I'm sitting in Psychobabble Coffee Shop in Los Feliz. It's a pretty popular little joint, lots of space for the writers and students who populate it's tables. That's something that I find particularly admirable about Los Angeles. Being a writer s not a questionable profession. As evidenced by the WGA strike, it's a economically impactful position, not just for people who can't bring themselves to do something else. As such, it carries at least an aknowledged level of respect. You can be a writer in Los Angeles and people don't automatically roll their eyes and say, "What else?"

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I actually left this whole post until today, not intentionally but when I eventually made it home I found myself more distracted by beer, steak and Jack Daniels on ice with a couple dashes of bitters. Distracting stuff, that.

This morning I woke up fairly early and got to work. Last October I went down to San Diego to visit my dad and a good friend. During the visit the handle to open my tailgate was broken. I haven't really needed it very often of late but recently I've been needing to drop the tail a bit more so this morning I took my little tool set and I got about disassembling the backside of the gate so I could see what I'd need to fix it.

There's something mildly romantic to the act of fixing your own truck on a cold, misty morning. I remember my dad doing the same so many times. Still, there's a less cheery side to the whole deal: the only reason I'm fixing my own vehicle is because I can't afford to pay someone else to do it. It was the same with Dad.

But I like it. And this is one of the easier jobs you can do, I'm happy not to be laying underneath anything this time.