So I'm in LA. Too many people have written too much on this place. It's been called a city of narcissists, a city of transients, a cesspool, a hellhole, a city full of human garbage, a great number 2, and a whole lot of people call it home. Two things have surprised me about LA so far. First: how low to the ground it is. My Alaska brain tells me that cities should reach up to the sky, but LA chooses sprawl over climb. This creates an intimidating flatness to anyone flying into LAX (which by the way looks and feels exactly like an almost-out-of-business shopping mall). The second surprising thing: almost nobody who lives in LA grew up in LA. Everyone seems to come from somewhere else, with New York and the Midwest bringing in the two largest transient groups. My cousin is the exception proving the rule. She grew up in the city, and her two moms (one of whom is my aunt Mary) live in Venice Beach together (its a long story). I'm excited so far. Lately I've been feeling something pulling at the fringes of my general contentment, and I hope LA will give me some time to come to terms with what that might mean. At this point, I hope that my time here will either convince me that I need to get out of Alaska once and for all, or convince me that everywhere outside of Alaska is filled with crazy people and I'm better off staying back home. Right now it feels like there can be no middle ground between those two things.