When I left LA, my friends looked at me like I was crazy… Daring to venture to a khaki-colored world of popped polos and mousy brown bobs.
LA is very different. We preface the names of our highways with “the” (take the 405 to the 5) and wear Ugg boots with denim minis and Juicy hoodies. I was even roofied once, by a girl, and put in a closet because I was “competition”. It is a sea of blond highlights and fake noses. If you are in the right sisterhood, you can get the sorority special “buy one boob get one free” - all done by someone’s father. The cars are a lot nicer; everyone drives a BMW or Mercedes, if not an H2 or Range Rover. You’re loyalty to Fred Segal is more important than your political affiliation. It is a different world… A very pink, plastic, fabulously tan world….
Flashforward to my move to DC.
I was stunned by the sight of seeing people in suits pile out of the metro wearing sneakers. Not even urban kicks — Keds!
Short, mousy brown bobs seem to be everywhere on the Hill, and no one pulling them off quite like the classic.
A “nice” car is a Toyota Corolla and if a guy has lobsters on his pants and croakies around his neck, he is “in style”.
Girls never learned the beauty of make-up, or the idea of heliotherapy (fake tanning) so they walk around pasty and looking genuinely miserable. The only colors in their wardrobes are black, grey, and khaki- with the occasional Lilly dress which screams “Trophy Wife in Training”. Not a good look girls unless you have already given birth to those crying twins with another on the way…
People seem to not get married in DC. I thought California had a lot of late bloomers, but most of my best friends are 35+ and not married or even seriously dating… Of course there is the occasional gold digger or two, but that’s a whole other chapter quite relevant to LA as well.. ;-)
When it boils down to it, I must admit, the biggest difference between DC and LA falls in the favor of the District. LA is a city where people meet and ask, “What can you do for me.” The most surprising part of DC is, I feel, whenever you exchange cards with a nod and a smile, people tend to think of what they can do for you… It’s quite nice!
