Seasonal change in Los Angeles is often a very subtle thing. It's not as if we finally stop having to shovel the snow out of our driveways and can put our parkas back in the closet.

If the death of Osama Bin Laden brings any peace to those who lost loved ones on that awful day in September 2001, that is a great thing. It is more likely, however, just a painful reminder of what was lost.

For myself, I can't understand a life without a job. I don't know what I would do without employment. Retirement is out of the question for me.

People who keep a large snake in their apartment building, which happens quite a bit, all of a sudden, within two summers, have a 14-foot animal that's eating adult rabbits, and needs quite a bit of room and quite a bit of heat. That's the animal that gets put in the back of a pick-up truck and dumped into the Florida Everglades or the city lake, or just left on a doorstep - again, it's quite often the animal that suffers.

Here in this moment we are beautiful, nocturnal creatures and our thoughts and words are jewels guarded by the moon.

I beg young people to travel. If you don't have a passport, get one.........the re are lessons that you can't get out of a book that are waiting for you at the other end of that flight. A lot of people - Americans and Europeans - come back and go, "ohhhhh." And the lightbulb goes on.

Seasonal change in Los Angeles is often a very subtle thing. It's not as if we finally stop having to shovel the snow out of our driveways and can put our parkas back in the closet.