Wow, I Guess I Live Here Now

As I mentioned before, my husband is going to start business school at UCLA Anderson this September. This meant all sorts of interesting emotional and physical baggage to sort through as we made the move from chill (but not chilly) San Diego to harried Los Angeles. We've been here about four days and have finally unpacked most of the important stuff and reassembled and rearranged all of our furniture. It's starting to feel more like home in our apartment now that I've put up some artwork and put out nice little knick-knacks in the bathrooms. I don't know why, but once I have my apothecary jars of corks and Scrabble tiles out, things just feel more livable.

Since I started the move the LA with a list of thoughts, and since I haven't gotten any better at emotional management in one week, here are some new thoughts about this great big freeway* I apparently live in now:

Chilling in the insane sewing room, on top of a box of fabric.

1. I am so glad that driving Walnut up to LA is over. Seriously, the most harrowing two hours I've ever spent in a car (and that's including the trip to Jerusalem from the Dead Sea in a borrowed car with a non-functional GPS). That cat knows how to tug at your heartstrings with his non-stop, tragic, this-is-the-worst-torture meows. Then as soon as we got to the apartment he was all excited to be poking around into all the new nooks and crannies and claiming everything as his own by rubbing his cheek on stuff. 
2. I love how bright and airy our new apartment is! It's on the top floor, so we get plenty of natural light during the day. Contrast this with our old place, which was on the ground floor and shadowed by the balconies above us. Seriously, if it wasn't a blindingly bright day outside and I wasn't taking my photos in a specific spot in front of the bedroom door between 10:16 and 10:32, it would be too dark to see anything. 
3. I am a fan of our new furniture arrangement. The 5x5 Expedit is being used as a room divider and I couldn't be more thrilled! My dream has always been to live in a library; in this arrangement, it's like living in TWO libraries simultaneously: one library where all the books have titles, and another library where the books are just artsy and have lovely beige-y pages.
4. No more walk-in closet. Boooo. Also, I don't how to arrange my sewing room so there are just boxes of fabric and bed and desk pieces everywhere. 
5. There are ants! Grrarrrgh. I got so used to not having to worry about ants in San Diego; it's time to start vigilantly ziploc-ing everything. 
6. This is a terrible thing to complain about, but here it is anyway: we have free utilities so my husband thinks this is an invitation to crank the AC all day. I am perpetually slightly cold, but then I guess in San Diego he was perpetually more than slightly warm. 
7. LA people are quite rude! One of the reasons why I didn't want to go to UCLA for college was the hurried, brusque, can't be bothered with you attitude of what seems to be the majority of people here. I mean, our cashier at Trader Joe's was probably the angriest TJ employee I've ever seen. I miss how laid back San Diegans are. 
8. I need to readjust my ideas about how much time it should take to get somewhere based on how many miles away it is. San Diego: # miles = # minutes, more or less. LA: # miles x 9 = # of minutes to get there. Apparently, according to native LA-ers, I should just assume the worst and then be happily surprised when I arrive. 
9. It is mind-blowing (tongue-blowing? stomach-blowing? THIGH-BLOWING?) how much good food there is within 5-10 minutes of where we are. We've already had the most amazing ramen, curry, Burmese food, and sandwiches on PRETZEL BREAD. When we drove back to San Diego to get Walnut, our dinner options in Mira Mesa seemed so...pathetic.
10. I miss how almost everyone from our church in San Diego lived less than a mile/five minutes away from us in Mira Mesa. Here, it seems that everyone we know who supposedly lives in the same city actually lives at least 45 minutes away. 
11. Also, "city" doesn't mean city the same way I'm used to. LA is many cities within one city, so apparently we can write either Culver City or Los Angeles in our mailing address. In San Francisco, I lived in the Sunset district. In San Diego, the neighborhood of Mira Mesa. Here, we live in the City of Culver City.

Not City of Culver. Or just Culver City. Nooo, it's the pretentious City of Culver City.

*My first introduction to LA was the song "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" where it describes LA as a great big freeway where they make you a star. And for the longest time, that's what I really thought it was (the freeway part, not the star-making part), since we were always driving through it on the way down to Irvine every year for Christmas.

Also, June, thank you so much for your Versatile Blogger Award! I'm honored and as soon as life settles down, I'll be sharing my seven things and nominating other blogs.