A few years later, after I witnessed my mother getting mugged, I was sent to therapy to deal with the trauma. The therapist had huge abstract oil paintings on the wall, painted by her, and she gestured to them and said “you can create any kind of life you want.” This was an ineffective way to make me less scared of muggers, but it did clue me in to the ethos of Los Angeles at a young age: you can just do what you want, be who you want. It’s okay. Drop in and reinvent yourself. Perhaps that’s why I allowed myself to have such a wild adolescence. So wild, that I wonder what spirit was watching out for me. Was it the city? I’m not blaming the oil-painting therapist exactly, but where else did I get the idea that I could sneak into clubs, or have romances with adult men, romances that would surely get them jailed today? Where else did I get the idea that it was a good idea to ride in the bed of of truck driven by (extremely) hot lifeguards, who parked at the beach, then picked me up and ran straight into the ocean at midnight? Where did I get the idea that could go to parties at friends’ houses where the parents were just …gone, like, forever? As in: the parents had moved, and left their kids to fend for themselves. Where did I get the idea that my first job should be as a hostess at a Mexican restaurant, where the bartender slipped me Midori sours, turning my tongue green? Where did I get the idea that it was a good idea to visit a drug dealer’s house, where I was asked to roll a joint as a rite of initiation? My boyfriend look stricken and secretly rolled it for me. He’s a Los Angeles cop now. I was painting my own oil painting of a life, and it was wild and dangerous and colorful, just like the city. Those years should have landed me on the back of a milk carton, but somehow I just knew everything was going to be okay. It was as if there was a net of tar and sunlight and saltwater and eucalyptus waiting to catch me. The city led me to danger and then pulled me back, over and over, so I could live another day to survive an earthquake, a wildfire, or meet more random coyotes and rattlesnakes, to pet more blue-bellied lizards. I love you, Los Angeles. Happy birthday.