The vibrations of time are felt differently out here, and I’m not just talking about jet lag or the general precognition of experiencing every moment three times sooner than every New Yorker.

There are dual levels to the measure of time in Los Angeles. LA is a city of both trends and traditions; artistic traditions, ethnic traditions, neighborhood traditions, sidewalk traditions. Industry trends dictate trends of fashion and film and fortunes, each mutating hourly like some fucking government engineered super flu. If you choose to age with the trends your life will span roughly the length of an ADD thought. In the two weeks I’ve been here entire trending empires have risen and fell and become retro followed almost immediately by becoming passé. If you choose to age with the trends you have to develop super sanity, facing each new week with a new personality to match. If you choose to age with tradition you may never be hip, but you might become timeless.

Which is all to say I feel old already and welcome to week two.

I’m still getting settled in. Boxes are still arriving from Nashville. The meth-mainlining UPS gorillas are still breaking half my shit. We got the gas changed over and experienced the pure caveman elation of making fire in our cave. I cooked my first meal in the new apartment; grilled garlic parsley chicken with a lime citrus salad of butter lettuce and capers. My roommate Earl was so stoked he took a picture of the dish and tweeted it, and I can’t deny a certain milestone appreciation touched even the greased industrial valves of my own main pump.

A huge chunk of the week was also swallowed by illness. I was fighting it off as early as Tuesday, scrabbling down the back alleys of LA’s darkest heart in search of elixirs and tonics and the blood cures of ancient Pacific Rim tribes. A curandero swore to me he couldn’t save my body, but he could heal my soul sickness. I told him I needed that for work, and no, I would not also like to buy a rattlesnake belt. I’d hoped to get a new Ten-Count posted in this blog. I’d hoped to finish a script treatment. I’d hoped to raid more taco trucks, possibly find them all feeding at the same riverbank and strike en masse like a fucking two-ton croc snapping three gazelles at a time between its jaws.

Fortunately you can bank hope out here. Although there is a 50% karmic tax.

And fortunately by Saturday night I was on the mend. Earl and I hit Jerry’s Famous Deli for dinner. I tried to tackle a New York Super Reuben and paid dearly for it in ways mortal man was never meant to blog about. The next day I had to be at Meltdown Comics on Sunset Boulevard for GENRE OUTLAWS: FICTION WITHOUT BORDERS, a panel put on by the SoCal chapter of Mystery Writers of America. It was me, Steve Niles, Harlequin author Linda O. Johnston, and our moderator, Christa Faust. The crew at Meltdown is aces. They gave my books insane frontage in their shop, under a huge gleaming bust of Thor no less (“Where can you find my books? UNDER THE HEAD OF THOR!” was my new tagline).

The turnout was somewhere between twenty and thirty people, which was stellar considering our little event was booked against the LA Marathon. We played a round of genre roulette. I drew “pulp adventure” and “cyber-thriller” and pitched a story about a night security guard at a circa 1930’s medical supply company named Pap who is forced to go after the iron lung that was stolen on his watch or lose his job. Little does Pap know said iron lung has been converted into a Death Ray by the evil Dr. Prepesto. The people seemed to dig it and I’ve already pre-sold the film rights. The chair I was given also broke under the extreme weight of my genius as a result.

Seriously.

Afterward pizza and beverages were served. Because that’s how the MWA rolls. We went out front to sign and generally be sociable, even me. Meltdown sold out of The Next Fix and every one wanted theirs signed. One guy tentatively admitted he’d never heard of me before, but my humble demeanor on the panel won him over. I was just as confused as you. I took the bank I made off the books and bought lunch and a bottle of warm sake for myself and my friend of fourteen years, fellow scribe, future purveyor of cutting-edge library arts, and award-winning playwright, Dolly Moehrle. It was the first chance I’d had to hang with Dolly since moving out here two weeks ago.

She taught me one very important lesson at lunch that day. Whatever you’re looking for in LA, it’s over there. Dolly is a swami.

I rounded out the week watching UFC Live: Vera vs. Jones with Christa, Keith Rainville, and what are rapidly becoming the regulars. Brandon Vera is a case study in broken dreams. That’s really all I or anyone can say about that.

Summation? The universe is going to have to throw more at me than a fucking cold to harsh my current trip. My second week in LA and I’m on Sunset Boulevard, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Steve Niles in front of a room full of people talking about my work and the craft in the posh gallery of the largest comic book shop on the west coast which sold out my book in under five minutes.

I win.