P. Diddy & My Transition from Collegiate Los Angeleno to Practically Native

As soon as I begin to think I’ve become a true Los Angeleno (whatever that means – no one actually knows), I remember that I still shiver violently every time it is below 70 degrees. It is currently 63 degrees, and I am sitting 14 blocks from the beach in an air-conditioned Peet’s Coffee on a trendy street in Santa Monica. I am shivering violently, and everyone else around me seems perfectly unaffected.

I’m not sure how much longer I can withstand the arctic temps because my fingers are moving at a glacial pace (I commonly make references to The Devil Wears Prada, thank you for noticing). Also, every time I try to be a ~writer~ in a coffee shop, I mostly end up people-watching and/or people-hearing. I do tend to eavesdrop because listening to everyday people is a huge part of the ~craft~ of acting & writing.

But back to LA and ME. I can’t help feeling very sentimental these days about how much I love LA. Even though I will always love London more (obviously, don’t be daft), I have spent so much time driving all over God’s green earth in this city that how can I not love it. Because you honestly have to.

Let’s not forget the fact that I see my own parents multiple times a week – sometimes even three. Chicago – oh most glorious hometown that it is – is turning into a distant memory, and I seriously (not jokingly) feel more and more as if I am FROM Los Angeles.

Which is a) crazy because I’m cooler than that, and b) ridiculous because everyone who is relevant and ~cool~ is from Chicago.

Yesterday at work, a kid from Kentucky had heard of my high school in Chicago and immediately assumed knew that I am smart.

High school is a thing of the past, thankfully, and I get to celebrate with an open bar at the Bel Air Country Club once a year at the alumni event St. Ignatius College Prep puts on for those of us who are even smarter for moving here.

LA is crazay, but I love it.

Other citizens of the United States come to LA and complain about everyone being “fake and pretty”, whereas I live in LA and complain about everyone being bad drivers.

Other people come to LA and just don’t like it. (Cough, you know who you are.) Which is fine by all means. But all of these sentimental feelings seem to provide solid evidence towards my eligibility for “Practically Native” status:

1. Due to a nice boost in tutoring clients, I now spend up to 6 hours per day in my car.
2. Due to a nice boost in amount of hours spent in my car, I now consume up to 100% of my meals while driving. (This only happened one day, but still. So LA.)
3. I now carry a “hunting green” Swell water bottle wherever I go in the hopes that keeping myself hydrated will kickstart my LA diet consisting of…water.
4. Once I spent $7 on a latte to ~write~ in a trendy coffee place in lieu of the usual $2.45 at Starbucks.
5. My proudest moment in the past four months was auditioning for a small role on a Disney Channel show which I didn’t know because the days of watching channel 28 are behind me. But I watched the pilot on Youtube the night before, and OMG it was funny and I LOLED.
6. I am perpetually single. (Common practice for LA millennials.)
7. I’m a “struggling (millennial) adult”, but at least I have parking (as my mother is so keen on reminding me).
8. I’ve acquired my first private tutoring client; thus, I am clearly moving up in the LA freelancing market.
9. Last week at my place of employment, I served P. Diddy aka Puff Daddy aka Sean Combs. (Sorry Casey Affleck, but Diddy’s net worth is $820 million and yours doesn’t even come up on Google.)

The being a “struggling millennial adult” is not so much LA as it is ~LIFE~, but I had to include it on the list because I’m an adult now and I just paid my California taxes.

The 10th and final reason to verify my LA status is this:

10. Many moons ago, when I first started working at a restaurant and when I wrote my first blog post (out of the, like, three), I recall that I labeled the servers at Mindy’s* as emotionally unstable.

I am writing to inform you that I am now one of them.

(*Let’s not forget: name has been changed for legal purposes.)

I have become an emotionally-unstable waitress in this line of work. Extreme cases only arise in times of pure desperation for efficiency, i.e. when P. Diddy orders three Bellini’s and we don’t even have peach purée.

But in all honesty, only in those times of pure desperation for efficiency do I become an emotional wreck out of breath and unable to quite literally stand. Otherwise I’m 90% normal, and sometimes people even are curious enough to ask where I’m from because I’m so “nice.”

And there you have it, I just contradicted myself and the whole point of this bloody post!

I am from Chicago, and I am nice.

Everything else that was said…practically meaningless.

#LAclichéouuuuuuuuuut.