As a 23-year-old young woman tagging along with her mother on her errands today, I was asked "so what do you do?" by a well-meaning and friendly cashier at Top Foods.  I'm not in school anymore (although this is temporary while I navigate this transfer process... which requires first choosing a school to transfer into), I don't work (also temporary, more discussion to come), and I'm not married or a mother of young kids.  So good question, what do I do?  Aside from my somewhat recreational habits (writing, reading, TV-watching, movie-attending, and recipe-altering), I am quite busy these days.  I've been madly unpacking my apartment, with a new concept in mind:  un-burdening myself of all my clutter.  I now open boxes with the idea in mind that I will keep it (and either pack it to be stored, or pack it to go to L.A.) or get rid of it (sell in Ebay, on Craigslist, Freecycle it, give to someone I know because I love it too much, or throw it away because it's not worth keeping even I didn't move).  Plus there's the paperwork (don't ask, I'll probably just stare at you blankly since when I'm not wading through it all, I'm pretending it's not there).  And the planning for L.A.

I'm looking forward to L.A. in an immense sort of way.  Us Puget Sound-ers (aka Rust-babies... if I were actually born here I'd be offended by that term) usually regard L.A. with a certain amount of disdain.  I can't pinpoint exactly the reason, but I'm sure it has something to do with the general lack of sun up here.  We have had this freakishly sunny weather up here lately, but people do suffer because of it.  In Oklahoma last winter (I think) traffic accidents went way up when it rained one weekend and we laughed at them.  But when it gets sunny up here, we experience much the same effect as our traffic accidents go up and so does crime.  This is a generally-noticed effect everywhere during summer, but I'd say it's especially noticable during the summer, and moreso during the last few weeks here.  Rain doesn't just clean the air, it depresses people enough to make them stay inside and away from each other and the roads.  (And yet, I still love rain, despite my sarcasm.)

It may also have something to do with the competing "we are the center of the universe" attitudes that Seattle and L.A. put off.  And the fact that L.A. wins this argument more often than not only makes the sting worse for Seattle.  Being from Tacoma myself, I am somewhat averse to like any city that has that "center of the universe" feel since Tacoma tends to feel rather abused and taken for granted next to Seattle. 

Despite all this, here is a fun little list of why L.A. is making me grin when people ask me what I do for a living.

1. Telling the cashier at Top Foods "I'm getting ready to move to L.A." is way better than saying something like "I'm a top lawyer in a snooty law firm and make more money than you" or "I'm a movie star" or any number of other snooty responses that I once dreamed of saying at my high school reunion.



2. It is not, however, better than saying "I'm a published author that has no need to have a day job anymore due to the success of my brilliant novel."  The fact that I'm going on an adventure that will involve me having a higher probability of meeting and befriending other creative-types who understand the previous statement, nuances and all, completely makes up for it.



3. Reading fashion magazines is now much more like reading a guide to shopping in my hometown.



4. When I run into celebrities on the street now, and tell people, they might actually believe that it was really that celebrity I ran into and not a look-alike.



5. I hear that sunshine is great for the comlexion.  Totally gets rid of that greenish sickly glow that we develop up here from our primary light exposure being our computer screens and our main heat exposure being our cups of coffee.



6. I also hear it does wonders for getting rid of that 9-month moody funk that people go into around October...  S.A.D.? That's just a myth...  psychobabble for everyday experiences... psh...



7. Sandals.



8. Skirts.



9. A legitimate reason for the sunroof in my VW Golf III Sport.



10. If I wanted to, I could actually make a good living working for a temp agency.  As a temp.  Not as a temp-to-hire permanently (I like my soul intact thank-you-very-much).  As an actual honest-to-goodness temp.  An actual honest-to-goodness full-time temp.  Because it's a city.  A big one.  Where people are mobile and unhappiness with one's job is a perfectly valid reason to quit.

And lest you thought I forgot the most important and smile-inducing reason I'm looking forward to L.A., I've giving Steven his own paragraph.  But then he'd make me smile even if he lived in Oklahoma.