i'm very excited about the possibility of going to los angeles in the month of august. i want to see if any of my preconcieved notions are correct. will it be teeming with illegal immigrants offering to mow my lawn? will the smog be so thick that i'll be able to swim from one end of the block to the other? will jennifer lopez be waltzing around while six photographers from the E! network, all disguised as bushes, snap photographs of what's she eating, where's she scratching, and how she's reapplying her lip gloss? i don't know.

san francisco was a great place to visit. i felt like i had entered a storybook land, or an episode of 'full house.' seattle was fantastic, also a storybook land or perhaps starbucks commercial. vegas, also storybook land or episode of 'world tournament of poker' mixed with the software title '12,000 alcoholic beverage recipes.' that's where i've been out west so far; when i imagine los angeles, i see a dirtier, flatter, yet star-studded near-chicago. maybe i'm wrong. maybe i'm right. maybe i'll accidentally knock down the hollywood sign while careening around in my rent-a-car looking for the in-&-out burger.

either way, i'm excited, and i hope to spend time at the beach and at various los angeles monuments, such as the bowling alley used in 'the big lebowski.' i'm also looking forward to meeting chris' friends, who shall be my friends by default. ah, de-fault. the two loveliest words in the language.