Love it or Leave it...

I don’t blame Saudi women for wanting to drive cars and be independent, but living here in West Hollywood, I confess I wouldn’t mind a driver once in a while.  I used to enjoy driving in Los Angeles.  It took a long time to get anywhere but you could keep on going until you got there.  I used to take myself to Santa Monica, stroll along the promenade, drive to Venice beach, walk on the sand, and treat myself to a nice lunch at the Fig Tree Café on Ocean Walk. 

   

These days driving is stop and go and wait and blocked intersections, and traffic jams and freeways where nobody moves, impossible backed up bumper to bumper all the way.

Nowadays I won’t go more than 3 miles away from home.  Traffic is too horrible, and it keeps getting worse.  I sometimes have to wait ten or fifteen minutes just to get out of my garage.  Whoever said Fountain was a great east-west cross street told too many people.  Now Sunset is often much better than Fountain.   And Santa Monica Boulevard has become a nightmare.  

A few weeks ago I met a friend at the Getty Museum in Malibu, only to discover we couldn’t get in because we didn’t have a parking reservation, and then I spent more than two hours driving back to West Hollywood.  There must have been an accident that blocked all the streets on the west side.  But there’s always something.  It’s one bottleneck after another.  

What’s the good of living in Los Angeles if I’m trapped in my own neighborhood?  I’ve got 6 Trader Joe's, and three Whole Foods in the immediate vicinity, Erewhon, the Hollywood YMCA, the greatest farmers market in the city, restaurants, shops, the best of everything, but it would be nice to look at the ocean once in a while, and watch that sunset on the blue horizon.  

And what about the air?  How long can I live with the exhaust from millions of cars?  And the stress of it all.  I can’t put myself through it anymore.  I’d rather stay home.

Or, maybe it's time to leave