California: All That I Can’t Leave Behind
In my secret fantasies, not the ones involving being able to pull off blond hair (I have black hair)(black hair does not translate into a blond well)(and by “well” I mean that I looked like Bozo the Clown), I somehow manage to run away from my life, move to California and…do…something.
Maybe I’ll sell oranges by the freeway, a la Sublime’s My Ruca. Or I’ll actually start a hippie jam band, without the anthrax laden drums, though, because there’s nothing like fucking ANTHRAX to harsh your motherfucking BUZZ, man. I could even start to surf and live on the beach or something, even though walking is a challenge for me and surfing would certainly find me breaking something vital to my survival.
Whatever.
California has always been able to bring out the part of me that makes me simultaneously want to sell everything I own so that I can live off the land (while hoping that I had some natural talent for…something earthly, especially considering I consider “roughing it” staying at a hotel without room service) and strike it rich by being the Next Big Thing.
New York, conversely, made me feel like I had come home for the very first time when I visited. Even the sight of garbage bags all over the place didn’t stop me from swooning. New York, ah, New York.
But really, for now, I’m a Midwesterner. Land of, uh, The Tater Tot and The Mullet (all business up front and PARTY down the motherfucking back!) and all sorts of other middling things. It’s flat and it’s either a) ass hot or b) ass cold and there’s not a whole lot to say about it besides that.
I’ve lived in Chicago my whole life, which means I’m thoroughly enchanted by anywhere else. And I do mean anywhere. Drop me in the middle of the slums and I’d be all “dude, I bet I can get a kick ass wig! Or some awesome BBQ! Oh, please, take me to get a weave!”
We’re leaving for the airport in 15 minutes, and really, while I’m happy to leave 75 degree weather to slither back to the subzero-freeze-your-nipples-off-arctic, I’m not really. I only managed to see a fraction of my LA friends and I didn’t see a single transsexual prostitute. NOT ONE. EVEN AT THE BABY SHOWER.
But, I get to go home and see my children, who are going to be, no doubt, furious that I dared leave them.
I’m off to style my hair to make sure the paparazzi get my Good Side on my return trip home, and try and snag an In-n-Out Burger because really, who doesn’t want to have to poo buckets in the tiny airport bathroom.
Until we meet again, The Internet, bon voyage.
Oh, and I leave you with one question because I am curious: if you could ditch your life and start over, what would you do?
1) Finish my university degree
2) Travel around the world
3) Live someplace fun for a few years
4) Save my money and buy my house earlier so I’d have it paid off by now.
I don’t think I’d do much differently, except maybe get dinner into my daughter about two hours ago instead of in ten minutes, because feeding the two year old after seven – not good. So, yeah, that.
(Have a good trip!)
you’d love my neighborhood- you can buy hair weave pieces at the mother fucking gas station- takes up a whole isle! We be some hot bitches around here, yo
I always put at least three transsexual prostitutes on any guest list, it generally insures one will show!
I’d be a vagabond. (Hopefully a rich one that doesn’t have to sleep on the street.)
oh and ditch my life? well i’d be an artist in the pacific nw, living in a yurt or some shit
Hmmm, if I could ditch my life and start over? Do you mean ditch the WHOLE life? Cause I think I’d be a no. My daughter has made be a better person.
But if I could ditch parts of it and keep others then hell yeah, I’d travel, finish uni, get a better job, more money and own my own home.
Be a giraffe.
or make panini and sell flowers in Positano, Italy.
nyahhh- giraffe it is.
And as screwed up as CA is – waking up everyday to crayola blue sky and 70+ degree weather sure makes it tolerable!
Screw Cali I would take off to Hawaii baby and not care where I lived or how I made money(well almost). I love Cali but Hawaii is the place to get lost
I am in the same boat as fidget…you can literally walk 2 minutes and buy yourself a real fine weave in my neighborhood.
If I could ditch my life and do anything…I’d spend about 4 months at one of those luxury spas where they melt the pounds off you with massage, vichy showers, and all that frou frou stuff.
Then I’d travel the globe with my hubby hitting all the good wineries.
Holy Crap! Can I ditch my life? For real? Promise?
Yeah, I don’t know what I’d do. Start from the very beginning probably. Still trying to figure out where I went wrong karmically.
I’d like to say I’d make wiser decisions, but really, I’d just manage to fuck up in a whole different way. Best not to go down that road.
I would go live in Spain for a few years, perfecting my Spanish (Castillian Spanish that is) and just experience life before all these damn responsibilities!
Damn those transsexual prostitutes, you know they heard you were coming and decided to lay low, just to spite you.
