I’ve been away.  I’m sorry.  I’ve been traveling.  It sucked (mostly).  But I’m back to NYC, back to my routine, back to my apartment and my bed, and I’m not going away until the holidays.  Thank you, Jesus Christ Almighty.

(And I am going to get so much Sea Thai tonight that someone might get hurt.)

Speaking of traveling, I feel like I’ve picked on the city a lot, but here’s my final word on LA: If you go to Los Angeles to find an attractive mate, you’ll be fine.  The city is crawling with people who are very good-looking, very fit and very tan.  It’s astonishing, really, like there’s some sort of physical challenge involved to move into certain zip codes and to get into certain bars.  Almost by default, you’re eventually going to fuck someone very good-looking.  It’s just a numbers game.    

However, if you go to Los Angeles to find someone who reads the newspaper or is even vaguely familiar with the concept of a "newspaper," you are in trouble.  Serious, serious trouble. 

Newspaper reader: "Hey, did you read that sleep study article in yesterday’s New York Times?"
LA Resident: [squints eyes, gives confused look] "Squats?"
NR: "No, um, there was an article about sleep in the Times.  Did you catch it?"
LA Res: [tilts head, flexes triceps] "Delts?"
NR: "No, an article.  A series of words that tells a story, argues a point or otherwise provides information.  In a newspaper.  Black and white things, ink on paper. I guess you didn’t read it?"
LA Res: [seven seconds of silence] "Fag."

[LA Resident goes off to crush pussy and high five.]

Seriously, if you can’t fuck it, bench press it, or put it in a shot glass and drop it into a half pint glass of Red Bull, I don’t think these people are aware of its existence.

Of course, this isn’t to say that there aren’t intelligent, weak people (like me) in LA.  I guess they’re just too afraid to leave their apartments (like me), so they spend their time drinking Bud bombers in the privacy of their own homes (like me) and judging people more fit and good-looking than they are, assuming that muscle mass is always inversely proportionate to brain power (oh my god, this one is totally like me). 

And that’s not to say that all muscley/fit/tan people in LA are morons and/or dicks.  One of the most fun nights I had recently in LA involved hanging out with a cool dude who happened to be so jacked that he sneezed and actually knocked me out for forty minutes.  I still don’t know what happened.  But I know it hurt.  A lot.  Really nice guy, though.

[Note that I'm talking less about the "industry" type people who inhabit Hollywood and the surrounding area and more about the Santa Monica/South Bay types.  There is a huge difference between the wannabe actor who lives in studio on Sunset and will talk your ear off at a bar discussing his various "roles" and the guy who lives in an apartment in Hermosa with four of this frat brothers and works in sales because sales gives him ample to time lift and dip.]  

But my goodness, what a fascinating city.  At the start of my bicoastal experiment [insert gay joke here] back in July, I told y’all LA was auditioning for me, that I was contemplating moving there and might just do so if I continued to be enamored with the city.  But after living there, day in and day out for a week or more per month for the last few months…no way.  I could certainly move there, and I’d enjoy the weather, having a car, the Mexican food, and walking down the street gawking at some of the hottest/plasticist women on earth.  But if I did move there, I’d need either a dog or a girlfriend, because otherwise I would undoubtedly be the loneliest man in the city.  I like my friends ugly, my beer canned, my gym equipment dusty, and my VH1 Classic always on.  LA, this ain’t.   

I’m glad to be back.