California dreaming
Stepping off the plane at LAX, the protagonist in Christopher Buckley’s comic novel Thank You for Smoking breezily observes that “arriving there always made it feel like Friday, even in the middle of the week facing a full workload.” There’s just something about LA’s perfect weather, attractive people and sense of living for tomorrow that instantly lifts your spirits. Born and raised in Boston and having spent most of my adult life within the narrow mental and professional confines of the Acela corridor, I used to be the typical East Coast snob when it came to America’s second-largest city. Sure, I acknowledged, the temperature is always a sublime seventy-two degrees. But how can you endure the traffic? Yes, it’s difficult not to stare at every other person.
