August 25-31st, 2006 - Three Introductions: Part III, continued (and finished)

The next morning we rolled out of Tom's bed, took our time making coffee, showering, getting dressed. I did a little yoga in the slats of light that snuck between the kitchen blinds, casting all the way to the living room floor of the little studio.

I left a thank you note for Tom on the bed stand, and we headed out to find the breakfast place he'd recommended.

Our first move was to wait for the bus that ran down the nearest big cross street. We stood at the stop for about 15 minutes, slathering on cheap sunscreen from the gas station, and watched our bus pass right by us. It stopped across the intersection and then moved on before we realized that the plexiglass shelter with a bench, by which we waited, was not actually a bus stop. It was just the remnants of one, now being used as a bed by a gentleman of few means.

We crossed the street and found the real stop, with a sign and everything. I felt exposed and self-conscious, standing on the sunny corner of the huge intersection while SUVs zoomed past me and the only other pedestrians were of a similar character to our sleeping friend.

"Do I still have any sunscreen streaks on my face?" I asked Mark.

He squinted and peered carefully.

"No, I think you're good. Do I?"

I squint-peered back, and found a smudge by his ear to rub in, wondering if we looked as out of place as I felt.

The bus finally arrived, and when I asked how much the fare was, the driver just waved me away, indicating I should sit down and not worry about it.

"No wonder the public transportation sucks," I said to Mark. "I mean if they don't even bother to collect fares, at least to keep track of how many people are riding, they're not going to get any funding."

We bounced up the street, watching for Sunset Boulevard. The bus seemed impossibly noisy and bumpy, like someone had forgotten to put in any rubber bits, had just bolted together a clanking pile of metal.

I saw Sunset coming up, but the bus veered off to the left before crossing it. I made my way up to the bus driver.

"I'm trying to get to Sunset -- does the bus wrap back around, or..."

"No, you should get off here."

"Oh, okay, thanks--" I waved Mark over, and we hopped out. "Sunset is over there, right?" I asked the driver.

"Yep, just cross that way and you'll be there," she said cheerfully.

"Thank you!" I said. Cheer is about the last thing you get from Chicago bus drivers.

We crossed a confusing set of bending intersections, but found Sunset. Now the question was which way we needed to go. We discussed what direction we were facing, which way Sunset went, whether the numbers could be counted on to be continuous, which way they were going, and finally decided we knew what we were doing. We started walking, feeling fairly confident.

We kept walking, and kept walking, and kept walking, and started getting a little cranky about walking. We finally stopped inside a music store to ask directions to our cross-street. We were assured we were going the right way, but that it was another fifteen minutes walk, at least.

We looked out for a bus, but didn't see one until we'd already been walking for about 10 minutes, at which point it seemed silly. Some pleasant-looking old men dressed in pastels assured us that we were almost there, and finally, an hour and fifteen minutes since we'd left, we arrived at our destination.

The restaurant was a cute retro diner-type place, with a U-shaped counter, little booths, and pleasant indie music.

The hipster server gave us advice on ordering and was very pleasant, but I couldn't shake the feeling that he was staring at me. In fact, I felt like there were a number of people looking at me, at any given moment. I wished I was wearing something I liked more than a couple of cotton tanks and cargo-type capris. But since I didn't look that interesting, I came to the conclusion that I wasn't being stared at for anything in particular about me, but just for the sake of staring. That it must be a cultural difference.

In Chicago, a server takes your order without looking at you unless you're looking at them. Like, when you're hesitating on your order, looking at the menu, they look at their pad, pen poised, or at your menu -- not at you. Not so in LA, it seemed. People spend more thought on appearances and presentation, I think, and so spend more time observing them.

We consumed enormous pancakes and some sort of futuristic organic mimosa thing that cost more than our food.

When we finished, we decided to go explore Echo Park, which we'd heard was a cool neighborhood, and maybe affordable. We took the Sunset bus for maybe 20 minutes, asking the bus driver (who let us pay, this time) where to get off for Echo Park. He seemed uncertain, but gave us a general idea.

We got out and went into a gas station (again) to buy a map and a big jug of water (since I'd forgotten my Nalgene at Tom's). We figured out where we were, and headed for Echo Park itself. On the way, we crossed a street about 15 feet from the intersection -- very Chicago standard.

"What the fuck are you doing?" a woman yelled out of a beat-up white sports car.