I have no idea as to what I would do if I could start completely over. Who in the hell knows?
Id find me a rich man, and be a kept woman. HERE.IN.CALIFORNIA. Cause I love that I can walk around in a tank top on January 10.
Don’t you have trannie hookers in Chicago? No? Damn. Well, next time you’re in LA let me know and I’ll find you one.
Hmmmnnnn …. the cartoon bubble above my head shows me performing a strip tease at a roadside carnival. I’m wearing nipple tassels and am surrounded by little people and truck drivers.
That can’t be right.
You don’t need a transsexual prostitute when you have me.
And that probably answers what I’d do if I could start over. Because, well, how often does one really get that chance?
I love my kids, but dammit I would go back and live a life before having them. I would get a degree and travel, and live somewhere warm. But I would like to do all of that with my hubby. We’ve been together since I was 16 and twenty-one years later we still laugh together. I wouldn’t trade that even for a do-over!
I would have stayed in Amsterdam and got a bartending job.
And probably died from an overdose, but this is my dream.
hard to say what i would do, i often wish i could transplant my whole family so that we could live somewhere “neater” and yet I could still be happy with my family around me….
it is funny to live in a place you are quite sure no one aspires to live… LOL dont know many people who are just dreaming of living in Kansas City some day hahaha
move to maui 😉
Honestly I ‘m not sure I would change anything…maybe sleep with some guys I held out on at the time for reasons that escape me now. Possibly I’d save more & spend less. Really though, I’m good here.
But living someplace that had grocery delivery would be sorta nice.
I’d talk less and listen more.
well, if we’re talking about California AND do-overs, I would SO go back in time to tell my dad NO when he decided to move us to NY..UPSTATE…NOT the city the summer before senior year of high school. THAT.WAS.DUMB.
I also probably wouldn’t have dated the canadian. or try to army crawl back into the house at 3am only to be caught by my parents…drunk…EVERY SINGLE TIME.
I can so relate to your longing for another state.
My fantasy location has always been Seattle. We had a very real opportunity to move there about 9 years ago, but turned it down because we had no family or friends on the east coast. (But guess what? The following year my best friend moved there, and she’s lived there ever since. Sigh.)
If I could go back and have a do over I first would want to go back far enough to avoid marrying the jackass that was my first husband. I would then marry my current husband again (because that dude is fuckin awsome) but wait a few more years to have my boys. I would insist on the EXACT same kids 2 or 3 years later. In the extra time before my boys I would travel with my man, hone my teaching skillz, and then earn my Master’s degree in a different profession because we all know teaching is going down in a blaze of institutionalization. Maybe I would become a Journalist the way I wanted to during my Bachelors.
You ask really hard questions!
I have to say that if I were to scrap it to do all over? I’d pick a different degree, have traveled abroad in highschool and college…and maybe stayed with my first college boyfriend. Maybe.
Whenever this question comes up, people always say they wish they had traveled more before having a family. I’m still in that “before” stage, but the problem is that you don’t really have all that many resources at this stage of your life to make that happen. I’ve traveled a reasonable amount, but wish I could do more because I know I’ll regret not having done it once I start a family. At the same time though, I’m about to go back to grad school, and let’s face it….money’s going to be tight even on a day-to-day basis, forget about traveling!
OOooh Cali….Well, as much as I would love to live in another state, I could never leave Jersey. Every single family member is here. We’re like The Sopranos. You just don’t leave, it’s un-natural!
sigh. you are bringing me back to my early 20s when I lived in LA. mmmmmm…
now I live in Florida, which although almost as sunny, is also a million times more humid, and way less fashionable. oh well, it beats newark I suppose. and my dad works in NYC. I think it is the coolest city ever, but would have a nervous breakdown living around so many people.
do over emily would finish college and spend a year studying in another country. I did take some “me” years before having kids though (the LA years I was referring to above), so I am pretty cool with the way things turned out. safe travels!
Finish my PhD and/or leave the country. And after living in Vegas all these years, i’m pretty much thoroughly enchanted with EVERYWHERE, ANYWHERE else too.
I get to ditch it all and start over?? ooohh.. think. think. think. I’d probably/hopefully spend my money better, but otherwise, I’d do it all over again, except that high school boyfried (WHAT was I thinking???) And if I could move states.. well, maybe someplace East Coast, but just cuz I’ve never been there. And I’m totally keeping the husband. He’s The Best.
Great read! If I were to do it all over, I think I would want to be a guy on a motorcycle touring the country. No time limits, no schedules. That would be ideal. Or perhaps a test driver for Ferrari. Either of those would work for me.
i’d totally go live in an exotic foreign country. Like Canada. Or Texas.
