A Los Angeles funk

My friend So Lovely is in a funk.  She admits it freely and rather bravely on her blog.  She comes from New Zealand and has just spent a few weeks there with her family. Re-entry is proving to be hard. It's always hard for ex-pats.  "I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien" I tell people (I despise Sting, for the record). There aren't many of us left. Most of our number have bitten the bullet, learned the Pledge of Allegiance and become one with the stars and Stripes.  As glamorous as Los Angeles may appear from the outside ("Oh my goodness, you live in LA? You lucky girl!" I hear with great frequency) it is a very lonely place.  Superficially, it's a town full of young and beautiful people, many of whom want to be the next Robert Pattinson or Britney Spears.  It's a town of billboards and admen, glitz and glamour, and grime & methheads.  A great and wise guru friend of mine once said,

"People ask 'if you're trying to find enlightenment, why come to Los Angeles?' And I answered 'where better to find the truth than in a city that's all about facade.'"

And then, of course, there's Isherwood, whose words are words to live by, if you happen to live in Los Angeles.  Beneath the facade, there are layers upon intricate layers of real people -- poets, gardeners, cooks, teachers, writers, scientists. Unfortunately, the closer you live to Sunset Strip, the further you must venture to find this.

So Lovely, be easy on yourself.  Planet Earth is blue and all that.

Love,

Miss W