Saturday morning, California scheming

As I told my daughter yesterday, I feel incomplete when I am away from Los Angeles. I realize the city is not to everyone's tastes...but to me it remains home, a spiritual center.

Many would consider that deranged. I recall when I first moved here, Aldo Alvarez challenged the move, pointing out that the city had a reputation of being a cultural wasteland. I stand by my sense that it is here, in the near-fusion molten sea of carbon monoxide and night-blooming jasmine, of tanning beds and shattered dreams, there is a vapour that is unique, and once inhaled, it either poisons you or seduces you.

This city is my crucible, where I found myself and where such of me remains as to render me only complete within her shadows.

This trip, for whatever else comes of it, was good to that purpose...to remind me of who I am and how much more I have to do. I sacrificed the path once before out of charity for a lost soul, I can't do that again. The clock continues to tick, every mark a slice off the candle I burn from the other end, and the wick is not infinite.