conflicted

I am missing New York City particularly acutely today. Perhaps it is the fact that it's spring there, or that the Tribeca Film Festival (in which some of my friends are involved) is in full swing, or that I will be returning there in a mere 11 days, if only for a grand total of five weeks when international travel is taken into account.

Things I miss about New York at the moment include subways, walking places, good theater, bagels, seasons, subways, Astoria, yoga places in walking distance of my house, a rational density of coffee shops, weekends in the East Village, Bluestockings book store, the Ziegfeld, the fact that everything doesn't look like one giant strip mall, and subways. In fact, after being away from New York for a little while, even thoughts of sixth-floor walk-ups, $100 Metrocards and the perpetual rat colony on Bond Street seem to evoke a bit of homesickness.

I am frequently conflicted about Los Angeles's place in my future, since I continue to think that Los Angeles is just not meant to be my home. I keep remembering the numerous East Coast transplants who've said that it took them two, even three years to appreciate LA, reminding myself that I can't pass final judgment on LA until I learn to drive and have access to its sprawling expanse by car (although that fact in itself fills me with chagrin), and worrying that I'll be shooting my career in the foot if I don't stay in LA after graduation. But then I think of Washington Square Park or the Organic Grill or the 48 hours in which I went to see Che, Man on Wire, Blasted AND Black Watch over winter break and those arguments go right out the window into the perpetual SoCal sunshine. And even that is starting to get a bit boring, because when the weather is the same every day time seems to pass at a snail's pace and everyone gets exasperatingly unhurried, instead of rushing by in the proper fashion, as they do when you have freezing winters and sweltering summers to keep you on track.

So then I start to think, well, there is some film industry in New York, as well as a literary and theater scene, and hopefully the economy will be a bit better by the time I graduate, and if I have to have a day job (assuming I'm not going to sign a six-figure option deal the day after graduation) it might as well be in a place I love instead of one I kind of hate. And then I think of the avalanche of debt I will be in and wonder if I'm completely crazy to even think of moving to one of the few cities more expensive than the one I live in now. Then I think about how maybe the solution is more school--which is a very dangerous thought indeed.

Then I think about how much I also really love San Francisco. But that is neither here nor there.