"Jesus," I said to Mark. He didn't say anything. He looked uncomfortable.

We made our way through a neighborhood that I couldn't quite interpret -- it was sort of cute, but sort of run down, but sort of colorful, but sort of shady. It just didn't translate to my urban sensors. I got the feeling it wasn't the greatest neighborhood, but at least during the day, it wasn't dangerous, either.

The park was peppered with homeless people. We only saw one pair of people that looked like they were enjoying being outside by choice rather than by necessity.

We sat down by the pond, which was a scummy brown, in order to drink some of our water.

"Well this is pretty," Mark said.

"You think? I dunno. There are so many homeless people, and these palm trees are just so tall it doesn't feel very protected or cozy, you know?"

"I think it's nice," Mark said, sounding irritated. I wondered if he just appreciated the aesthetic on some level that I didn't get, yet, since he'd been in Southern Cali to visit his folks many times.

There were a few disreputable looking ducks floating around, including James B. Duck, whose existence I documented with my phone's camera.

James B. Duck? Brown, baby.

I wasn't sure whether I felt more amused or disturbed.

Mark and I took turns feebly trying to buck the other up. We pored over the map and chose a street that looked like it was close enough to a main drag to be convenient, and far enough to be appealing.

We walked down the length of the park, and headed across the main street, not jaywalking this time.

I was walking fast. Mark complained that he had a headache. I tried to slow down. We were walking uphill in the sun, past little bungalows and two-flats.

"God, the streets are so wide, even on a little side street like this," I said.

"Mm hm." Mark said.

"And the sun is so direct, it just, I feel so exposed. There just aren't trees like in Chicago, you know?"

"I guess."

"What?" I said, annoyed by his lack of response.

"What do you want me to say? You just seem determined to not like LA," he said.

I stopped walking.

"I don't want to dislike it, I just... I don't think that's true. I do want to like it." No response. "Can you just talk to me?" I said.

"I'd rather not," he said.

"Mark, come on, I'm sorry I'm being negative. This is just kinda freaking me out, how far apart everything is, and, just, I don't know. Trying to imagine living here."

"Yeah, moving will be really hard. Really, really hard."

I sighed. "Can we sit here for a minute, in the shade?" I said. There was a small scrubby tree on the corner. He sat down, not looking at me. I sat next to him and used a twig to play with the ants on the sidewalk. I took a deep breath.

"This is a pretty cute area, though, don't you think?" I tried.

"Yeah," the resentful answer came.

"Could you imagine living here?"

"I guess, I don't know. If I'd known we were going to be doing this for the day, I wouldn't have agreed to it."

"I thought you wanted to check out a neighborhood, too...?" A car pulled up to a house nearby, and the driver (a preppy white guy) got out and looked at us suspiciously, as he walked inside. I was close to tears.

"Not really."

"Okay, well, I didn't understand that. I'm sorry." Silence. "So what should we do?"

"I just want to relax. This is my vacation," he said.

"Okay, well, we're here, so I mean. Should we just walk around a bit, see what there is to see?"
No response. "I'll try not to be so negative; I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he said, and put an arm around me.

"Do you want some water?" I said.

"Yeah."

And so we got back up and started walking more slowly. We decided we should smoke the little bit of weed I had with me. We kept our eyes open for a concealed spot.

We came across a house that was under construction, its yard raised from the sidewalk, gated in, and surrounded by trees.

"Oh wow," I breathed, peering through the wrought iron gate.

"That's awesome," Mark said.

"Yeah. Wow. I wonder what the deal is." Construction materials littered the yard, under a tree that was strung with Chinese lanterns, across the flagstone area in front of the entrance, on the shaded grass. "Why don't we smoke here? Doesn't look like anyone's home."

"Yeah, okay."

The steps were set a good 10 feet back from the sidewalk, with a wall on either side, and trees shading us from above. We poked a hole in the water bottle, made a bowl out of aluminum foil, and congratulated ourselves on our cleverness.

Moods altered, we decided to walk on, discussing the virtues of living on a hill versus the difficulty of biking uphill, the idea of renting our own little bungalow, the fact that there must be other quirky little spots in LA that were appealing, as evidenced by this house.

I opened the water to take a swig and realized we had not been so clever, after all.

"Oh my god this is almost as bad as bongwater," I said.

"Oh no!"

"Oh god, and I have such cottonmouth," I said, handing him the water. He took a swig.

