A buoyant 21-year-old dove of a girl packed up a couple boxes of beloved effects. She strapped her well hugged terrier into the passenger seat and drove 2,249 miles to a new life in Los Angeles. Nine years later the classic LA Burnout hit hard like a train racing over Lincoln’s face on a rail. Hastily she decided to reinvent herself in a smaller Midwestern city. She stayed for two arduous years; perspective was gained and whining ceased.

She returned to Los Angeles, proud of her ballsy adventure yet weary and wiser. Los Angeles is the greatest city in the United States. There’s nothing on the east coast or in the Midwest that can top it, not even New York and here’s why:

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It all took place somewhere around the gay nineties; a story passed down through generations.

My great great great grandmother’s first husband was a United States Congressman and later postmaster of Chicago. He’d had a good career as a politician and was living in Chicago with his family. By all practical accounts things were going well for him and he was a good, loving father and husband.

One day, he went on a business trip to Washington and was never heard from again.

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Carter babies were born during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. Our birth marks the beginning of the Information Age.

I was born 7-7-77 so I’m right in the sweet spot. We’re a special zebroid of Millennial and Generation X. We watched the Brat Pack movies when they came out (if we had cool parents) but we weren’t really old enough to understand them. For years we’ve been squirming every time some yayhoo mentions Gen X or Millennials. Carter babies agonize because we know we’re not really a part of either generation and at the same time a part of both; a niche generation.

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I was a geeky (very) ugly duckling who made this “Winnie Cooperesque” transformation as a freshman in high school. Have you ever seen the movie, Welcome to the Dollhouse? It was like that. As a preteen I dreamed of having breasts & hips, ditching my cokes for contacts, straight teeth without train tracks and my cystic acne clearing up. Once I morphed I figured my life would be perfect and I’d be so happy, everyone would suddenly like me. Looking back nearly 24 years since then, I can tell you it hasn’t exactly been a pegasus ride to She-Ra’s mystical castle in the clouds.

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