Maybe I need to seek professional help.

Obviously, something is not right.

For the first time in my life, I actually miss the East coast.

I am an LA child born and bred. The only reason I went to the East coast for school was to get away from my overbearing family. Okay, there were other reasons, but that was the primary one. And while I was at school, I would extoll the many virtues of life in La-La Land, from the glorious weather to lack of bugs to the fact that you can potentially go skiing in the morning and be sunning on the beach in the afternoon. (No, I haven't done this, as I don't ski.) I would count down days until I could return home again.

Not to say that I'm not glad I live on the East coast. I never want to settle there. But being primarily located on the East coast for the last 6 years has made me appreciate home that much more.

So it comes as the biggest shock to me to realise that - ohmigod, for the first time ever, I actually want to be back there.

I'm not sure why. It's not that I've been overly drinking or baked my brain in the sun. Okay, I might have done both. But never have they elicited this startling response before.

So far, there are only three reasons I can tease out of my addled mind as to why I actually miss the East coast. Feel free to agree or disagree:

1. Public transportation is so damn convenient.
   
   I think this really only applies to New York, because even in Boston I prefer to brave the crazy drivers rather than take public transportation. But in New York, well... public transport is the way to go.
   
   Now don't get me wrong. I love my car. I love driving, as long as I'm not stuck in traffic and can race down the freeway at 90mph. Because LA is so spread out, you have to have a car, so I've grown up utterly dependent upon it, which is great and all - until you have to meet someone at a drinking establishment, where you know you'll get good and wasted. Then you're stuck with either severely limiting the amount you drink, or driving drunk. I admit it, I drove drunk in Providence and Boston plenty - but the streets are less crowded there, and odds are you won't have to get on the freeway or encounter lots of traffic. Not true in LA. Yes, there is this nifty little service where if you get drunk, you can call these people and they'll come get you and drive you home... but it's not the same. You have to be responsible enough to call them. And you can't just hail down a taxi - it just doesn't work like that. You have to call a taxi service, and hope that the dispatchers are actually responsible and send you a cab. Plus, the city is so big and sometimes so crowded that it can take you $20 to go four measly miles, what with waiting in traffic and all.
   
   And we're not even going to go into public transportation out here. It doesn't really exist. Perhaps I'm a bit of a snot, but I don't know anyone who actually takes the bus or the new metro lines. Why would you? You have a car, after all.
   
   And nobody walks. Why? That's right, you have a car.
   
   But New York. Ah, no need to worry about getting blitzed beyond control - you can just roll into any one of the numerous yellow taxis roaming around the city. Or if you're more coherent, $2 buys you a subway ride home. Or maybe you can - gasp! - walk, if it's not too far. Nobody has to be the designated driver - you can all drunkenly carouse together!
   
   So yes, me, Miss OCD, misses riding with the plebians on subways and taking sometimes smelly taxis. (And it's because I'm an alcoholic.) See, like I said, I think something is seriously wrong.
   
   
2. Living on the East coast means I'm not living at home.
   
   I never talk about my parents, because they drive me nuts. I'm sure they mean well, but the way they go about it is overbearing and just makes me want to bash my head against the wall. It was fine while I was dating fuckwit, since I was at his place half of the time, but now that I'm a freewheeling single, the only thing I want to do is go out and drink and make out with random guys in bars - well, living at home is not a very conducive atmosphere to doing so, because my mother always wants to know when I'm going to be home. "Sometime tonight," apparently doesn't cut it with her. The fact that people - her daughter being one of them gasp! - would actually go out and drink in public and do god knows what else just doesn't sit well with her.
   
   Not to mention that home isn't in the best location for going out on the town, as we live in a very pretty suburb that is unfortunately a freeway's drive away from the bars I like to go to.
   
   I'm not used to being accountable for my actions, having lived by myself for the last 3 years. And even when I had roommates, sure, I'd tell them where I was going if I wasn't going out with them, but it's not the same.
   
   Yes, I could perhaps have found an apartment for the summer here, but it wasn't the best of ideas, seeing that I'm already paying rent on an apartment in Cambridge and that I'm only here for 3 months.
   
   And I'm excited to move back to the East coast for once, to a new apartment in a new city where my parents aren't breathing down my back.
   
   (But believe me, once I'm home for good - that's it. I'm moving out. Finding myself a cute apartment in West LA with a great roommate, and I'm not giving my parents the spare set of keys.)
   
   
3. The LA scene sometimes gets too much for me.
   
   If I see one more obviously fake tanned girl in a little flouncy miniskirt with a wifebeater, a newsboy cap, a skinny scarf wrapped around her neck even though it hits 80 degrees by 10AM, aviators and fuck-me stilettos - I will scream.
   
   I don't think I have to go into any further explanation here.
   
   (And yes, call me stupid for wanting to find more down-to-earth people in the vapid entertainment capital of the world. They exist. But even if not - please! Some individuality here wouldn't be amiss.)

I'm blaming this (better be) temporary delusional state on my enormous bug bites. I have been informed that one is actually a spider bite, while the rest are mosquito bites. Whatever insect bit me, I hate you. And hopefully the delirium will pass and I'll go back to scoffing at whatever meagre benefits the East coast has to offer over my lovely hometown.