"Bongtastic," he said.

"Blech."

And we walked on, using our map to head us toward downtown LA, where we could grab the train back to Orange County. Our through-street turned out to be under construction, and also in the middle of a distinctly less friendly neighborhood. A few people stared at us from their houses as we walked by. It was clearly not a place meant for walking.

We stopped to ask directions from guys in a van that looked like a news crew. They looked to be Latino, and I wasn't sure if they would necessarily speak English, so I spoke clearly and slowly, and was immediately embarrassed when the guy responded with unaccented perfect English.

They said that it was a very long walk to downtown, and didn't know what way to recommend, clearly confused by the very idea of navigating on foot, so we said thanks anyway, and just chose another route from the map.

We walked for maybe another hour and a half, backtracking a bit in order to cross expressways.

"This is like that Super Mario level where everything is huge, you know?" I said to Mark.

"Ha, totally," he said, taking in the enormous concrete expressway girders, the office complex set way back from the street, surrounded by a huge parking lot, the palm trees looming way way way overhead.

"God, I'm so thirsty, but I just don't know if I can drink anymore of this," I said.

"Oh no way," Mark said.

And so we learned that LA, as a whole, is not walkable. And also not to use your water bottle to smoke your weed.

August 25-31st, 2006 - Three Introductions: Part IIIa

My most recent trip to LA was by far the most surreal--felt the most like exploring a foreign country where you might speak the language, but the systems of motion, the customs, the buildings, the foliage, the air, all feel alien.

I was visiting my special friend Mark's parents in Orange county. They are quite religious. Mark is an atheist, and I don't know what I am, but I'm definitely not into organized religion, and especially not Christianity. I know some wonderful Christians, but for me they don't outweigh the number of Christians that use their faith like a weapon.

We were given separate bedrooms, and we said grace before each meal, and we all went to church on Sunday morning. Mark's father gave the sermon and his mother gave the children's ministry. I had trouble deciding whether I should just stand politely while they all listlessly sang "Oh God you are so nice" songs, or if I should mouth the words shown on the enormous television screens on either side of the organ.

Mark was singing, which I found confusing. He does like to sing, but he's also very vocally anti-Christianity. Later, when I asked him about it, he said he was showing off for me, which clarified nothing.

After hanging out with Mark's parents for 3 or 4 days, we headed for LA to meet up with Mark's friend, Tom, whom I'd met two or three times before.

Tom moved from Chicago to LA about three years ago, to pursue directing. He's starting to get regular work, but he's still broke, at the beginning of things. Mark's parents dropped us off by a giant neon hand that was the identifying landmark for Tom's apartment.

Tom wasn't home yet, walked around the neighborhood, looking for a public bathroom. Tom lived on a main drag, an enormous 4-lane LA standard. The Subway Sandwiches had no bathroom, and the hardware store, paint store, and others of that ilk didn't look promising, so we ventured away from the street.

There was a quiet little side street with a series of bungalows and two-flats running parallel to Tom's street.

"I could see living someplace like this," I said.

"Mm hm," Mark noncommitted.

I wondered how much more expensive these places were, as opposed to those on the main street. Everything feels expensive compared to Chicago, where you can live in a centrally located 1-bedroom on a beautiful tree-lined street, walking distance from the lake and the train, for $850. Or, if you're willing to live a little further from the lake and train, you can do it for $600 and get a separate dining room thrown in.

We found an alley to pee in, playing look-out for one another. Mark and I had already decided we were going to move out together, in February. To me, then, this trip was half-vacation and three-quarters scouting.

We eventually met up with Tom, who looked tired. He was wearing a grungy undershirt and black pants sloppily rolled up, showing mismatched socks.

"I was shooting all day," he said, hauling his box fan out of the closet and into the open front doorway. "Stuffy in here. And they haven't paid me yet for the last two weeks."

"Woah. Are they going to?" Mark asked.

"We'll see," Tom said, collapsing in a 1970's brown overstuffed chair.

His studio was painted an awful sort of taupe, and got very little light or air. Maybe mostly because he'd put egg crate foam over the main window to block the street noise and light so he could sleep at night.

Tom got up to make coffee while we waited for his girlfriend, Katherine, to arrive. He rifled around in his kitchen and came back with a bit of newspaper.

"This is for you," he said, handing it to me. "It's about this woman who blogs about getting into writing for television. I think it's probably pretty useful."

