I'm sorry if you have to find out via the internet.
But word gets around fast. So I'm going to say it first (if it's not too late already).
I'm moving to LA.
ETA: Late October 2010
I know, right?!?!
Many of you may know me as being rather anti-LA, anti-Hollywood, anti-smog, anti-Lakers, anti-traffic, anti-expensive living, etc.
and it is true that when I think of LA I can't help but picture this:
and this:
(photo by David LaChapelle)
and this:
and this:
(taken from perezhilton.com)
Ugh. Bad public transit and lots of plastic.
But I had to remind myself, that there are good and bad things in every city/town.
I also happen to be pro-food, pro-mountains, pro-friends, pro-beach, pro-krumping, pro-diversity, pro-cars-with-hydraulics...
So...when I think of LA I also think of this:
(Photo: "Hydraulics" by Cindy Bennett, mutated by me)
and this:
and this:
and this:
and this:
(if you don't know what krumping is...you can learn about it)
Yay!
------
I'm really bad at making decisions. I'm so analytical and I'm desperately afraid of making the WRONG choice. I had told myself that by the time I finished hiking along the PCT this year I had to come to a decision, some kind of game plan for the next phase of my life. But apparently talking to myself for 5 months didn't work.
I realized, no amount of time in the world was going to help me make a decision, and I couldn't rely on someone else to make it for me. The world was my oyster except for the fact that I was (and still am) virtually penniless.
When I got off the train in Seattle, the day before flying home to Dallas, I started crying at the first street corner I walked to. I was a little overwhelmed with the idea of being back in civilization, but I also did not no where to start again, where to go. I had friends and family to go home to in Dallas, yet my heart was not even in the mood to look for temporarily work and I was ready to spread my wings!!!...but I hadn't even decided where to fly to.
In film school one of our professors said to us (paraphrasing), "If you're serious about making movies, move to LA." That became my #1 reason to hate LA, even more than the traffic monstrosity. I wanted to prove him wrong. I didn't believe that so much of this country's film making should be concentrated in one location. And I really believed in and wanted to fight for all the people around the world breaking their backs for small independent films. People should be free to live where they want.
Note: I still do not think LA is the end all for movie making...while there is a great amount of talent and creativity in LA, good films can be made anywhere, and I hope to keep working on films made all around the country and throughout the world...and not always with all LA or NYC based people.
Over the next three years I had some of the most amazing film experiences that would not have happened if I had moved out to LA right away. But after three years I found my self even more broke than when I finished grad-school.
So I went home and I cried, and I begged God for a sign every time I went running, and I made pros and cons lists, and I called friends, and I sat in my room and sulked, and got on every potential city's craigslist, and I googled LA vs. NY, and I ate the last of my good chocolate...but I knew it was time to make a decision. And then a series of small events happened...and while I don't think there is one right answer (I turned away some things that were hard to turn away), I finally felt at peace, and I knew LA was NOT the WRONG answer...but the place I should go, for now.
For a long time I had convinced myself that I would be selling out if I moved to LA...but that's just silly, I could sell out in any city, and I think I know how to preserve my soul and sanity in LA.
I really fell in love with the West Coast this summer, so I am excited to make it my home, and I am excited to come home to LA where many friends that I miss dearly already reside (and they still have souls that aren't yet withered away).
But life serves dishes of bittersweet soup quite often, and I will miss Texas, my friends here, and my family...
xoxo