I would like a weave and a boob job. Gravity is a bitch! I loves me some warm weather so I say anywhere but Ohio.
I am who I am because of both my good and poor decisions, but assuming I get to somehow keep all my life lessons through common sense, I’d change a couple things. I wouldn’t have worked my ass off so much in college – I would have enjoyed it more, maybe even rushed. After years of having no interest in cooking, I now want to be a Food Network chef, if only to get to do challenges and meet Duff Goldman. So I guess I’d escape to culinary school. Other than that, I’m pretty happy with where life has brought me.
I have no idea what I would do, but I would be in Europe. Preferably Italy. Yep, I would live in a hostel and wait tables for the rest of my life to live in Italy.
Nice to have you in the same time zone for a while.
Me…
I’d have become fluent in at least 2 other world languages, reached The Next Level in skiing and rock climbing, lived on a couple of other continents, had more intrinsic motivation
(all in hypothetical, because if any of this kept me from having my kids, well, I’d rather have my kids)
Being military, we’ve lived in GA, WA, HI and now NC. I’m from NY. I don’t know if I’d change that…
I would have liked it if my husband was a super rich orphan. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about inlaws or money.
I would probably not have gotten married and had kids.
I’d live by myself where the place would ALWAYS stay tidy. And I’d watch whatever TV shows I wanted, whenever I wanted to watch them. I’d come and go as I pleased and would ensure that I, and I alone, would be the top of my priority list. I’d have fab lovers whenever I felt like it and would travel extensively to exotic locations. While we’re dreaming, let’s throw in “win the big lottery” to support said lifestyle.
Damn that all sounds good. Now I’m depressed. Thanks a lot.
I already chucked everything and started over in a new state, moving 400 miles from home. I moved from Minnesota to…Chicago. Clearly I didn’t take advantage of the whole “new start” thing, but Spouse is blind and they have good public transportation here, so eh, Chicago it is. Thankfully, I love it here. And it isn’t even that cold, compared to Minnesota.
If I was 17 and starting college again, I’d be aiming at med school…either an ER doc or a labor and high risk OBGYN.
I would love to pack up and travel the world with my family. We have some friend’s that have done that, and their stories are amazing. I would love to provide my kids that experience. I am just not so thrilled about homeschooling all 4 of them. It might still be in the works though when the littles ones get older.
PS. Your kids were awesome this weekend, and Ben totally kicked my butt at Mario Party
I have to say I’m feeling pretty good about my life after reading the comments…I’ve got the degree…I’ve traveled…and I live somewhere warm.
Thanks guys! I hadn’t realized I was living the dream!
If I could start over…I’d travel more. For sure.
I would have majored in journalism or English like I wanted to.
I would like to have been old enough to enjoy the 60’s.
I would have decided to be a cognitive neuropsychiatrist much sooner! Like, ten years ago.
San Fran has a better chance of having a tranny at a baby shower. Next time I’m out that way I’ll take some photos and hook you up, yo.
Get my degree before I got married!
I have to say I’m feeling pretty good about my life after reading the comments…I’ve got the degree…I’ve traveled…and I live somewhere warm.
Thanks guys! I hadn’t realized I was living the dream!
If I could start over…I’d travel more. For sure.
This one has my link fixed.
If I could ditch everything I own and start over bringing my husband and kids, I would open a junk food (everything fried) shop on a beach pier. Florida….southern California……
When I was 23ish I flew out to L.A. with a group of friends and we spent one afternoon on the beach. I forget which beach we went to, but it wasn’t very crowded at all. I was standing in the thick, dry sand just watching the white clouds float by across the blue sky and admiring the waves crashing against a big pile of rocks that went way far out into the ocean. The sounds were phenomenal. Anyway, a friend of mine and I had stood there for at least 30 minutes when some guy comes up several yards behind us and starts playing a piccolo. Not any recognizable song, just random notes and rhythms.
It was the most beautiful experience ever. I wish I had money to throw at him because he deserved all the money in the world for the performance he did with the ocean waves.
