he stories of Los Angeles will have the following components. There will be beaches and ocean waves and sunburns, stars' homes and celebrities (but only a few). Evenings when we live like rock stars, mornings when we pay. Movies and television shows and more Scientology than you ever wanted. But throughout, there will be my best friend Julie, so I thought I'd introduce you now, before we begin.

Julie works in Los Angeles as a housing lawyer. She's the one who defends people for free when they are evicted from their home. She makes little money, works long hours, and tells many good stories. "Have I told you about this client of mine?" the conversation begins. "He's so adorable." (Julie is often finding people adorable.) And the story will continue, with well-chosen details about the client's accent, or pattern of speech, or lack of teeth. More recently, Julie has been punctuating her speech with colons, so sometimes the story begins, "Here is how adorable my client is:" or, "This is what I know about my client:" I like this; it sounds literary.

I tell Julie stories too. Perhaps too frequently, they are the stories I would not tell anyone else, the stories of fear and anxiety and bad behavior, the stories that feel lighter once shared. "I just need to tell you this one thing," the stories begin. "I've been thinking that if I die, I'd like you to send that picture of me from San Francisco to the papers."
"What are you talking about?"
"The picture of me from San Francisco that you took. It's my favorite picture of myself, and I've been thinking that if I die and the Austin paper does anything about it, I want you to send that picture."
"Send it?"
"Or you can scan it and email it as a JPEG."
"I'm not having this conversation."

In the morning, Julie reads me the weather from the LA Times like it's poetry. This one is called "Light Morning Rain."
A sluggish trough of low pressure
Drifting ashore along the Southern California coast
Will maintain unsettled weather conditions
Across the Los Angeles Basin this weekend.
At night, under the same covers she has had since we lived in Jester dormitory, we talk about people from our past, a boy we once dated, a girl we haven't seen since freshman year.
"What ever happened to her?"
"She had --"
"Bad skin!"
"But she had lots of sex."
"So much sex."
"We have good skin."
"A syllogism?"
We talk this way until one of us begins snoring lightly, or twitches suddenly, the jolt of total collapse.

Julie says when she leaves Los Angeles, the thing she will miss most is the smell of the ocean. When I leave Los Angeles, the thing I will miss most is Julie.