In the cartoon version of my life, we walk down the street and there are little bursting pink hearts and yellow stars bursting and sparkling all around us, because everything is amazing good and we are magic.

We have now driven all the way to the West coast, truly, down Santa Monica Boulevard all the way to the ocean. Seven dollars bought parking for the day, then the sand soft under our feet, and the Pacific cold like a bath of ice cubes, jumping and screaming in the waves, and—“Ils! mangent! nos! trucs!”—Yaël chasing bandit seagulls on the shore. Seagull, la mouette. Three on a picnic blanket, and strawberries, and carrots, and the sun.



Thursday afternoon the Mosquitoes took us into L.A. It seemed like we were on Interstate 10 for years, the traffic and the highway and the palm trees, and we could see the downtown skyline off in the distance, and we could feel California all around us, but we still weren’t there yet. But then La Cienaga, and Melrose, and Wilshire, and Beverly, and we roll the windows down and we are California girls.

Jude and Chad gave us the keys to the city and took us on a tour: the Star Trooper outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater, the corner where the trannie prostitutes hang out, the crazy guy playing the harmonica into a payphone, the twenty-four hour donut shops, the Scientologists. When you talk about the Scientologists, you must do it in a hushed voice. We saw one walking down the street, in a SHIRT AND TIE, and I said, “Aaaaa!! I think he’s talking into a thing in his ear!” and Jude kept shushing us because the windows were rolled down and he was afraid they would come and eat us.



In L.A. I trade Jude half a cheeseburger for half a plate of buttermilk chicken at the Kitchen. After dinner, the sun sets to the West of Fountain Avenue, over the glowing Pioneer Chicken ’N Biscuits sign.

In L.A. I think we are coming up to the Amoeba Museum, but it is really a shop called Amoeba Music.

In L.A. we sink into mismatched sofas in the back at Parlour, while Jude tells about monster fish with lightbulbs on their heads.



In L.A. the guy in the next car would be cuter if he shaved, but he is cute nonetheless, and every time I look over he is looking over. But he drives a white Mercedes and fixes his hair at the traffic lights, and actually I think he might be looking over at Jude.



In L.A. the streets are Mariposa and Ocean.

In L.A. the palm trees the palm trees the palm trees.



In L.A., for no other reason other than being in L.A., I am up at six-thirty in the morning, madly waving at Jude from the sofa.

Chad and I walk up the block to the big gay Starbucks. “Are we going south?” I say. “No, north,” he says, and situates me: Toward the Hollywood Hills—“That’s Johnny Depp”—to the left— “that’s UCLA”—to the right—“and that’s New York.”

We put on swimsuits under our clothes, because we are in L.A., and we could go to the beach AT ANY TIME.

In L.A., the dark Toblerone melts when we forget it in the car, but we can always take a gander to Trader Joe’s for more. Also at Trader Joe’s—we heart Trader Joe’s—wine on the cheap, and Italian cinnamon-ginger yoghurt.

In L.A., we dance to Mint Royale, shimmy shimmy, and if you say, “Hey, would you put ‘Galang’ on,” Chad will do it happily.

We live here now, in L.A., so we stay up whispering till it is tomorrow, laughing till we are crying, and then in the morning we wake up and walk in the sun to an iced mango tea, a breakfast quesadilla, and the daily horoscopes.