The Coasts

After a delay of two hours, I flew back to Los Angeles. Lots of weather in New York City had backlogged take-offs. Once the plane got going, it seemed that I got to California very quickly.

New York is a great city. But the cliché about the weather in California is quite true. It’s just mountainously more comfortable here. However, the intense humidity of New York seems to make for happy sinuses.

New York and Los Angeles are sister cities. There’s a lighter strain of purpose out here in the West that makes interactions at the cash register much more enjoyable than the disappointing experience of facing the surly, angry poor in New York. The downtrodden at the mouth of the Hudson are quite something. The downtrodden in LA can simply go to the beach.

Whenever I show up for a week or longer in New York, my pea brain imagines that I have moved there for good. It’s like a whole new life. I get excited for a day, followed by a strange depression—like, have I moved here, really? What happened to my whole other life? Then, I realize I haven’t moved back to New York, and things even out. So just like in LA, I do some work, I spend time with friends. I go to bed at 4AM. It’s all the same.

Both cities are actually quite ugly. You have to make an effort to find the pleasing neighborhoods. My cab ride from midtown Manhattan to my apartment in Queens is mostly along Northern Boulevard. Nothing on earth is more hideous, yet, interestingly, many boulevards in Los Angeles are built with the same aesthetic in mind. None.

Primarily, people in both cities are working hard, going after what they want. In LA, you can flounder more with less judgment. In New York, you can get stuck in a groove...because change there seems more daunting. You can certainly indulge yourself with great food and entertainment in both places, things being cheaper in Los Angeles. On average, the accessible entertainment is better in New York, the accessible food is better in Los Angeles.

Glad both cities exist. Neither one is Paris.