leftovers

I write so often here about my hometown, that I have failed to include much about my new adopted hometown: Los Angeles, California. I moved here on Memorial Day weekend in 2000, just a matter of days after I received my Bachelor of Arts degree from Fort Hays State University. My brother and I had been planning the move together for quite some time, so as soon as I graduated and finished up the yearbook (I was editor), we packed our cars and headed west. The idea of moving to LA came to me when I was working as a desk clerk at Days Inn in Hays, Kansas, during college. We had an atlas there that I would sometimes peruse while I was bored in between customers. Probably something about the nature of working in a hotel, dealing with travelers from all over the place, inspired me to pour over the maps of all the 50 states in the atlas. In addition to the mystique of Hollywood, the fact that my mom and her family lived in Los Angeles for a short time during her childhood had always intere...