Los Angeles is...good?

Changing my mind on the place I hated the most

When I moved to Los Angeles in 2017, it wasn’t my idea. I had just started my TV writing career in earnest, and, having just completed my First Real Job™ on a show that put me in a writer’s room with the amazing Sharon Horgan, just assumed I’d be able to work in New York forever. I lived there—it made sense that I would continue working there, right?

No one told me that would be a fluke.

With the exception of late night television, Dick Wolf shows, and a few very rich people who refuse to work elsewhere, most US television writing happens in Los Angeles. When my (former) agent strongly suggested I move there before starting my next job, I resisted. Instead, I AirBnB’d an apartment in Los Angeles, living in the backyard converted garage of a very nice woman, and kept my apartment in Harlem. I needed a catsitter for Carrot, and a friend of mine was going through a transitional living phase and needed a place to crash—it seemed like it would work out well. I came back to NYC every other weekend out of homesickness and a desire to see my cat; I cried every single time the plane landed in LA.

Then my (former) friend burnt every pan I had, left scorching match marks on the top of my brand new dresser, and left my door open and unlocked so frequently my neighbors asked if the person staying in my apartment had a problem with addiction. I asked her to leave before she burned the building to the ground.

Thankfully my friend Maggie was able to stay with Carrot for the duration of my time in Los Angeles, and when the job was over I thought “Okay! Never leaving New York again!”

I got hired for another show within a month of being home.

It was ridiculous for me to pay rent in the two most expensive cities in the country the first time; I didn’t have the heart, willpower, or bank account to do it again. I packed my apartment, broke my lease two months early, and moved to Los Angeles.

The first red flag should have been obvious: I have never been less enthusiastic about looking for a place to live. I have been an apartment dweller for most of my life, and an apartment renter since I was 18 years old, and could find a way to make any space work. For example: I once lived in a studio apartment in Northern California that was so small my knees touched the sink AND the shower when I sat down to pee, and I would find a trail of slime most mornings from where the BANANA SLUGS slithered away after trying to eat my cat’s food. I slept on a rock-hard futon and my alarm clock was the swish-swish-swishing of the plastic suits handed to the clients of the weight loss center on the corner. Someone got shot and killed down the street right before I moved.

I would have moved into that tiny, slug-filled, murder-adjacent apartment ten more times if it meant I wouldn’t have to look for one in LA.