Dear Wigleaf,

I'm writing to you from my car, the place where most managerial tasks are performed in LA. Not to say this is a place without postcards and the people who send them—Venice Beach, Hollywood, Malibu, this place has a lot to write home about for the ones who live anywhere else.

But for the rest of us, for the ones who buy groceries here, send packages here, and pass the beach on the way to the hardware store, we don't send postcards from LA. We idle in the parking lots of various coffee shops and hike the emergency break up directly beneath a palm tree, hoping to God that the palms stay put. And then we get one small thing done before we work up the courage to shlep our bags, and phones, and cords, and sweaters out of the passenger seat and into our apartments. Tomorrow we'll do it again, windows cracked, radio on, tourists walking by with their postcards. A palm falls onto a car and the locals don't even turn their heads.

With love from LA,
Natalie