Item: 1 Radio Shack radio-controlled travel alarm clock

I'm so tired. I haven't gotten enough sleep the last 2 nights, and all I can think about is how soon the alarm clock will be going off again, tomorrow.

This has been a week of gorgeous sunsets. I seem to keep leaving work at exactly the right time, when the sky is flooded with color. Tonight I looked into the rearview mirror and all I saw was flamingo-colored pink. The road out toward Playa del Rey, where the few parcels of empty land still stand, was sinking into the low dusk, and the planes from LAX were taking off over the bluff.

Things like achingly cold waterfalls are beautiful -- green fields, massive granite mountains, rugged places that show off the primal force of creation. I love how intense and simple my life can become in such places. But they are not beautiful like Los Angeles sometimes is beautiful, when the dirt, pollution, and sprawl emit a pulsating sense of kindness and light that blazes over it all.