Los Angeles was an entirely different animal than Seattle.  And I’m not saying this because in Seattle it was 45 degrees and rainy every day, whereas LA was 75 (though one day it got up to 80!) with lots of sun and cloudless blue skies.  You know, perfect weather to spend 20 hours a day in a hotel room laying in bed drinking beer (three of the remaining hours each day were spent walking 5 miles to the nearest In-n-Out Burger and then one hour a day in the bathroom dealing with the repercussions of said In-n-Out burger).

But while Seattle was a true "vacation" (if you can call what I did there a vacation), LA was a working vacation.  I use the term "work" very loosely; I realize it’s very different to spend nine hours a day doing M&A research (which is what I do normally) as opposed to sitting on a balcony overlooking the Hollywood Hills, laptop on the little table next to you, drinking wine, and having conversations like:

Me: "Can we say ‘jerkoff?’"
Writing partner: "No, but I think we can say ‘jagoff’ – do you have any interest in jagoff?"
Me: "I mean, I love the word, but I’m not in love with it."
WP: "You know, I’ve heard the word ‘douche’ a lot this season."
Me: "Douche?  Really?  I had no idea we could say that!  You just made my day!"
WP: "I like douche, too.  I mean, I really like ‘dick’, but I’m pretty sure we won’t be able to say that."
Me: "Yeah, I love dick.  And I mean that in every sense of the word."

So while I wasn’t really working in the onerous, god-I-want-to-shoot-myself way, I still had shit to do that required I have a blood alcohol level of no higher than .11 during the day, which was a major fucking bummer for me. 

[Quick aside: In senior year of college, my friends and I had a breathalyzer and we thought a fun game would be to see who could sustain a blood-alcohol level of at least .08 for the longest amount of time.  The only exception was that after you woke up, you had two hours to get your BAC to .08, which is the legal limit in most states.  Otherwise, you had to be at least .08 all day, every day.  Then someone, actually my girlfriend at the time, if I recall correctly, said that we might die if we tried that.  So we didn't.  I am very stupid when I am in love. 

A few years later, post-college, my buddies got me another breathalyzer for my birthday.  Sans girlfriend this time, I and my buddies came up with another plan.  We would take the breathalyzer out to bars and charge people $1 to blow in it.  We would then record their score and take their contact information.  At the end of a designated period of time - a summer, six months, a year - whoever had blown the highest BAC would win all the dollars we collected from people.  I told my dad about this and he thought it was the greatest idea he'd ever heard.  But then my roommates and I thought about it and decided that it wasn't.  Say, for example, the cut off was September 1 for the highest BAC contest.  Do you know how much fucking booze my friends and I would drink on August 31 to break the record?  I mean, good lord.  One of us would seriously have a 50/50 chance of dying from alcohol poisoning, and I am not exaggerating in the least when I say that.  I watched my old roommate Ben drink 23 beers and four glasses of wine - for fun.  I can't imagine what he'd do with $2300 at stake.  Goodness gracious.]

But aside from the work, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy my time in LA.  I truly *heart* LA.  I am moving there in 2007 (in some capacity – I might be bicoastal for a bit, so please insert your favorite bisexual joke here).  There are two things that LA so dear to me.

The weather
Yes, you’ve heard about how great the weather in LA is a million times.  I have, too.  But I’ll tell you, nothing prepares your body for it quite like being there.  I may be more unaccustomed then most, being born and bred in the Northeast, but my god – waiting for a cab at LAX at night in December when it’s 62 degrees with little humidity, I mean, just wow.

So yeah, the weather is great, even though it did rain like a mother fucker on my Saturday night.  But let’s move on to the better stuff.

The women
I know this is debatable – even though I don’t see how – but Los Angeles has the most beautiful women on the planet.  My LA friends, most of whom are ex-New Yorkers, say that NYC has the most beautiful women in the world.  To this I respond: you are absolutely incorrect.  100% fucking wrong.  Why?  Because it all comes down to numbers.

On the 1 to 10 scale of hotness, 1 being John Goodman eating beef jerky in a Turkish bath and 10 being Orlando Bloom, Kyan from "Queer Eye" or the guy who works in the Starbucks at Allen & Delancy (take your pick), I consider myself a 6.  I’m not the worst-looking guy in the world, and what I lack in upkeep of my body or a basic hygiene routine, I more than make up for with my willingness to spend hundreds of dollars on appletinis and cosmopolitans and my shameful obsequiousness to the opposite sex.

(I’ve actually always considered myself a 6, but polled my friends in Seattle when we were discussing the topic.  Brian said 6, Ben 5.5, and my buddy Matt gave me a 5.  However, he noted that the 5 only pertains to Seattle, where apparently people take care of their bodies.  Matt assured that in NYC I’m probably a 6 and in Philly I might be as high as 14.  So thanks, Matt.)

In NYC, a 10 is a rare sighting.  Hell, a 9 only comes along once in a blue moon.  Usually, there are plenty of 8′s roaming the streets, but because competition is so fierce for them, they are not only impossible to get but impossible even to approach.  Of course, I’m no expert on this subject, since in most social situations my friends and I find a corner to hide in so that we can throw beer cans at each other in peace, but trust me – the 8′s in NYC know they’ve got it goin’ on.  The result is that a guy like me usually goes home with a 2 or 3 (examples: girl with facial hair, girl with major speech impediment, pirate).

In Los Angeles, you can spot a dozen 10′s just by walking around on a Wednesday afternoon.  We’re talking legitimate 10′s – women that make you stop in your tracks, do a double-take, let out an audible "Wow", and make you thank the Lord and his son Jesus that you have a pair of testes.  I was shocked.  Totally fucking shocked – and I’ve been there a half dozen times before.  And it’s not like I hung out on movie sets or at porno shoots or anything.  Sure, there are beautiful women driving around in BMW’s and shopping on Rodeo Drive but there are just as many 10′s eating in Subway or working at the Cold Stone.

(Also, can you tell where I spent most of my time eating?)

The point is that because of the sheer volume of beautiful women, the social-sexual dynamic is all fucked up.  It’s the complete opposite of NYC: attractive women become more approachable, because they must adapt or die. 

Which is why I think I could really succeed in LA.  I could feed that niche market out there, since there aren’t a lot of guys like me in LA: Irish Catholic, chubby, pale, bearded and completely unwilling to drink and drive.  I imagine that the women out there get tired of the same tan, open-shirted, athletic, douchy guy who talks about how he once hung out with the jagoff from "Entourage."  I mean, that’s gotta get old, real quick. 

But I promise you that I will have no grand delusions about my future success with LA women.  Is the hot girl working in the Cold Stone waiting for Richard Gere?  Of course she is.  But is she going to meet him?  Nope – not working in the Cold Stone.  Do you know who’s she going to meet?  Me – standing there asking for a medium cake batter and oreo with a smile on my face, a $10 tip in my hand, and a lifelong promise that there is a less than 85% chance that I will cheat on her.  What more can a woman ask for?

The problem with love and our generation is that we have abandoned the lost art of settling.  I intend to bring this art back.  Los Angeles, 2007.  Let the settling begin.

(Here are my pics from the trip, including a grand total of two from Los Angeles – both from the hotel room.  I’m sorry but I’m not a big picture-taker, especially because my camera is only slightly smaller than my thigh.  So deal with it.)