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'Los Angeles, or the Affects of Too Many Palms on the Smog'

It is kind of overcast today. Yet it's only 9:32 A.M. and chances are the smog will clear before noon. I had been walking down Montana Avenue, talking on my mobile with my attorney in New York. I was saying how much I missed her toothless face (I believe those were the words I used) and she responded by telling me 'we should get together with my sister and go to Yosemite, sometime next week when I'm in town.' She really isn't toothless. I'm reasonably certain of this. Nonetheless, I nodded at my mobile and ducked into the first trendy coffee-shop I came upon. It just happened to be Grateful Bread. I like this place. There are some cute girls here and one of them has tattoos.

'Gotta go,' I said, clapping the phone shut and stuffing it into the overburdened pocket of my leather jacket. My God, I thought, what an outrageous beast I've become. I comforted myself with the notion that it was the only responsible way to dull the pain of being a man.

It sat poorly with me, however, that this thought was neither mine nor very original.

Only two weeks in Los Angeles, not even that quite, and I'm behaving like a lunatic. I even have the sneaking urge to buy a white Bronco, just to see if anyone would get the joke. If I was home I would be forced to beat myself senseless with something incredibly urbane, preferably in black. Ah, the smells, the sounds, the acrimonious camaraderie of New York - it would be good to go back at some point.

The return will happen soon enough, I know. The money is running out.

How long would I last there, though? How long could I stay in that filthy city I love so well? Just how much more of that kind of abuse could I take? I mean, after all, that's just why I'd gone on this extended, poorly planned, ill-advised duck-and-cover excursion that'd taken me halfway around the world.

As I sat down at the window counter with my extra large coffee and spinach filled croissant, I mulled what the psychic had said to me last night. Oh yes, one way or another I am going back to Australia! Oh yes. Two thousand nine, she said. Oh yes.

Now I just need money.

I know!

I'll become a writer.

Learn more about this author, Christopher Lapinel.
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