Lazy Monday

The most obvious difference between LA and NY:

In NY, busyness and productivity is a badge of honor. When someone asks you, "How are you?," the preferred response is, "Very busy." Meaning: I am important, I am significant, the world - let alone my employer - would cease to function without me, etcetera. Perhaps the saddest thing in the world, or in Manhattan at least, is to have nothing to do. People look at you like you have two heads, or cholera, or some kind of teenage regression fetish. Especially if you admit this on a weekday.

Cue scene somewhere in midtown on a Tuesday morning, busy busybody inquires of an acquaintance sitting in a Starbucks at 11:30am, "Doing anything today?" If the answer is "no, not much," then said questioner will frown, emote sympathy, and say something like, "well, things wil pick up." Quite simply, New Yorkers live to work. That's the pinnacle - a $1000 an hour lawyer too busy to remember his kids' names or a banker for whom time is quite literally money.

In LA, the equation here is much simpler. People live to play here, and for those who live inside the proverbial bubble of entertainment (myself not included, as I am a 'suit' on this plane of existence) the query is much more ecstatic and positive in it's delivery. "Doing anything today? Then let's hit the beach!"

M