Well, just a few months ago, I was an average person with a cell phone, a driver's license, and long-distance vision. How quickly it all slips away. Three pairs of prescription glasses disappeared in my house or who knows where. And so did the cell phone, and I have procrastinated in replacing all of them. My license expired. Then I couldn't get the new license because I would fail the vision test.* A brake light breaks (which of course makes it a thousand times more likely that I'd be pulled over and my lack of glasses noticed -- that's a big ticket). And then, the car battery fades. I think.

So this morning, I'm on Brand Blvd. Glendale, which as the crow flies is close to my house in Echo Park. But as the crow dreams, it's far. For one thing, it's in a valley (whereas Echo Park is hills), and even the quality of light is different. It's so much brighter, with old-fashioned palm trees, or no trees on the street, and the light, like the ground, is somewhat flat in comparison to the dappled, foggy light of the hills. Ethnically, it's majority Armenian, of course, whereas EP is Latino, Chinese-American, Filipino and white, mostly. Brand Blvd., if you've never seen it, is aptly named. It's the longest string of car dealerships I've ever seen: the Embassy Row of automakers in Los Angeles. It's sleepy looking.

I can't rent a car with an expired license. So I decide to wait out the repairs right there in Glendale -- estimate is six hours. So, after we discuss repairs, the VW service rep and I plan my day. First, breakfast across the street at EatWell. He says they have wireless. And then I'll come back to VW, where they have an upstairs lounge that has wireless and desks. It's quiet and sunny. Although, of course, I could wait in the downstairs lounge and watch TV.

It's time to break this particular chain of procrastination, so I sign the estimate sheet and then walk the two-plus blocks to EatWell. I am familiar with the eatery's franchise cousins, so I assume it will be a mod counterpart of the Silver Lake diner. But what I find when I walk in through the front door is an old-fashioned greasy spoon, with the most perfunctory overlay of mod -- a few round, plastic hanging lights and an egg-shell lime color on the walls. Everything else has been there for at least thirty years, is my guess. And good for them for not ripping it all out -- that's sustainable design. I feel like I'm in the desert, coachella or Victorville. There are only two front windows, and these are covered by blinds, blocking the bright sunlight. The hostess says they do not have wireless. She tells me to sit anywhere. So I do, facing the front windows. Then I notice that all eight of the other patrons, solos, are facing me -- with their backs to the front door. Seems unnatural to me, until I guess that they must have parked in the lot behind EatWell, so the backdoor is the frontdoor, as far as they're concerned. (Car culture has them all turned around.) They look like an audience, and I wonder if I should read them some poetry, or tell a story. In fact, I have with me a pair of remarkable documents, one for re-reading and one that I can barely put down. The first is D-Town Visions/Building a City the River Can Be Proud of by my friend Lewis MacAdams with Joel Reynolds and Tim Grabiel. The second is advance proofs for Girl Factory, a novel by my friend Jim Krusoe. Both are pure poetry. But this looks like a tough room. Grouchy and private, hungry for food on a plate. The only performance they're interested in is the chef's. Maybe that's why they're all facing the kitchen. So I do like the regulars: order eggs and eat.

Then it's back to VW, where I have a 180-degree view on the 2nd-floor lounge -- San Gabriels to my right, Griffith Park to the left. A mottled silverish sheet of clouds in the sky. A nice view onto the sales floor, too. Over the loudspeaks "You're never gonna get it, no you're never gone get it" filling the air around the new cars, then it's another song, and one of the sales guys breaks out with a loud "Ah, ooh-wah" to a song I dont recognize. Then he's done.

It was like that.

*PS: New glasses are on their way -- right this minute!