I’d like to ekkp most of my life- maybe just change the part where I’m not an heiress.
and don’t feel bad about the tranny hooker – some of teh best ones Ive ever seen were right there in Chicago. Hit up Broadway near Addison and you should be set.
um, by ekkp, I meant keep. obviously
Hmmmm. there’s a long list of things I’d do over if I could – starting with picking a degree where one can actually earn money, unlike friggin Biology, where I can um, keep going to school for a million years or teach. I’m not so much loving the teaching profession. Also, I’d have learned how to spend less money on stupid junk and put away cashola for some awesome trips I want to take – Alaska, Ireland, Africa to name a few destinations. Then there’s the whole house debacle. I wish I hadn’t bought one at the very top of the market only to watch our “investment” crash and burn. Instead, I’d have convinced my hubs to move somewhere nicer where houses have yards. That’s mostly it I guess. I mean, I’m sure there are lots of relationship boo-boo’s I’ve made but I consider all those necessary steps to getting the awesome man I call hubby now & our adorable little crotch parasites. Wouldn’t want to mess with any of that. 🙂
I would like to have a liquor and porn empire! Think about it, a Sonic type drive thru….pull in, browse thru a touch screen type menu, pick your booze and a dirty movie and then someone on roller skates brings it out to you! How cool would that be?!
I would be in a lab playing with pipets and looking through cool microscopes.
I’d go to journalism school and travel the world as a freelance photojournalist. With a base in Italy, Positano sounds nice. I’d have one of those houses perched on the hillside with geraniums and plants growing everywhere and I’d arrive home at midnight after another gruelling assignment and when I woke up in the morning, my neighbours would say, “Ciao! Bella! Where’va you abeen?” Sort of like a cross between the Big Blue and … The Year of Living Dangerously. Oh, and my sexy, dark lover would come over and not talk much, just watch me sexily until the neighbours left …
I’ve never seen a transsexual prossie. Must travel more. If you see one, you have to take a photo, promise?
I would move to England and become a professional writer. By “professional writer” I mean author of an instant classic that hits the NY Times best seller list immediately, with the occasional freelance articles for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair.
Once you skip over my glossy response of “Oh, I wouldn’t change anything because my life is messy, but wonderful an my own” — I would have lived in my own apartment. It’s simple- but also all encompassing. I would have figured out more of what makes me, me… before I figured out how to fit into my husband’s life, and now my family’s. Sometimes, when I hope to find more of myself, I am not sure I even know where to start.
I would try pole dancing – just once. I would become a fanatic – of something. I would still wish, will of my heart, to be doing exactly what I’m doing (I can’t help it I’m hokey).
Quite frankly, I could not ditch my life. As much as I feel uncomfortable on this planet sometimes, I cannot imagine living any other life, especially now that I have a grandchild. But oh- if I did, if I could, well…
I can’t tell you. That is the secret of my heart.
Safe travels, Auntie B.
I’d become a hobo. Because hobos are awesome.
Dude, New York IS Chicago. Except the wind (wait, scratch that this year anyway), its bigger sure but we have all the same awesome culture and shit. Better pizza here though. (I love saying that to my Chi-Town colleagues lol). And its cold ass here too, and the summer GAH – the humidity will kill you. I like fall though.
You have the lake, which is totally like the ocean, well not really, but its a big ass body of water. Your suburbs are WAY cheaper. If I hadnt grown up here I too would be dreaming of California (scratch that), Hawaii! But wouldnt you miss the FOOD? Midwest Chili sucks btw. So do most Chili places around here though too. Maybe Texas? Sigh, I guess this is home.
If I could ditch my life I’d do one of two things…ok…3 things.
1. Move to Alaska and teach in a tiny village.
2. Move to England and tour Europe with my awesome English flat as home base.
3. I’d become a famous author of trashy romance novels (think Harlequin-style) while jetsetting back and forth between my incredible cabin in Alaska and my stylish flat in London.
Next time make a trip to NorCal. I guarantee good times.
If I had a do-over I would NOT marry the gorgeous alcoholic abusive guy and marry a rich guy and get 1/2 his money in the divorce so I could be single and happy and rich. I have the single/happy part going on, just need the rich part so I could quit this job thing.
Come to Vancouver we have lots of transvestities, transgender, trans whatever!
I already DID ditch my life and start over. Twice. I abandoned my life in NZ and moved to Canada. Then this year I did the reverse. Except I brought the hubster and the spawnlets with me. But if I did it again, I’d take off to somewhere like Italy or France.
Wow, talk about asking a loaded question! I told Hubby that I can’t with him to get shoes in the mall anymore, because the single girl clothes make me cry.
Since we’re fantasizing, when we get to ditch and start over we’ll be younger and skinny again too, right???!!
You make me laugh. I’m a 5th generation Californian … living in The OC. I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I turn the heater on if the temp drops below 70. It drives my husband crazy … he grew up on the east coast.
: )
I probably would get a degree in something other than ACTING…because being able to pretend truthfully that you are something doesn’t make it so. Also I would have won the lottery and showered every one I love with money.
