Lookin' back, I can remember the time When I sang my songs for free Country [girl], you got your feet in L.A.

The last time I visited LA just to visit LA (not counting going to Disneyland, which is not LA), and the last time my hair looked like this (the way it does now) was 2017.

That's such an insane thing to think about.

But, for the record, this is how I am going to keep my hair. There were a lot of things about this time of my life that did not suit me, but I don't know if anything ever has as much as this hair length.  

When I am in Southern California, all I can do is long for NorCal. But very rarely do I find myself being nostalgic about LA. When I am, my LA nostalgia is solidly rooted in the mid to late 2010s.

Southern California certainly has a certain energy. Or, I should say, it had a certain energy, I don't know how much of that still exists post-2020. To me, my vision of LA is solidly in 2014-2017, stuck in the world of the Sad Tumblr girls in vintage and film filters. (Yes, those filters. You know exactly what I am talking about.) Stuck in the world of Lana Del Rey's Born to Die playing in the background as you scroll through a pre-carousel-era Instagram. All the cool musicians you were obsessed with lived in LA.  I am sure the eternal summer and the phony optimism are still there, but the specific LA that I am nostalgic for is hazy,  vintage, "indie," and melancholy.  It looks exactly like one of those "2014 nostalgia" posts on TikTok.

In 2014 (and to 2015) Jupiter was in Leo, which it will be again this June (as mentioned in the previous post). 2014 was the first time I had gone to LA by myself. I flew down to go to a concert, ended up vintage shopping and having a lot of fun with the friend I was staying with. 

Last time I went to LA was 2017. The year I turned 30. The year where my entire life fell apart. The year where I felt like I lost everything. For the last 3 years, I had been living a lie. 

It's strange to look at those photos now, knowing what I know now about myself. Knowing that I was trying to be someone I wasn't for so long. Shortly after I took this, from what I referred to as my "LA era," I would start to grow into the most authentic version of myself.

....so, here I am in 2026, about to take the most authentic version of myself into the fakest place on the planet.

Well, let's do this, I guess.