“In the hall,” I yell, updating someone who might not even be there. For some reason my voice is a baritone when I do this. I want to make sure she hears me. My combat boots guarantee the people on the floor below hear me, at any rate.

New obstacle: the stairwell. I’d use the elevator, except the last time I did, someone was asleep inside. (Mary, my former boss and current landlord, was unsympathetic: “In my day, they’d have been passed out in their own vomit.”) I have this fear there will always be someone asleep inside, and that the next time I go in, the person’s eyes will pop open and they’ll grab my ankle.

In LA, I worried someone might be hiding under my car to slice my tendons, so this is not an unfamiliar fear of mine. Once I’m outside in the “fresh” air though, all similarities, real or imagined, to the City of Angels evaporate.

Honk! Screech! Beep! Sizzle! “Hey!”

I’m assaulted by noise. Smells. Garbage, floating in the air and piled outside front stoops. Cacophony. I fight the urge to cover my ears, close my eyes, and pray for a teleportation device. Does it have to be so loud? Does there have to be unidentifiable steam shooting out of a nasty-ass grate in the middle of the sidewalk? Does everybody have to hustle past me, elbows knocking me, at such a frenzied pace? At least my boots will protect me. They don’t help with speed, though, that’s for sure.

Get to the corner. Just get to the corner, so you can cross the street.

I understand the appeal of newsstands; really, I do. And food carts. Sure. It’s just that now I have to move around them without accidentally bumping someone or getting grease on me or smelling something I’d rather not smell this early in the morning.

Jesus, I’ve only gone half a block and I’ve been glared at, eye-fucked, stepped on, jostled, and surrounded. What I wouldn’t give for the peace and tranquillity of my car in California. I know, I know, we have the worst traffic in the world, but you know what else we have? Space to ourselves. Temperature control. Room to breathe, the option to listen to whatever music or podcast or radio station we want, and the ability to HEAR IT in the quiet of our cars, while we sip an iced latte or brainstorm a line of dialogue.

I’m at the intersection at last, and the WALK sign comes on, but I know better than to step toe off the curb. The first three cars don’t stop. Two of them slide on through, and the third honks, like the car is swearing at me, ordering me to not even think about it.

Know what else we have in California?

Mountains. Trees. The beach. Grass. (Both kinds.)