Indulged my annual craving for steak the other night. Many thanks to Casey for the restaurant recommendation: steak for me, an oversized baked potato for Ian. After dinner, we meandered down to the beach. Los Angeles beaches, like most of L.A., are this strange hybrid of dirty and supreme image-consciousness. The beach is sculpted flat, but it smells funny, and not just in a salty way. Still, empty, night-wrapped beaches are a good place for conversation, for acknowledging loss, for making plans. The waves broke orange in the city’s sodium lights, but further out they shown in brilliant flashes of …

Enjoying a sleepy Sunday. . . Hosted a party last night, our first since our housewarming party a year ago. We’ve met some wonderful new people since then, and it was great fun to mix them in with the people we’ve known for years. Haven’t yet decided whether it was the layout and organization of our kitchen/bar area that accounted for the high volume of cocktails (the beer was in the fridge, so maybe it wasn’t obvious we had any) or if L.A. people drink more mixed drinks than San Francisco people. Have learned that “Snickerdoodle” does not appear in …

“Explain this to me.” Well, folks, here we are at the close of another year. The last time I sat down to write the Annual Letter, the result ended up looking a bit like a miniature travelogue. We’d been here and there, done this and that. (And for those of you who are wondering, yes, I am *still* working on the Journal.) So, what did we do to top last year? We stayed home. I mean, really, how do you top two continents, seven countries, and a castle? Never fear, it wasn’t all thumb-twiddling and basket-weaving. Among the Cool Things …

“Walk me down the aisle, Daddy, it’s just about time; Does my wedding gown look pretty, Daddy? Daddy, don’t cry.” Dear Dad, I turned 26 yesterday. I had a party last weekend and got drunk on Brazilian cocktails. Grandpa and Grandma sent me flowers, a delivered arrangement, like they have every year since I was 19. The flowers were roses this year, pink and white. I had a birthday yesterday. Did you even notice? The last birthday card I ever got from you came in a business size envelope. You used the letter wizard in Word, probably, and sent me …

I woke up this morning feeling ancient. Stretched so thin, I’m probably transparent, so much without substance that I fear if I were to go outside, I would blow away or dissolve in the rain. My father died when I was 18, seven years ago, when I was a freshman in college. That’s when the dementia had destroyed enough of his brain to destroy the man I knew as my father. Dad was a laid-back sort of guy, with a sweet smile and an easy sense of humor. He loved music and technology and boats, was a championship marksman, enjoyed …

Please accept — with no obligation, implied or implicit — our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday… The plum tree in the backyard has shed all its leaves, a bouquet of sticks silhouetted against the still green trees around it, the lemon tree with its bright spots of fruit hanging over the neighbor’s fence and the climbing rose blooming in December. The lemons, the roses, the birds that come to the seed generously provided by the upstairs neighbors, they all starkly contrast last winter, where the sky …