On parole in L.A. my feet find their way. I know I'm not really missed (I made no impression while I wandered here for 10 years or so), but it is still a comfort as my shoes greet the sidewalks all friendly-like.

The city is a blanket that curls up around me for a hundred miles. Out there in neosuburbia, my feet stick out. I like the trails, the sea, but I get cold toes.

Here in the center of my old home I'm all warm and cozy. I know it's tattered and smelly and threadbare, it's stained with spots and needs to be stitched up in a lot of places, maybe even thrown out. But how do I rid myself of something so comfortable? Its patches of exotic cloth may clash, but they exist at a known intersection, they somehow belong. They are like my memories of living here, of all the walks along the boulevards and avenues in the baddest moods, seeing the same homeless faces every day, hearing all the noise, smelling all the funk. I am selfishly fond of these moments.

Maybe if I didn't know the history, it wouldn't mean as much. But I'm aware that Cherokee, a street where I used to live, is inaccessible today, near the nucleus of that wide circle protecting the Oscar ceremony from the lower classes. A few years ago they wouldn't have thought they'd come back to this filthy place, but the stars, such as they are, have returned. I can't blame them.