I fled Vermont the day before the Bomb Cyclone plunged New England into a scene from Snowpiercer - it was NEGATIVE SIXTEEN when I left. NEGATIVE SIXTEEN!! Again, thats not even a real temperature. Thats fake news. Thats a number Satan created to throw us all into a miserable tizzy. So, after dropping the dogs off at a pet ranch with multiple sweaters and jackets, I, much like the Pioneers before me, headed West.

I flew to LA to spend a few days basking in the sunshine and rang in the New Year only mildly concerned about a giant earthquake sucking me into a fault like Margot Kidder. Then, last week I flew up to Portland to see my best friend on her birthday. We haven't been able to celebrate together in years. A quick and quiet trip - just hanging out with her family and attempting to see a few friends while I was in town. It's a scientific fact that being able to sit with a girlfriend at the grocery store bar (don't ask) while having a beer and pouring over all of the bullshit in the world, is incredibly good for the soul. Also, more grocery stores should have bars in them if you ask me, it makes the shopping experience all the more enjoyable. Anywho, after Portland, I flew back to LA to see more friends, to box with a coach who looks like Harry Styles and makes me incredibly uncomfortable (in my loins), to take a few meetings and to stare longingly at the Scientology Center, wondering if Shelly Miscaviage is trapped in a cell, deep in its basement. The usual LA stuff, really.

In early November I came out to LA for a friends wedding - it was a super quick trip - but it helped to remind me of something....I don't actually hate LA. There are things I deeply dislike - the lack of weather. Sure, -16 is tortuous, but its nice to have seasons. LA does not have seasons. I dislike the earthquakes. I dislike droughts. I dislike wildfires. I dislike the architecture of the weird 1970s faux stucco apartments with tropical names like, "The Capri". I dislike the cast of Vanderpump Rules. What I actually hated about LA was not having a life. When I first started in the biz (thats short for Showbiz, because I'm a 1940s director, apparently), I had a job that was really great. I worked for known nice people, had great coworkers and went to almost every single Dodger home game for about 5 years straight. Side note, if you need to, you can supplement almost 80% of your food intake with Dodger Dogs. That job also had normal hours. I worked 9-6 most days - sometimes a little later - but I couldn't complain. My boss didn't bother me after-hours unless it was an actual emergency. He would leave to-dos on the office phone so that he wouldn't have to holler at me at night for things that weren't important. It was a great system. And on top of that, I was afforded the opportunity to have a life. An actual life. I played in a kickball league. I took classes at UCB and joined improv groups. I had a radio show on a local talk-radio station, and did that until I just got bored. I dated. I went to parties. I took a vacation to Hawaii that I centered around the movie BLUE CRUSH. Basically, I was living my damn life. Of course, it wasn't a job that I could keep forever. I needed more money and more experience; so I had to leave the comfortable bubble and head to the next adventure. My jobs from there got progressively more intense. Longer hours. Middle of the night conference calls and travel issues. In the office at 7am sharp and would leave around 8pm, just to go home and work remotely. I'd end up working weekends. Holidays were spent in LA instead of back in Texas. Slowly, my free time disappeared. And thanks to the whole "no seasons" thing in LA, I had no way to track the passage of time. It was a sunny and 70 Groundhog Day. It made me feel like I was going stir crazy.

And then I moved to Atlanta. That job, and the isolation that came with it, really did a number on me. So when I quit, I did the natural thing and I went back to LA. And I truly thought things would be back to "normal" and everything would be lovely. But I didn't really understand how much Atlanta had thrown me off course. How two years spent with nary a friend and surrounded by people who treated you like a social pariah could cause you to retreat into yourself. I had spent my days exploring Georgia and getting lost in my own head. I had a really, really difficult time being back in LA after that. It didn't matter that I had incredible friends, or ended up with a very low key, low pressure job for a decent person. I was just off and uncomfortable in my own skin. So when I was offered a position with a producer in New York, I jumped at the chance. I left thinking that LA itself was the problem. And maybe it was? But I've come to think it was situational. I think I hated who I was after coming back. I hated that I couldn't shake off the two years and how they had caused me to become a husk of my former self. And I felt that hate in every palm tree and almond macadamia oat milk latte. I spent a solid year and a half thinking I hated LA and scoffing at all the people moving West. I thought I knew a secret that they didn't - that LA isn't all that great and things can be even shitter under the glare of constant sunshine.

And then last year I had to spend a lot of time back and forth between LA and NY for work. With every trip, I realized how many friends I had who wanted to see me and who I missed dearly. I realized I actually liked the way the palm trees look on that ridge in Echo Park. I liked the hipster coffee stores. I liked the fact that you get incredible smog sunsets. And then I came back for the wedding and it hit me, I missed the West Coast. And then I felt it - LA's siren song was calling me back. I spent November and December really uncomfortable with that idea. I've had people say that going back means I'm too weak to cut ties with my former life. Maybe they're right? I've had people get mad because they're living vicariously through me and I think they like knowing in the back of their head, that they too could leave it all behind and move to Vermont if they hit a wall. I've been told that I just need to get the damn goat farm I've been talking about for so long - and they don't seem to listen to me when I say its not doable solo. And even more than that, I don't WANT to do it solo. I don't want to be isolated anymore. I don't want to have to create a social network from scratch when I already have a fantastic group on the West Coast? Why navigate an entirely new career, when I could pivot into a role that isn't a glorified whipping boy? It feels like I'm making things unnecessarily difficult, when there's a place ready to welcome me back. LA is my Cheer's.

Would Vermont appeal more to me if I had some sort of social life? Absolutely. And as much as I joke about Vermont Tinder, its really difficult to meet people in general when you're in your thirties. And it's hard to enjoy the beauty of New England when theres not someone you can share that with. LA isn't perfect and it never will be - it'll always be a place that can suck the soul out of you if you're not careful. It can be too shiny. And there's always the potential to die in an earthquake. But, I guess if I had to choose, I'd rather die surrounded by friends than in the wilderness after being mistaken for a moose?

So, I'm spending the rest of the week taking meetings and looking for opportunities and relishing the last few days surrounded by a really fantastic group of weirdos who love and support me. People who knew me pre and post Madea. People who understand how the last two jobs broke me and understand why I needed time to find me. And now they want me to come back into the fold and that feels really fantastic. So, even though I don't believe in New Years resolutions, this year I'm not going to let myself retreat back to who I was before. I'm not going to just let life happen to me. I'm going after what I need and want in 2018 with no embarrassment. I will let the chips fall where they may. But I'm not going down without a fight.