And there is this castle…well you know the rest.
I hope you had lots of fun at the shower and on your mini vacay.
I would live in the bayous in the swamps of Lousiana. I’d learn Hoodoo and make moonshine and wrestle an alligator.
Or I’d live in the Hollers of West Virginia in the Appalachians and teach kids and adults that hadn’t gotten past the fifth grade.
Or maybe I’d be a Southern Belle in Charleston and be a debutante and come from really OLD money where we look down on families that have only been millionaires for like ten years instead of a hundred.
Or I’d live on an animal sanctuary and raise big cats and elephants that were rescued.
Or I’d work with a traveling circus. I don’t know what I would do there. Maybe I’d be a trapeze artist or I’d stand on galloping zebras.
No one’s ever asked me what I’d do if I could just start over. I’d do pretty much anything but be middle class and American.
PS these are all actual real daydreams of mine. I am not just trying to be funny.
First, transsexual hookers? Easy to come by – if you don’t want to go into Chicago, you can go north. There were some in North Chicago (just north of Great Lakes Naval Air Station)that I would pass on my way to work every day. That’s north of Lake Bluff, and south of Waukegan – Sheridan Road. You can probably get a nice weave there too. Definitely a tattoo. And more than likely, a sailor.
I wouldn’t ditch the people in my life, although I would give my husband an attitude adjustment. If Italy or Ireland could improve their insulation, I would live in either place. Also, Italy needs to get rid of the squatter toilets, because that’s just gross. And their justice system and political system seems a little screwy. But the weather and scenery and history in Italy are awesome. And Ireland is magical.
Ever since I saw that show on PBS, “Frontier House,” I’ve wanted to do something like that. I feel like I could totally live off the land. I probably could NOT, but I think I’d like it. I always feel like the less I owned, the happier I’d be. Who knows.
I’d also really like to travel and eventually move to New England.
Oh! Also, without the four kidlets, I’d totally SEE MOVIES. Dream big, right?
Yes and No..I would love to ditch the bills and the house and the cold weather, but I want to ditch all those things with my hubby and kids…like all of us run away to a grass hut on the beaches of Fiji and sell tropical fruit to gullible tourists…ya know. If I had to give up my kids and hubby, then…No, I couldn’t do it.
I’ve never been to California but something tells me I’d love it.
Live in a Tiki Hut in Hawaii. Weave baskets for tourists.
Wow! I didn’t get to post yesterday, and now there are a whopping 74 comments! You rock!
What would I do? I’ve always considered alternate lives. Seeing the world through the armed forces, Picking up and moving to Europe, Even just moving to the West to live in the hot barren land of the plains. It’s fun to dream.
North Carolina is my place I’m gonna live because I can’t take this winter anymore place. Dunno why; seems less “southern” than other states, yet warm.
I know what you mean about New York. I never knew how much I regretted not ever living there until I spent time there a few years ago.
I’ve visited L.A. several times and have very different feelings about it. While the weather is disgustingly PERFECT with not a hint on humidity that we here in the south must endure, I think I’m WAYYYYY too insecure to live in a place like that. It really made me understand how girls acquire an eating disorder and nothing is good enough there.
But if I could do something else, be somewhere else…it would be NYC…DEFINITELY. Maybe I’d finish what I started and become a psychiatrist and treat all the wacky New Yorkers!
BTW…Chicago is a close second. I love that city!
Next time you are in SF I’ll show you to a great tranny hooker hangout. By great, I clearly mean horrible, the “ladies” have more facial hair then me, and cute buff shoulders.
My Ruca-best college song ever. I don’t want to ditch my entire life-just parts of-is that cool?
When you were talking about not being able to pull off blonde hair, I was picturing you pulling blonde hair out of your scalp. Why, you may wonder? Because one of my Shibas is blowing her coat, and I love to pull out those little (big) tufts of hair. It’s kind of an obsession.
Goodness I finally caught up with you just in time to see you call New York home and swoon because I’m a new yorker and there could never be another home to me.
Hi. welcome back to the cold.
If I could start over, I would marry rich.
Start over? I’d want to split my time between someplace Western US and some place European…like castle in Scotland…
Okay, I found some photos of me from about the 3rd grade and 1st grade. My most ‘worst’ photo is the one from the field trip. I was wearing heels and an extremely short dress sort of standing on a pole. Who knew I’d grow up to be a stripper.
I’d work on having my own variety show or at least be a newscaster!
I did. I left my family and friends, and moved to Alaska to teach high school. The excitement wore off about 5 years ago, and now pooping in a bucket is just part of life. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.