Movin’ On Up, Up The West Coast

Friday, July 27 2012

Movin’ On Up, Up The West Coast

We’re moving!

My wife got a job in Portland and it starts very very soon.

I have lived in only two cities in my entire life, and only one as an adult. L.A. has been my home since before I lost my virginity, before I was old enough to drink, before so many things. I’m emotional about leaving, if only because every emotion I’ve ever experienced as a grownup, I’ve experienced here. I’ve lived here almost exactly as long as I lived in Iowa City, where I grew up. And soon I will be gone.

This isn’t just a new chapter in my life; it’s the end of Book II and the beginning of Book III. I don’t know what I’m going to do for work or where exactly we’re going to live or how this is going to affect my personal creative endeavors, such as they are; all I know is I love my wife and I love Portland and I have needed a change for way longer than I’ve been willing to admit I needed a change. Everything else is completely up in the air. It’s a classic crisi-tunity. An opportune-tastrophe. Fear and hope and excitement and openmindedness are all Indian-leg-wrestling inside my head right now.

I’m not leaving much behind in L.A.; for all my scrabbling and scrambling and clawing, I’ve barely made a dent on this town. I’m not leaving comedy behind, because I’m taking it with me; I’m not leaving a job I love, or a home I built with my own two hands, or the lady I’m in love with. I don’t have any development deals to fuck up, or agents who will miss me, or meetings that have to be cancelled, or auditions that I would have been perfect for. I don’t even have introductory improv classes to miss.

But I am going to miss my friends. I’ve made so many friends in L.A., especially since I started doing standup. I’ll be able to talk to them all every day online, but it won’t be the same, but it could be worse. The last time I found myself in this situation, I was moving to California and worried about staying in touch with my high school buddies, and even the crappiest social-networking sites were five years away from being invented. Now I’ll be able to see what everybody’s having for every damn meal, and hear all the best jokes about whatever dumb thing Mitt Romney just did.

It won’t be a clean or heartless break; I’ll be in L.A. on and off for a couple of months, doing some work, saving some money, but before Halloween, I will be gone for real.

I have a really corny clichéd standing-on-a-cliff-overlooking-an-unexplored-magical-land feeling right now. It’s been a while. I hope the feeling sticks around.