Like a great many people on the planet, I google myself sometimes. When I began my “writing career” (it was just that - a “writing” career), a internet search usually resulted in my homepage and a few articles that I had written four years ago. See? “Writing.” But today, I googled myself and found a delightful surprise. Suddenly, my search results went from ten to over 90, and they included a variety of my work. Suddenly, I was no longer a one-course writer in that I had few temptations to offer the tempted reader, but a writer with a whole buffet of  creative work, critiques, books, articles and copy.  On the downside, this means I need to redo my website.

But, the revelation also revealed that it was time to move this blog into a new vein by stripping away the veil of a pseudonym. In short, I need to be very honest about why I am writing this blog; so here is the long answer:

I originally started blogging more than five years ago when I began traveling. To keep friends and family appraised of my progress in lands exotic, I blogged, I enjoyed it and life was good. That first blog saw and keeps the memories of many adventures of a life, whether it ranged for several days or several years, in Europe, Asia and Oceania –. But last year, 2007, I got very bored with that first blog because I was no longer traveling. Instead, I was living, working and stuck in the valley of the real. This blog is my attempt to capture the adventure of traveling. However, instead of trekking to ancient temples or indigenous markets, I am setting forth to find the spark in my home, Los Angeles.

Los Angeles is a funny city. When I live here in college, I loved it. When I move abroad and return, I hated it. What I’ve learned is that Los Angeles is a city that can’t be “done” or “understood” in a day. I’ve always felt sorry for tourists who whirl into the city and then tilt and fall out of it. Do they get what they saw? What did they see anyway? Santa Monica? “Hollywood”? The crazies at Venice Beach? An amusement park? Better yet, California Adventure: The Amusement Park? What is that? That is not Los Angeles.

At the present, I’m getting the wonderful opportunity to reacquaint myself with a great urban/suburban/rural landscape. A few months ago, I took a new job that forced me to pack my belongings and move away from everything that was familiar to the northern outskirts of L.A.

Attentive students ask: So what?

Compare Los Angeles to the Earth. The equator is what the world knows (Santa Monica, Venice, Downtown, Hollywood, etc.). The northern hemisphere, i.e. everything north of the Getty Museum, is my current residence while the southern hemisphere, i.e. everything south of LAX, was my former. And ne’er the two shall mix.

When I told my southern friends where I was moving, their first question was always: “Where is that?” Then: “Why are you moving there?

Whenever I tell a new northern acquaintance where I’m originally from, a queer look always creeps into their face that speaks contempt.

No one from the south drives up here because it’s too far. They wonder what’s up there that is so great anyway?

No one from the north drives south if they can help it. They complain about the traffic, the attitude of the natives and argue that everything is better in their neck of the woods anyway.

So there you have it, and here I am: new job, new city, new Los Angeles (Or is it?) and no acquaintances. Sometimes, I wonder if life in a Los Angeles suburbia is more strange, more foreign than any neighborhood I encountered while abroad. Despite so many familiar things, the roads, the ways and the feel of this part of a city I’ve lived in for so many years is just so very different.

And I’ve seen different things: Chinese dress shops in Mexico, Croatian embassies in Korea, a college hallmate suddenly in a bar in Dublin, two fat cats that always stood guard outside a fresh produce stand in Japan and much, much more. Perhaps such things seem mundane to you but to me they were wonderful, and I hope to find that same sense of wonder here in my new, real life, in Los Angeles, whether north, or south, east or west.

Stay tuned.