The Girl Who Never Sleeps

My cell phone beeps softly at 2:30 a.m., alerting me of a text message. The phone, which is right next to my head, does not disturb my slumber in the least. My roommate Lindsay however, who only scrapes the first layer of sleep, has surely been awoken.

For Lindsay Moylan, sleep neuroses are not the only problem. She is a New Yorker stuck in sunny Los Angeles. “In New York, I would always get into clubs without a fake I.D.” “At NYU we would all walk to school together from the dorms.” “This creepy cab driver once, kept hitting on me….,” and so on. Even the shady cabbies and subway degenerates are remembered without hostility. Lindsay, whose hometown is Santa Rosa, California, studied at New York University for a semester-long transfer program and if she had it her way, would still be there.

She would be there, but ironically she didn’t get back in when applying to NYU for the regular year. L.A. is arguably the next best city in America. Lindsay agrees. “I chose UCLA because the campus is pretty. I liked the atmosphere and vibe from the first time I visited, which is friendly and not uptight.”

However, when asked what makes New York the place for her, she spills, “Omigod, everything! The high energy level matches mine. The diversity there is like no other. There’s no racism. Everyone has something important to say. People are very political there. They keep up with the times and what’s going on in their country.”

To a Political Science major, this is a primary concern.

This lively description of New York may sound like it could easily fit L.A. as well. According to Lindsay, however, L.A.’s diversity is pathetic in comparison, the transportation is weak, and people are interested in only themselves.

“L.A. doesn’t feel like a city. It’s not alive like New York which never sleeps,” she explains.
Lindsay’s elitist perspective about New York may sound pretentious, but her character is far from it. Quite the opposite, she is a 5’1, impressively tan (natural, of course), dark-haired outdoorsy girl who laughs earnestly and heartily. She is somewhat “granola,” a characteristic I realized the first week when she was not at all bothered by the fact that we didn’t have a T.V. and wasn’t even interested in getting one.

Another thing that did not interest Lindsay was rushing for sororities. However, in true try-anything-once fashion, Lindsay agreed to come with me to see what it was all about. When we meet up after the first overwhelming meeting, she gushes, “The only cool girl I met is dropping out! I knew there was a reason I liked her.” She says this with a smile on her face. She continues the process for the next four days, each day no more convinced of the value of sororities, but still keeping a positive, if uncommitted attitude throughout the process until dropping out on the fifth day.

Ultimately, she thinks, “they kind of seemed like a cult. They’ll only include people who are in their group, and only hang out with other Greeks. They’re not into branching out to other people in the school.”

One affiliation Lindsay would have liked to branch out to was the soccer team. If she’d had more time in her schedule this quarter, she says, she would have liked to play. Her legs, although she hasn’t been playing competitive soccer for a year now, are sculpted with smooth muscle. Her feet have the gnarliest flip-flop tan I’ve ever seen and a girly pedicure.

Like the flower-stamped pedicure contrasted with her tomboyish attitude, Lindsay is full of contradictions. Her laid back attitude, characterized by whistling and singing songs stuck in her head not by the words, but by a “duby-duby-do” language, is matched by a close reading of the nutrition facts on soy milk and sensitive sleep needs. Perhaps Lindsay is partial to New York because the city is analogous to herself – it never sleeps. For now, she will learn how to sleep in sleepy old L.A., where she can at least further deepen her flip-flop tan.