WHITING: A California girl in progress

Bicoastal living is a dual-faced matter.

Thanks to my extended-familial ties to the Golden State, I like to consider myself a Californian once-removed and, accordingly, favored a spring break under its golden rays over a return home to Minnesota.

After hopping off the plane at LAX, I was greeted by palm trees instead of rain, and welcomed the switch from transport via the black hole of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to driving alongside green mountains and sandy coastlines.

I dreaded returning to the Boston chill as I strolled the beach with Bay Area natives who frequently slipped words like “dude” and “gnarly” into our conversation. We watched retired hippies promenade peacefully down the pier wearing tie-dye and singing John Lennon’s “Imagine,” ate hemp-based granola bars at an organic deli and window shopped the surf stores that grace the area. It’s surreal living out there, and I never wanted to leave.

Nonetheless, there existed those who disapprove of the “chillax” Californian way of living in which one spends a morning surfing, eats lunch on the wharf and ends the day watching the tides roll away into the pink abyss of the western sunset. I’ve got a friend from Brooklyn &-&- a Yale student &-&- who claims that California’s residents are too relaxed and friendly for him.

“All those smiling people,” he said. “God, there must be something wrong.”
I guess I can see where the New Yorker is coming from; living in California is a bit like living a daily vacation. It’s almost a soma-induced society, so unreal that it embraces Hollywood enough to elect Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governator. And my Brooklyn friend does not like it. I, on the other hand, am starting to think hot churros on LA’s Olvera Street are preferable to Dunkin’ Donuts on Commonwealth Avenue.

The exit to Summerland off of Highway 101 leads to a beachside café that overlooks a glistening dolphin haven, blue skies and sunshine. The Wonderland stop at the end of the MBTA’s Blue Line is a dull, dreary parking lot. I really don’t think there lies much competition over which coast is better when considering that fact.

I console myself with the knowledge that over here in the Big East, we enjoy a number of things Californians don’t, like a famous baseball team, snowball fights and a functioning subway system. We East Coasters do indeed harbor a sort of empire state of mind, what with our historical significance and abundance of elite, ivy-adorned institutions of higher education &- California harbors yachts, and exists only because someone on the East Coast claimed that obtaining it was a manifest part of this country’s destiny.

The country’s greatest minds often flock to either place for a shot at superior mind-enrichment. Stanford is the Harvard of the West, but it is not accepted as an Ivy League school, most likely because California is conventionally imagined as the birthplace of lazy, surfing hipsters.

Because the United States is a huge nation, the disparities between its cultures are rather astounding, not to mention the stereotypes of each quite comical. Of course everyone in California owns a surfboard, and the state’s relaxed attitude could not be embodied any better than by Santa Cruz’s Banana Slug mascot. We out here on the other side are stern and snooty.
I have a friend from LA who thinks as little of New York as does my other friend of California happiness.

“Dude, aren’t they, like, crazy uptight there?” he asked.

I told him yes, that people are horribly mean, just as everyone in California is a celebrity shopping along Rodeo Drive.

I’m just kidding.

In New York I eat hotdogs; in Santa Barbara I buy shark jerky. San Francisco has its Golden Gate Bridge, New York boasts the Brooklyn. Those are really the only differences I can think of between the East and the West despite the unspoken rivalry. Except for the wardrobes, that is: I would prefer flip-flops to winter jackets. Oh, and the Wonderland fiasco.

I sometimes wonder what led me to choose more cold weather over the sunshine of the West when deciding to come to Boston University. But when I had finished my barefoot walks on the beach and was done collecting whatever shells had washed up my way, I noticed the sunburns on my neck I’d gotten after a mere hour of being out under the March sun. California may indeed have more bounce, but I guess we can’t all be California girls.