i'm writing this from my friend susan's living room in long beach, california., sitting sideways in a big wide chair.

i had no idea what to expect. i am a new yorker. i don't do well in the heat. i wear sweaters. i don't rollerblade. i'm not thin. my perception of LA was borne of movies like "falling down" and "terminator 2." flat. sprawling. grey. "who wants to go to LA?" everyone told me i'd hate it. 

well here i am, the decemberists' plaintive cries wafting across the room, and i find myself loving it, much the same way i'd fallen in love with chicago, baltimore, toronto. it's just another place, and it's foreignness makes it fabulous. the cultural incongruence of palm trees in strip-mall parking lots just makes it more of that place. the ocean breezes are constant and sweet. the bougainvilla is bursting like paint squeezed from a tube. the low stucco'd houses are welcoming and warm, tucked along straight-arrow streets dressed in gaudy floral skirts. we drive past them with the windows down, not talking, and we are here. in this place.