Seasonal Delusional

There comes a point when Angelenos are forced to accept a hard truth: Summer has no intention of leaving.

And it happens every September.

This is the time of year some people working in the hospitality industry refer to as LA’s “second summer.” AKA, we had to find a way to market the fact that it’s still hot as hell. While the rest of the country starts preparing for things like fashion week and sweater weather, September out here is basically August with fewer tourists. (And while we’re honest, October out here is basically September with maybe three randomly chilly days and way too much “here for the booze” or “basic witches” decor).

Every September, the sun is still shining and the skies are still cloudless. We have exhausted our Faherty linen sets. We’ve eaten every peach and burrata salad on the west side. We’ve OD’d on Aperol Spritzes and Vacation Classic Whip. We’ve kept our pledge to the “summer of outside” with concerts at the Bowl and as many rooftop experiences as we can from the Cinema Club to Dante Beverly Hills and Blondie.

Sounds terrible right? Yes, we recognize LA’s “pretty privilege.” People travel thousands of miles and throw money at resort fees to experience the exact weather we’re complaining about. But even they go back home to their seasonal weather at some point. As locals, is it wrong to be completely tired of it by now? After months of nonstop sunshine and wearing summer clothes since basically Easter, her gorgeousness is practically assaulting and we’ve spent six months now being told to just enjoy another beautiful day. But even beauty can feel aggressive if it refuses to leave.

And now we’d like a cloud. Or a crisp leaf. A slight chill in the air to remember what it feels like to have to wear a coat or cozy up on the couch with chili and a fall movie.

The dog days of summer have mistaken our LA hospitality for a forever lease. The only plus side? Less visitors means more open reservations at our favorite restaurants.

Obviously, the climate doesn’t care what Los Angeles wants. Not even the people in LA’s “platinum triangle” of Beverly Hills, Bel Air and Holmby Homes can control the weather. We probably won’t need any of our heavy clothes until Thanksgiving—or even December, depending on the year. It was hot as hell in Calabasas last Thanksgiving. The turkey, naked with a bronzed tan, was the only one appropriately dressed for the hot weather that day.

But regardless, once September hits, something shifts. Not outside, obviously. Inside of us.

The rest of the country can afford to wait for actual temperatures to drop before declaring the start of fall (except maybe Florida and Hawaii but I’m not licensed to analyze the dreams, habits and delusions of people outside of California). So while LA may not experience fall naturally, this is the entertainment capital of the world... we know how to produce it ourselves.

And every good production starts with wardrobe.

By Labor Day, stores in every mall from the Grove to the Galleria are filled with cashmere everything, boots, melange scarves and coats we’ll probably never need even on the coldest day in LA. We buy them anyway and wait for the morning we wake up and temp dips below 75 degrees. This is how you end up sweating your own body weight in a new Leset sweater by 2pm while walking down Melrose. And suddenly, this kind of heat has pushed you into such a state of euphoric delusion that you feel like Anne Hathaway on set filming a winter movie in the summer heat but telling yourself you must rise to the occasion!

The key is finding a restaurant or indoor mall with psychotic levels of air conditioning to support the autumn fantasy. With my Angeleno blood, a permanent blast of AC while sitting at Lucia might as well feel like a Vermont chalet, allowing me to keep my sixth new gorgeous coat on.

That’s the Hollywood magic for ya.

We also begin changing our tv and movie choices this time of year. There’s something for everyone’s autumn kink—Vampires. Wizards. Werewolves. Murders. Charming small towns. Vampires and wizards solving or committing murders in charming small towns. And for those only adventurous in the kitchen: fall baking shows.

After months of being encouraged to get outside, our pendulum is allowed to now swing the other direction for couch rotting and binge watching all the stories that remind us autumn is really out there. And shows like Only Murders in the Building or American Horror Story to remind us that psychopaths looking completely normal amongst us at Erewhon are also really out there. And if there was ever a case for things that thrive when deprived of California sunshine, it’s the “Meg Ryan fall” aesthetic with her chic tweed blazers walking under blazing orange trees. Not to mention Gilmore Girls fans can visit the storybook Connecticut world of their dreams without leaving Burbank at the show’s Warner Bros. set.

We also change our eating habits. Pumpkin whores itself out to everything from pasta sauce to oreos. And it feels like local coffee shops offer their seasonal drinks earlier and earlier each year. We bake muffins (and pretend we’re not sweating while simultaneously turning both the oven and AC on). We make soup. We light candles with names like Cinnamon Blanket Woods, Smoked Library and Cashmere Cabin No. 7, even if the closest thing we have to a fireplace is a YouTube background.

Then comes set design.

Two weeks ago, the salon where I was getting my nails done was already filled with spider Halloween decorations. In August.

I’m obviously big on forcing fall into existence, but I do have limits. I don’t know that I’d call Halloween decorations in August embracing fall, I think they were actually trying to scare summer away (which I appreciate). Either way, they had a vision. The weather declined to participate. The show must go on.

Pumpkin patches will start opening beside palm trees soon. Fake autumn leaves will be artfully scattered across storefronts where no real local tree could have grown them. If we need something slightly more convincing, we can drive to Oak Glen to pick apples, drink cider and gather photographic evidence that Southern California is capable of producing colorful trees.

And while other places may have the natural advantage when it comes to foliage, no one can outdo LA when it comes to the range of Halloween experiences. We can watch cult-classic scary movies at Hollywood Forever Cemetery with Cinespia. We can walk right up to the original Psycho house and through haunted attractions built on studio lots by the same world-class production talent responsible for scaring us on screen. We can spend an evening being chased by an actor with a chainsaw and professional prosthetics before returning to the valet.

So this is just what we do here, maybe better than anyone else. We create the atmosphere we want to live in. There are cities where fall simply happens for people. One day the air turns crisp, the leaves change and everyone pulls a sweater from storage because nature has provided a clear invitation.

We don’t receive the same gesture. So we have to want fall a little more, and chase it.

We stream it. We bake it. We dress for it. We decorate for it. We drive to find it. And when none of that works, we call in our professionals to recreate it on soundstages at Warner Bros. and Universal.

Is it slightly delusional? Mhmm.

But so is paying Los Angeles rent, and we’ve all committed to that.

Besides, there are benefits to our arrangement. We can go apple picking in the mountains during the day, return to the city for dinner and watch a scary movie under the stars without freezing. We can enjoy pumpkins, candles, hot toddies and Elle & Riley cashmere on our own terms (like we insist on doing most things) without having to rake real leaves off our front lawns or scrape ice off our windshields.

We get the aesthetic benefits of fall without any of the stressors of being in a real committed relationship with it.

Eventually, actual fall will arrive. Probably for three non-consecutive nights. And probably in December when most of the country has moved on to a winter wonderland.

But we’ll take it.

Until then, our candles are lit. Our pumpkin bread is baking. Our show about baking pumpkin bread (or murder) is playing. Spiders are already taking over nail salons.

The forecast can call it “second summer.”

We’ve decided it’s fall.

—Your Friend