"Wow, awesome, thank you," I said, flattered that Tom had thought of me.

When Katherine arrived, we took off in separate cars to get some beer, run by Katherine's for a smoke and to drop Tom's truck off, and then head for the ocean. I automatically followed Mark to Tom's truck. Tom's cell rang.

"Yeah. Ok, sure," he hung up. "Maddy, Katherine says you should ride with her."

"Oh, okay," I said, and trotted off to Katherine's sedan. We chatted easily on the way to our various errands. She turned out to be from Ohio. We all stopped into her apartment in Santa Monica to smoke. It was a "bachelor," which meant it had no kitchen, just a microwave and a little stove top and a small fridge. In a place that's supposed to be a gastronomical wasteland, as Tom claimed, I had trouble understanding the phenomenon of the bachelor apartment.

Moods significantly altered, we drove out away from city lights, and found a spot on the sand to sit and stare at the stars and waves. The couples curled up against the breeze, and we passed around a couple kinds of gourmet beer.

"So it seems like LA has enough people of substance to be socially sustainable, you know?" I said, my head spinning in activity, trying to predict my future. "I mean, there's the whole image industry, but there are non-imaginary people around, too, and I think with some time everything will drop itself into a matrix that makes sense. I mean that takes time anywhere you live, and if you're somewhere with other people with similar goals, I would think it would be a help," I spewed. There was no response. How long had I been talking? I was too high.

I kept trying to shut up, paranoid that I was talking too much, but I kept finding myself chattering away again.

"Do you guys go camping much?" I asked.

"Not enough," Mark said. "But when you guys come out, we can go whenever. For weekends and stuff."

They'd hit my fantasy for LA: besides writing work, the one thing LA has over Chicago, to me, is an abundance of beautiful places nearby. "That would be awesome," I said. "We won't have a car, but...."

"We don't mind driving" Katherine said.

"Yeah," Tom agreed.

"That's awesome," I said. "And I would totally be happy to pay for the gas or whatever, to make it fair." No response. Crap, that was probably tacky, bringing up money. Even Mark was silent.

But even with both feet crammed in my mouth and my mouth still running in spite of myself, it was clear that Tom really wanted us to move out to LA. He and Katherine like Midwesterners, and wanted more of them to play with. And Tom especially wants Mark to come out. They are good friends.

Tom stayed with Katherine for the night, so that Mark and I could use his bed. When I saw his apartment at night, I understood the appeal: it was a cozy, private little cave for relaxing and sleeping. We slept well, snuggled up together in Tom's bed.

(to be continued) (dot dot dot)

March 2006 - Three Introductions: Part II

My second visit to LA was far longer than planned due to travelanche.

I was on a Southern California camping trip with my friend, Morgan. We met at the LA airport -- she coming from NY, I from Chicago. Despite delayed flights, we giddily bounded for the car rental office, eager to embark on our heat-seeking mission.

The pebbles started skittering down the travelslope when the car lacked a cigarette lighter (for the road-essential iPod). The pebbles got heavier with a decided lack of heat at our campground in Joshua Tree National Park.

I woke up in the night to pee, and there was something weighing down the rainfly. I groggily considered: Is there a creature leaning on the fly? I poked tentatively and it slid. My disoriented brain gears went clunk: A creature's crap, then?

I pushed the flap out a little and saw white. There were four or five inches of snow crunching soggilly under my half-on sneakers as I crept out of the tent and a few feet away to pee.

I crawled back inside, fat flakes melting on my face, and snuggled back into my squishy warm sleeping bag.

"It's snowing out there," I said.

"You're kidding," Morgan said sleepily, just her nose poking out of a tiny opening in the hood of her bag. She giggled.

I smiled. "Southern California, huh?" I said, and cinched my own hood tightly closed.

The next day we watched the snow evaporate, leaving behind a still-dry desert ground, before we headed out to Plan B: Death Valley.

It had to be warm in the hottest place on Earth.

And it was, but so was I -- by the time we got there, I was feverish with a bad urinary tract infection, due to some negligence in hydration and to exhaustion from sleeping in the cold.

We got directions and left immediately for the nearest town with a hospital, which was through the mountains, in a snowstorm, at night, 90 white-knuckled miles away. The pharmacy was closed by the time we arrived, so I got some over-the-counter meds and we rented a motel room.

