Going Back Behind the Orange Curtain

This is from March 21, 2006, originally written for MetroG.com. The artwork is my obligatory Laguna seascape. 

I’m actually going back to Orange County in a couple of weeks. It takes a lot to get me down there—I’ve only been back six or seven times since moving to West Hollywood. Usually, I go to cover events for IN Los Angeles magazine, and this is no exception—I’ll be there for the 20th anniversary of the AIDS Services Foundation Orange County.
I worked for ASF 16 years ago, as the manager for their thrift shop Dorothy’s on Broadway. Running tiny 900-square foot store in downtown Laguna Beach was the best time I’ve had in my working life. Every day was an adventure, because we never knew what donations would come through our doors. We got a lot of donations too—people were extremely generous. Dorothy’s became a popular local hangout, and it had a circus-like atmosphere—I’d wheel and deal all day long. I figured we had way too many donations—seemingly and endless stream—and the goal was to get money into the cash register. We made a lot of money in my five years of running the store; with sales of $500,000 by the time I left to become editor of the Blade.
Although there’s still a thrift store at the location, it’s no longer associated with ASF, but I’ll always fondly remember those five years. Unfortunately, I’ve lost touch with the wonderful army of volunteers from those days, so I hope some of them will be at the ASF event.
It’s always hard for me to go back to O.C. I was born in L.A., but moved behind the Orange Curtain when I was seven. Today, I tell people that I spent the next 40 years trying to get back up here. I never really felt like I fit in living in O.C., until I moved to Laguna Beach, where I lived for 23 years with my ex. Laguna has changed a lot since 1980, when it was in its last throes of truly being a bohemian art colony. The change would come slowly, with local businesses leaving, rents rising, and increasingly rich residents moving in. Also, development in the communities bordering Laguna, and that awful MTV "reality" show were changing the character of the town.
One of the last times I was in O.C. was for an ASF fundraiser (big surprise), and the visit was bittersweet. I had some time to kill, and I walked around visiting my old haunts. That’s an ironic choice of words, because there were ghosts. Not literal ghosts, but ghosts of my previous lives, previous loves, lost youth, and a town that looks the same but has a different personality. I walked around the old courtyard of shacks where my ex and I first fell in love, looked up the avocado tree where our cat would knock down the fruit so they’d split open for so he could devour them, and remembered our beautiful rose garden. It was sad, but it also made me realize that you truly can’t go home. That trip to Laguna strengthened my resolve to focus on my life here in West Hollywood, where I’ve found so much positive energy and growth.
Perhaps memories are best being just that: vestiges of the past, sepia colored photographs in the recesses of the mind. I still spend too much time living in the past—sometimes with happiness and sometimes with anger. There have been many times in the last few years that I wish I could go back to that shack on Third Street with the avocado tree in the back, or that thrift store on Broadway, but you can’t just click you heels together and say, "There’s no place like home." L.A. is my home now, and as Auntie Mame said, "Life’s an adventure, and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death."