“Why do you need two places?” It was an eminently sensible question from a great friend who was querying why I currently split my time between Los Angeles and New York. A little weary of the former, I was trying to decide where to base my second home when the lease expires in May.
I’ve lived in two places most of my adult life. At one point, four – London, Cardiff, Paris, Marbella (it’s a very long story that involved buying pine furniture when I was going to be living with a man and then holding on to it when we broke up. I finally chucked it all last year. It was a harder break-up than the one with him had been).
But back to the States. I don’t like Miami (expensive, too many thin people, noisy) or, come to that, anywhere else in Florida (mosquitoes, Trumpites and God lovers). I don’t want the UK (Brexiteers, hysterical (and not in a ho ho ho kind of way) anti-Trumpites), and despite Canada having a very cute president in Trudeau, at the end of the day it’s still Canada.
The sensible thing to do would be to bring the stuff I really want to keep to NY and sell the rest. As I already have a big storage unit in the UK, I don’t really want a second in the US (having a home plus two storage units is even more insane that having two homes – at least, according to my logic). However, my place in NY is not huge and even bringing the bare minimum would make it look like a storage unit. So then I’d still have two storage units but no home.
My answer, therefore, to my friend’s question was: “I need somewhere to put my sofas.” Logic, you may have realised by now, has never been my strong point. I’d make a terrible lawyer – unless it was one on Law and Order and I was forced to stick to the script.
The decision now is where the sofas are heading. I’d rather stay on the East Coast but want somewhere warm. Everyone has assured me I would love Charleston in South Carolina. I must admit, it looks rather pretty, but even the most cursory glance on Google at Top Ten Things to Do in Charleston doesn’t have me rushing for the airport.
Walking, biking, a bridge, a church, a swamp garden . . . I already feel rigor mortis setting in.
I’ve always loved Texans who, of all the Americans I’ve met, seem the most fun-loving, but I wouldn’t like the extreme weather or the even more extreme political views of middle America (then there’s that God problem again). I loathe Las Vegas with a passion (although I’ve booked to see Elton John’s show and am mega-excited), saw everything I needed to of Boston through the plane window coming in to land, and my little experience of New Jersey makes Charleston look like New Orleans on speed.
Los Angeles still seems like the obvious alternative. I love the West Coast weather and, as a place to escape the summer humidity and winter winds of New York, it’s a great contrast. The problem is that the things I love about it are the things I dislike, too. Film, TV, showbiz and media are my passions in a life that I am grateful every day to be a part of. But then there is the downside of all that – the people struggling to make it in those areas and, invariably, being disappointed: the scent of hope, the reek of failure.
It’s also a very noisy city – ironically, I find it far noisier than New York, where the undercurrent buzz of a city in permanent flow is strangely calming and comforting. In LA, there is permanent traffic noise, loud music in every shop and restaurant (still a blessed rarity in NY), and hordes of weed-smoking, rowdy young people in every apartment block, turning the places into undesirable frat houses.
Which brings me to the dreaded weed. The smell is everywhere and it’s gross. I’m not going to get into an argument about the pros and cons – everyone with an opinion is intransigent on the subject, I have discovered – but even the car fumes are suffocating under the stink of the stuff. It’s not just the offensiveness of the smell: I hear and see so many people, every day – actors, writers, directors – missing appointments because they were up until 4am smoking weed. If that’s your thing, fine; but don’t then whinge about not being able to make it in an industry where there are thousands at the top of their game, not wasting time talking bollocks with their mates until the early hours.
This leaves me in limbo, at least until May when I have more decisions to make. I think I could be happy in a Virgin Atlantic Upper Class cubicle, just travelling the world and coming and going at my leisure. Maybe Sir Richard will accommodate me.
I’d love to hear any other suggestions. Sending the men in white coats to lock me up on grounds of insanity is not an option, by the way.
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