You Better Get to Livin'...

...like Dolly Parton (aka DOLLY! PARTON!) and me will be on August 3rd at the Greek Theater.

She is, obviously, the main act, but I will making a bit of a cameo on the back stage at the top back of the ampitheater. My act? Singing along and crying tears of joy and yelling my love for our greatest living singer. It will be a sight--especially if I get my new boobs by then.

Small and perky is nice and all but I think I'm ready for some real floatation devices and back pain. Huzzah!

Confessional

I love my life here in Los Angeles. I have great friends, great weather, great roommate, great job, the most fabulous little pickles ever and access to the world's greatest yoga teachers. It's... great. What's not great is geography. It's soooooo far from my family and sitting here doing nothing (but dating many many Peter Pans (yes, there is more than one! But they all live in LA...)) is not making me famous for anything. No one's even offered to be my agent. Gah.

I'll be here for some more time, I know (so put away your hopes for now, family), but talking to a friend in VA earlier today made me miss my old home a lot. I mean, I miss home every time I talk to my family, especially Miss Avery's phone gurgles, but talking to a friend I haven't actually spoken to for some years now brought back a rush of memories. Memories I'd like to still be making.

And yet.

Every morning I step into flip flops and open the door to beautiful dog-walking weather. I have a book club with my smart, funny, socially-aware-but-not-self-righteous friends. I volunteer with teens I love every other Friday. I have different areas of my life (personal, spiritual, professional) where I know different people and sometimes cross paths with them in other areas of my life.

In short, my life is here, in California.

I have moved plenty of times in my life. But--Angola and Olympia, WA (two month stints apiece) aside--this is the furthest I have gone and already the second longest-time I have lived anywhere since high school. I have lived here more than two times longer than I lived in New York and almost as long as I spent in beloved beloved Blacksburg. The arithmetic of it all must be fascinating for you and I know it's tidbits such as this that keep you coming back for more and more.

But it is stuff I think about, some weak quanitification of the meaning of place.

Perhaps it's age, but I can't just up and relocate the life on a whim. I used to. I remember looking out at the George Washington Bridge spanning the Hudson one late Fall late night in 1999 and deciding that I'd trade NYC for DC and family and relationship. That January I moved as flippantly decided...and spent three years painfully missing New York.

I was happy for the closer proximity to family to be sure (and the relationship) but I missed another true love, New York, and felt more at home there every time I went to visit than I did in the city I actually lived. Would that happen to me if I left here? Would I look down at every 95 and humid day or out at snowy streets with a sense of dread and long for 68 and sunny? Would I do this everyday? Because I have tried skipping the dog walking duties a day here and there and the dizzles just aren't down with holding it that long. Wussies.

But am I down with growing deeper roots in a city all the way at the other side of this very large country from my family and many of my friends? (Insert Carrie Bradshaw voice...) I couldn't help but wonder, when it comes to moving and love, which moves you more?

Well?

Talk to me, folks. Starpower needs a guiding light.