The series continues, which may make it my most successful series to date!

When I lived in New York I used to get a big confidence kick out of rattling off weekend changes to the subway schedule or navigating the most spaghetti-on-the-wall streets of the far West Village. Same went for spotting a top Conde editor or knowing exactly which restaurant we could walk into at 8pm on a Friday night and sit down without a wait.

Today my city-based pride points come in different shapes and sizes, but are no less important to my daily ability to jump out of bed with a wink and a smile. It’s a rubber-wheeled jungle out there/here, and we east coast transplants need all the confidence we can get.

To that end, here are the 7 things that make me puff out my chest and say, “heck yeah, I know how to live in L.A.” (my Mom doesn’t like when I say hell on the blog).

#7 – Narrowly avoiding a car accident

I don’t mean a screech-n’-swerve, I mean expert defensive driving that allows you to see the accident that could happen three wrong moves into the future. See, the streets of Los Angeles are like a combination chess and shoots n’ ladders board. Every move prompts several other moves that may result in you slipping down a metaphoric slide and into a not metaphoric car.

#6 – Staying out past 3am

It is a major point of pride in this city to both close the bar and continue partying at an after-bar location. Most people barely make it past midnight, and the idea of driving/cabbing to more than one location is widely considered blasphemy.

#5 – Out-routing someone on their own route home

It goes something like this: “Oh, you live in West Hollywood? I live in West Hollywood! What’s your route home?…” (several beats, smug eyes, warm fuzzy feeling of pride) “Yeah, you could definitely go that way, oooor you could save yourself 20 minutes and those phone calls you only make to kill time if you went this super genius route I’m about to gift you.”

#4 – Recognizing non-celebrity celebrities

They’re the writers, directors, editors, and special effects people that actually make the TV show/movie a TV show/movie. Spotting, say, the creator of Nurse Jackie makes me feel awesome because A. I love that show B. I know enough about this biz to know who she is and mostly C. I get my coffee at King’s Road too, so if that’s all it takes to create a hit TV show, I’m golden. (note: this has never happened, yet)

#3 – Being able to explain the details of a given world issue if/when someone asks

It’s not that people here are dumb, it’s just that they don’t have the bandwidth to follow both “our” industry and the political industry. It is impossible to out-scoop someone who “works in the business” on any entertainment news, but it’s fairly simple to know more about the latest in the Greek debt crisis. The chances of someone asking you are about as slim as me running into the creator of Nurse Jackie at Kings Road, but it could happen, and knowing that feels great.

#2 – The knowledge that anything good currently going on with your hair is owed to the total lack of humidity in the air

Sometimes it’s the little things, because there are no other things… When the traffic is miserable, and you’ve just endured a half hour conversation about how funny a given actress is with that given actress, and you find out that some big shot writer just sold the very idea you’ve been writing for the past two months, a quick reminder that your hair would look like %$&*! in most other cities is all it takes to help you put down that wine bottle and keep on keeping on.

#1 – Hearing that someone else has heard of you

R to Me: “Hey I was having lunch with a manager at ___________, and I brought up your blog, and she said she’s already heard of you.”

I’m not going to say any more about this because it’s bound to make me sound very not good. Let’s just say that just because I used to live in New York doesn’t mean I’m immune to to things that are painfully L.A.

What am I missing, fellow Angelinos? Gimme some more confidence boosters via comments!