I neglected, however, to read the instructions carefully, and took the meds on an empty stomach. I then mistook the mild nausea for hunger, and went ahead and ate the guacamole and black bean tortillas we'd made for dinner.

I spent the rest of the evening tossing tacos into the toilet.

But in the morning I got some antibiotics and some ice cream, and we were back on the road to Death Valley.

We opted for backcountry camping. We got a topo map, packed our food, water, and shelter on our backs, and hiked out three hours on a rocky wash before we decided we had no idea where we were supposed to go. The path was not marked, the map was not clear, the sun was intense, there was no shelter, and my feet were badly blistered from sliding around in sneakers on lots of little rocks. (Morgan had forgotten to bring her extra pair of hiking boots.)

So we hiked all the way back in, got caught in a windstorm, couldn't find the car, and generally felt a notable lack of love emanating from Death Valley.

When we did find the car, Morgan felt she'd had enough.

"Dude, let's just bail ship. I don't want to push this any more," she said.

"How do you bail ship in the desert?" I thought about dumping the sand out of my shoes.

"Let's just head toward LA. We can find somewhere to chill out for the night on the way, and be there by tomorrow night."

I paused for a second, not sure if I was not sure or just exhausted. I listened to the wind whip around the little car.

"I mean, because, we tried, you know? We had a map, directions, equipment, and it just didn't work out," Morgan said, taking out the bag of chocolate chips. They looked pretty good.

"Tally ho," I said, and started the engine before reaching for the chocolate.

We spent one night, on the way, at a cute little campground called Red Rock. It was sheltered, sunny, warm, and pleasant. We took it as a sign that we were finally headed the right direction.

When we did get to LA, in the evening, we were greeted warmly by Morgan's friend, Bianca. Bianca was in the middle of a cinematography graduate course at the American Film Institute. I'd met her once before, on a visit to New York. I'd felt impressed and intimidated when she'd said she was applying to AFI for cinematography.

We settled into her beautiful old ranch-style apartment with homemade Japanese udon and spinach salad, and watched a film she'd just finished shooting for class. It was a cute plot, and nicely shot, but really, the writing was mediocre. The script for her next film was worse. I thought to myself:

I could definitely do better.

Morgan had been telling me I'd be a good screenwriter for years -- basically since she'd met me, our first year of college, 9 years prior. I liked the idea, but had always found the culture of film too intimidating. I am not a shy person, or an unambitious person, or even a socially awkward person. But I have never considered myself to be the kind of flashy or cool or slick person that seemed synonymous with film.

But there I was, in LA, seeing that some of the people who get into AFI for screenwriting are, at best, mediocre -- that I was better than someone who felt him or herself to be sufficiently talented to pursue this career, and was accepted into a respected school.

Well, damn.

My mood lifted for the first time of the trip. I had felt consistently tired and beat-up for the whole week, but suddenly I was bouncing around Bianca's apartment, telling jokes, fetching food, and talking a mile-a-minute.

The next morning, we went for brunch at a charming place nearby with outdoor seating and a line out the door.

"Maddy??" I heard someone say as I sat down at a table. I looked up. There was Lindy, one of two people I know who lives in LA.

"Lindy!" I said, and jumped up to hug her. She was working as an actor, and I hadn't seen her in at least a couple of years. We chatted through brunch and caught up a bit. She seemed basically the same as when I'd known her in college -- maybe a little thinner, her style a little more outspoken, but still the sharp-minded, analytically critical, thoughtful woman I'd known at the University of Chicago. LA had not dulled her senses or lulled her into a sunny, fashionable haze.

Morgan and I spent the remainder of our days in LA experimenting with their public transportation, which was shiny and huge, though it didn't seem to go much of anywhere. We went downtown and saw the St. Patrick's Day Parade go by -- a St. Patty's parade filled with shiny-black-haired Latinos instead of ruddy-faced, red-headed Chicago Irish.

We felt like ants, trying to negotiate our way to the modern art museum on foot, among enormous parking structures and highway overpasses.

Another friend of Morgan's saved us from our plight, picking us up in his car. We went together to Silver Lake, and bought cheap silly stuff at a thrift store, and then went for rosewater flavored ice cream.

LA was seeming like it was not a bad place.

Later, I parted with Morgan to meet up with my aunt and uncle, who live in Santa Monica. They picked me up in his enormous, white 1970's Cadillac, which, he boasts, gets 9 miles to the gallon.

