The immensely available broad light of Los Angeles, even as the days have become short -- it's one of the things I like about Los Angeles. And it's something few people have in NYC as I was reminded today, reading my friend Miranda McLeod's beautiful, sometimes angry, blog, My Brother Is Dead. The most recent entry: "The little things: We stole our air conditioner." The subtitle of My Brother is "I'm grieving, you're a voyeur. We're a match made in hell," which is only half true because Miranda's writing is so smart and full of feeling. One line, from Nov. 4: "Do you ever feel .... Like your brain is a white room with nothing - not even you - in it?" (My answer: Yes, but I didn't know it.) Friday:

...one fine day, what feels like years after you've forgotten that you live above ground, you step outside to find the scaffolding [in front of your apartment building] gone, and it's like God lifted the roof off of the sky. The sun kisses your skin....