Despite my initial plan to stay in LA only through today, I’ve since rearranged my schedule, and will now be sticking it out in the smog capital of the world through December 20th. Which leaves me, first, in a bit of a bind from a clothing perspective – my Tumi rollaboard barely fits four or five days of clothing, so expanding the trip to fifteen will leave me recycling clothes at a rather alarming rate. (“Didn’t you wear that sweater yesterday? And Tuesday? And last Monday, Thursday and Saturday?”) Second, I fear sticking around for such an extended stretch may push me dangerously close to my absolute Los Angeles lethal overdose limit.

Sure, LA has its upsides. Warm weather. Beautiful beaches. Vacuous, surgically enhanced, bottle-blonde aspiring actresses (“Like, ohmygod, I was totally Juliet in my high school’s “Romeo and Juliet” too!”). But after a few days, the downsides begin to grate on me. A thirty minute minimum drive from anywhere to anywhere else. Monotonous, vaguely run down, bizarrely never-ending suburban sprawl. Really, really bad bagels. And a complete and total lack of cultural life. (“Why go to the symphony when so many films have great orchestral scores!”)

And, worst of all, film people, nothing but film people, as far as the eye can see. In New York, running an indie production company is quirkily cool. Sort of unusual. Here in LA, nothing could be more painfully run-of-the-mill. I get the sense that, say, a tax accountant could do tremendously well at bars here. (“You add long columns of numbers all day long? That’s so exciting!”) In fact, for the duration of my trip so far, I’ve been introducing myself as a forensic diver – you know, the guy who has to fish up the corpses whenever the cops or the FBI are investigating a death in the water. Business has been slow in the East River, I’ve been telling people, ever since Giuliani started cracking down on crime. Which is why I headed out to LA; jet ski accidents, I’m sure, are the future of the industry.

Of course, even the cachet of such an illustrious imaginary career can’t save me; it’s hard to schmooze it up an LA night club when you spend most of the evening huddled in the corner, clicking your heels, thinking of New York City, and chanting softly: “There’s no place like home… there’s no place like home.”