It's another of those classic 75-degree, gorgeous, preturnatural days in Southern California that makes you realize why 20 million people live here, over 10,000 on Skid Row alone. The constancy of freeway traffic--its never-ceasing blur of noise filling the valleys like a perpetual locust cloud--whispers into our ears with the familiarity of an old friend. Discarded fast-food detritus chases itself playfully across the streets, meets at corners, rushes off to other parts of town. Advertisements scroll across the horizon leashed to biplanes, a fine linear aesthetic parallel to the waste-capped waves on the oily ocean below, always rolling, never at rest. Palpitating helicopters, private jets and whispy industry clouds seem content to linger in the rain-washed sky, blue for at least a day. I love to see the mountains and the sea at once, I love the gleam of semi-trucks hauling their wares to Wal-Mart and beyond (the smaller ones to Chinatown, its scent of ancient grease, its sidewalks scuffed and pocked). Ah, nature! I love to shield my forehead from the sun, to stand still in the breeze, to feel an ant meander across my hand.