"You can see the gas gauge go down when we go uphill," he gloated.

"Yeah, Anna told me," I said. My sister had already reported back, from a previous trip, on the environmental terror that was my uncle.

I cringed inwardly as they very generously drove me around to their favorite spots. They took me out for dinner at their favorite Indian place (nothing like Devon Avenue, but still good), took me to Amoeba Records (okay that's pretty awesome), and the next day carted me over to the Universal Studios Theme Park, where I bit my tongue and tried to find nice things to say about the broad array of colored sugar and plastic crap for sale.

My other sister, Carrie, came out to LA for her spring break, and met up with us. We all went out for lunch, and my uncle and I got into a long political debate about free trade, environmentalism, and social security. I tried to just ask questions, to understand why my uncle feels the way he does. I tried not to judge, even though he had been poking at my beliefs. (In the bedroom, for example, next to the bed, he'd put a picture of himself shaking hands with George Bush, knowing full well my feelings about Bush.)

Eventually it became clear to me that, actually, he didn't have any real animosity toward me or my beliefs -- that he was just insecure, and expressed that via disconcerting aggressiveness.

The relief of this realization, and the exhaustion of two days' worth of being polite and silent (while being driven around in my second-worst anxiety-causing transportation nightmare -- the only thing worse being a Hummer) caught up to me. I relaxed enough that the floodgates came down, and I had a somewhat embarrassing public release of tension.

My uncle took it all wrong, and thought that my crying indicated that I was hurt by what he'd been arguing with me -- my aunt took me aside to try to explain her husband and smooth things over, and I tried to explain that no, I was expressing myself because I finally felt safe to do so, that actually I felt much better now that I understood where he was coming from.

They are not people who talk much about their emotions, I think. And I can be pretty intense. It was hard to explain. But they are very kind, generous, loving people, and they both really did want me to have a good time.

So I left LA, this time, with two separate experiences of it:
1. A feeling of uplifting possibility for a future of writing, and of the social okayness that seemed to exist with my peers who were already there, and
2. A feeling that LA's consumer-centric, bling-centric, driving culture would present a heavy challenge to my notions of responsible environmentalist living.

I am not religious, but I do believe in the meaningfulness of coincidences and events. So on this trip, I also left feeling that I had been steered to LA, in order to see both the exciting and the daunting challenges that were there for me.

I went back to Chicago buzzing with the idea that my next step might be moving to LA.

May 2002 - Three Introductions: Part I

The first time I was in LA I came by car, in the dark. My ten months in Portland, Oregon had been a lonely adventure. So I packed my belongings (in orange milk crates) into a recently purchased 1984 Honda Accord hatchback (dark red with a red interior) and rolled into a solo roadtrip back to Sweet Home Chicago.

After brief stays in Palo Alto and San Francisco, I stayed with a very recently graduated Reed student, Valentina, someone I'd met in Portland. She was living with her mom in Huntington Beach until she figured out what to do next. I was not at all charmed by the rows of identical housing complexes, or the large smoggy highways along the water, or the neon-saturated shopping district nearby. But I was impressed by the cheap taco stands with fresh avocado and tomato in their veggie tacos, and by Thousand Steps Beach, a magically tucked-away spot where Valentina and I burnt ourselves purple.

After lazing around for a few days at the beach, in the apartment complex's pool, at taco stands, I was feeling pretty positive on LA. Going out for Indian with the ex-boyfriend of a college friend, in Silverlake, cemented my impression of LA as a city where vegetarian hippie-types could live comfortably. Sure, there were huge billboards advertising plastic surgeons, and sure, that Hollywood sign loomed whitely in the hills, but it was a big city. It felt like there was room for people who had no interest whatsoever in trafficking image.

I liked it.

After that first visit, I actually liked it better than San Francisco: It seemed less pretentious. In LA they made no bones about the fact that image is a huge industry there--but in San Francisco, everyone pretends they're naturally beautiful. Like their washboard stomachs come from superior genetics, and their pastel houses paint themselves. LA felt less snooty by dint of being more blatant--and by dint of being a bigger city, a world-class city, a city with many industries and many faces.

In my journal, I wrote "It has more grit; feels more approachable/less intimidating than SF to me. I could imagine living here more than SF, I think."

I left LA by car, in the dark. With a belly full of Indian food, I drove through the night into the desert, in my little red car, in search of the Grand Canyon.