HuffPo

My latest tyrannical rant about people who can't write.

Back in Venice

So sorry for the radio silence - my laptop was stolen in San Francisco (valet parked car in hotel, hotel forgot to valet car, car broken into, lawsuit against hotel pending...) and I've only just received the insurance check to replace everything. It was a bummer at the time, but having a nice new Mac nearly makes up for the inconvenience.

Chips is doing really well. He's on the strong meds (Ivermectin), and when he finishes a 90 day course he'll go back to the Vets to have another skin scrape to determine if the mange has gone. Thank you so much for your donations to his mange fund! I would post pics but the camera went in the break-in. Soon though!

I'm back in Venice beach after a thousand mile road trip south (Portland - San Francisco - Los Angeles), followed by a long day shooting an indie movie, and then a flight to New York to talk to some peeps about a screenplay I'm writing this year. All very exciting and I feel very blessed in this shitty, recession-ridden economy to have work. Many people are still really struggling - most of my friends in Portland and Venice are on benefits at the moment and we're all (myself included) going through those long hard weeks where you make five bucks last as long as humanly possible, trying to field all the calls from collection agencies, not freaking out you're on one meal a day. Thank fuck I don't drink, that's one less expense to worry about. Though a glass of red wine to forget about the world really does sound appealing right now. Please don't flood my inbox with concerned emails, I'll stick to the camomile tea.

I moved into a great new apartment courtesy of my friend Jules. It's meant to be temporary while she goes to New Orleans, but I'm hoping she'll let me stay longer than the intended three months. It's the first time in a while I've felt peaceful and whole anywhere. Portland OR certainly did a lot to heal a few big rents and tears I'd accumulated in the last year. Love and thanks to my very patient friends and family up there who helped me out a lot.

Life is quiet and good - writing, hanging out with Chips, getting my head down and seeing where the writing takes me. I loved New York and missed it very much when I was back last week, but I need to make some decisions based on writing rather than the heart. And I filled out a lot of application forms in 2009 which may lead me to some interesting new places this year...

Here's an article I wrote on Venice Beach which just came out in the UK's The Observer. Any ideas for travel pieces in and around the US, then email them to me.