California Dreamin'

This week, I read the book Less Than Zero. It's the first novel by Bret Easton Ellis who also wrote American Psycho. There is a movie based on the book that came out in 1987. The movie sucks. It only maintains about 20-30% of the content of the book. The only good thing about the movie is Robert Downey Jr.'s performance as a junkie. But the ironic thing is Downey had a real life drug problem. Art imitates life. Anyway, the book is set in L.A in the '80s and is about disaffected teenagers. Reading the book makes me nostalgic not only for the '80s but also for California. In the book, the characters go to a lot of locations I'm familiar with including Palm Springs. All of this makes me a little sad. 

I keep thinking about how so much of my life--especially my youth--was spent in CA. When my parents divorced, the family would venture out and visit my dad. I remember spending holidays with my family in Palm Springs and San Diego (around the late '80s). I think about spending time in Laguna Beach with my parents. I think about the day my mom bought 10 pairs of shoes from Nordstrom. The book even mentions Camp Beverly Hills, a clothing store I used to own clothes from. Maybe I'm thinking about my childhood experiences in CA because there are flashbacks in the book with the main character spending time in Palm Springs with his family. A thing of the past for them. 

In high school when all my friends were going to FL for spring break and vacations, I'd fly out to C.A to see my dad. It was inevitable that I'd move out there, so in 1998 I did. It took me 5 years to come back to the Midwest. I look out the window and see all this snow on the ground and think it'd be so nice to be at Malibu beach right now. I miss the ocean more than anything. It's strange to think I moved away over five years ago. Five years! Where does the time go? Sometimes I think back and wonder if I ever lived there. It feels like a mirage to me. It's also incredulous to think that I went to college out there, that I have a degree from a CA university. Did I really graduate? I think about spending the last year and half in college and going to school full-time and working on tv shows and films 60 hours a week. I think about driving on all stretches of the CA freeway. I think about how 10 years ago this very month was when I went to the Golden Globe Awards and met Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. I have a picture to prove it. 

I was a week shy of turning 21 when I moved to L.A and was 26 when I moved back to the Midwest. It was interesting spending my early 20s-mid 20s out there. I haven't been back in over two years and I really need to visit. But I wonder will I remember how to get around?Maybe there are new freeways and shortcuts I don't know about. I dream about L.A once in a while, but in my dreams everything is weird and I feel sorta lonely. As much as I miss L.A sometimes, I know I could never move back there. I never want to work in the entertainment industry or make movies, but I'd still consider writing scripts (like I hope the script I sent to my cousin gets made into a movie). 

It's funny to think the boyfriend has never really spent much time in CA. He' s been to the desert, driven through L.A, spent some time in Santa Monica as a kid, but he's never been to SF, San Diego or anywhere else along the coast for that matter. I know I've never been overseas, but going out West seems a little more accessible. It's just strange to think most people I know haven't spent much time in CA. It's like the Bermuda Triangle or something. Maybe I'm a bit privileged for having lived there, but c'mon, there are thousands of miles of amazing coastline to experience. I really want to take the boyfriend out there and show him my CA. I want to take a week and start in San Diego and drive up to SF and show him everything so he'll understand everything. But, I don't know when/if that'll ever happen considering our big trip is the first destination. CA holds a lot of history for me. I think about my dad and how he took care of me when I moved out to L.A and how much I miss him and how I'll never see him again...I think about the ex-boyfriend and how our love bloomed and kinda died there. I think about being 9 years old and sitting in a department store in Rancho Mirage as my mom bought me shoes with palm trees on them. I think about that day my parents and I celebrated Mother's Day on the beach of Laguna. I think about that restaurant Maxwell's we went to at Newport Beach. I think about the night after my friend's wedding that my two friends (one who'd never seen the Pacific) drove to the O.C to see the ocean and then had dinner at a family fave, The Rusty Pelican. Those memories are a bit faded but images I'll never forget. I'm just glad I got to experience them. 

So in the dead of winter I think about CA. I think how far I've come since moving to the gritty city of Chicago. Life is surely different out here. I think about when I'll make the trek back out West. I just think about the past in CA and how all of those experiences have led me up to today. And it makes me weep a little, but it also brings me a lot of comfort.