid. it's like that ikea commercial:
EXT SIDEWALK, NIGHT:
east coast weather is sitting in a heap on a semi-urban street corner. it is illuminated only by a flickering yellow streetlight, and it is being rained on. through a window we can see inside an adjascent house: sun, sand, palm trees, blue skies, people milling around outdoors in t-shirts celebrating new years day. A man in a trenchcoat enters the frame.
part II, about how we actually do have weather in southern california, is forthcoming. and watch for parts III-MCMLXXIV about nyc.nye.2k3, christmas eve vs. the terrible cheese monster, a good talk with my grandmother, and other sordid tales. everything is getting all pear-shaped.
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