Ain't no party like a West Coast party
or
Napoleon Dyn-o-mite!

I'm three days back from my Gold Rush and already the panic and crisis of child welfare is trying to blot these good times from my mind. While sitting at Juvenile Court yesterday--waiting for someone to hear the case of the Girl the System Forgot--I tried to revisit the stretch of highway between LA and Santa Barbara. The waves crashing against the cliffs, the Huntington Tea Garden, that ridiculous museum, sunshine for no reason all the time. I can recapture only seconds at a time before 1) someone pages me or 2) I remember my role in some crisis or another or 3) I remember to hate LA, she stole my Sister.

Los Angeles has become my nemesis, you see. She is a smutty temptress, rich and trashy, Armenian on her mother's side, and her wealth and low-level fame have stolen my Sister. Jesus teaches that I must be humble and loving. Offer her the other cheek, or sister, as it were. And since I have another sister, I say to Los Angeles: take them both. Try and take my Cousins, too! I am not alone. Chicago is a cold and cruel lover, but he is also brilliant and Irish on his mother's side, and he will provide me with all of the self-righteousness and needy children and Old Style I can handle.

So there.

Despite being a terrible, Sister-stealing place, Los Angeles has an unexpected spiritual depth. Two friends and I visited a Japanese garden and were struck by a deep sense of beauty and serenity. Both women are brave, but afflicted--the young lady to the left has been blind since birth, while the hottie to her right is kind of a jackass. She approached this sweet Buddhist, quietly meditating near the water's edge. No joke, he was levitating. So Hottie Jackass went to hit on him (you see what I mean?) and we took this cutesy-pie picture.

Half and hour later the blind girl could see and Hottie Jackass has decided to pursue service to others through Chinese Medicine.

Friends, look around you. Wonders will never cease. Miracles abound. Seriously unnamable tragedies are survived every moment. Despite her siren call of hot women, spontaneous healings, and stylish men, I say to Los Angeles: I am staying put. Staying put is my Rushmore. I have heard it said--I have read it written down--that to love Chicago is to love a woman with a broken nose, ugly and fierce. There is no place for perfection here. I can go visit it, though, in California, along with my whole family and every friend I have ever loved.