Time Differences: Beyond EST-PST

There are several ways in which time differences manifest themselves in Los Angeles vs. New York, other than the former being 3 hours earlier. Here are some to perhaps adjust to.

One of the obvious and most cliched is time it takes to get places. For those in the outer boroughs who drive, you may be accustomed to long commutes. However, once in Manhattan, you can buzz about to a lot of places by foot or public transportation, in an average of 10-30 minutes. In Los Angeles, a short distance is within 20 minutes by car. Average is 45 minutes. A long distance is an hour or an hour and a half plus. This has a significant effect on social and cultural life in Los Angeles. With much more planning and time needed, both happen less.

Another time difference in Los Angeles, I have found, is the hour that people think it is ok to call you, especially on weekends. While lying in bed with my husband in Manhattan yesterday, a lovely Sunday late morning, I was taking in the bliss of the first respite from the noise that has been a constant all week downstairs on East 19th Street, where we are staying. I explained to him that this rare pool of calm is one of the reasons why there is an unwritten rule in New York City, in my experience anyway, that calling before noon on Sundays is a no no. The same can be said about 11ish on Saturdays, and before 9ish on weekdays unless the party being called is known to work at night, in which case weekend hours apply. Exceptions are if the two parties (the caller and the callee) have a morning appointment, if it is totally acknowledged public information that the party being called is the rare NYC early morning person (better find out first), or if it is an emergency (a real emergency--not my boss, lover, mother, neighbor, etc. is such an idiot, can I tell you for the eighth time why they are such an idiot, from my cell phone while I am stuck in traffic, a problem which I found some Los Angeles colleagues to mistake for an emergency). I was stunned when I first moved to Los Angeles when a few (not just one) new friends called at 7:30 in the morning as a habit, even on weekends, as though it was totally normal. Want to go for a hike? No. Can I just talk for a few minutes, I really need to talk? No.

I have not adjusted--I have made people adjust to me, and have turned off my ringer and set my phone volume on low. A normally very social, communicative correspondent, I have had to do it to stay sane.

In New York, time is marked by seasons. In Los Angeles, while yes, there are subtle fluctuations in light and temperature, and many Los Angelenos don mittens and warm boots in January in a weird display of climate confusion, and the last couple years the City of Angels has gotten a bit chilly in winter, let's be real, it's about 70 and sunny somewhere in the L.A. basin, if you get in the sun, just about every day of every year. I missed the warm sun when I moved from LA as a child to the east coast. As an adult many years later in L.A., I miss the permission to change my mood and pace throughout the year. I don't think one is better than the other, I think it's more about pros and cons and individual taste. However, they's about the same as apples and oranges.