Photos from a heatwave in LA

It’s been an amazing week. There have been some moments of relative hell. I froze up while trying to pitch a screenplay. My toilet broke and I’m still flushing with a bucket.

But those are not what I will remember.

This is where I live now.

I live here. Every time I see the city, I have to remind myself this is now home.

Saturday night at Paul’s in Orange. I’ve seen people get slapped by girls there. And when I say “girls” I mean it loosely.

Noticed this protest flag above a bar, commenting on Turkey’s laws against twitter on my way to a party on Sunset on Saturday.

There’s a heatwave happening. No sign of rain. No wind, really, unless you count the millions of fans, and in richer neighborhoods than mine, air-con units.

I set my alarm for 4am to make set by 6am. Went to bed at 12.30. Fell asleep at 2.15. Woke up at 2.30 to a massive car accident outside my window. So much for sleeping in Koreatown on a Thursday night.

The next day, I went to work. Not a bad office, right? Even without sleep in the hot sun running up and down stairs, I loved it.

It’s a city where every electric box can be a sign.

Where a Frieda Kahlo exhibition is not just in the museum. Although it’s there, too.

Where I have no idea what this is about, although I see it everywhere.

Where there’s a new weird billboard every day. This one from http://www.inthemeantimemen.org/ puzzled me enough that I looked it up. Inthemeantime is an organization that provides non-homophobic counseling, awareness, and testing.

Another day, another perfect 8pm sunset as my turnoff approaches.

I have no idea why this is there, on an empty building. “how do you feel here right now?” I felt stuck in traffic, which I feel a lot…

Took a walk to my local market – in a Korean mall. They don’t sell cheese but everything else, they got. I noticed this mural, titled “Butcher”, on Olympic. I have no idea what it’s about.

At the mall, I found this Random Heart – something I began noticing after fellow blogger and friend Dorothyblack.net began documenting them. I always thought they had to be accidental – this one, like mine, probably is. It’s a grease spot.

Home made stop sign. I love that someone made it. You can’t buy them, probably for legal reasons.

So tempting…

I found this David Bowie cat outside two broken down, deserted houses on a side street. There were about 10 other white cats and a white kitten camped out there. Neighbors leave their frying pans just inside the gate out to be cleaned.

And then I got home and wrote for a while. Hit the end of act two of the rom-com I’m working on. Life is good, but South Africa and the elections feel strangely far away. They warned me about this – about America – that I’d begin to feel I belonged. And I do.