The next day is figuring out Santa Monica. As I stroll in my wedges down Main street, I witness cafes filled with old, injected ladies and little accessory dogs, UC students studying, or enjoying June found freedom. Amidst the neon white smiles and crocodile shoes, every sixth person is a man pushing a shopping cart, with a mane of stringy hair running through the back of an Orioles cap.

Wandering through the streets like a lost puppy, everyone looks foreign to me. Between the acrylic, bleach, and smog, I wonder if walking down this street every day would eventually second-hand poison me. I also wonder if anyone here is neurotic enough to have thoughts like that. But it's LA; at least one of these people have to be Jewish.

Reaching into my sprawling handbag, I pull out my ear buds, just to remember what familiar sounds like. Smiling briefly at the man beneath the Orioles cap who is now sitting down next to his shopping cart to wipe his brow as I pass, I click on Spotify on my phone, checking the time. I've still got an hour before I meet up with Mr. Film Industry man who's name I can't remember, who will hopefully give me some answers about my future.

I stop to focus on the screen, and press "play." The thundering beat and electronic plinks whoosh me back to every time I've listened to this song; when I watched walls of rocks go by on a crowded bus in Israel, smoked weed in my room and felt too much at once, and my last night in Portland. That kiss. His hands moving up my leg. My front steps digging into me, scraping my back while he pressed himself closer...

A hand taps my shoulder. I whip around, taking out one of my earbuds. It's the homeless Orioles fan.

"You've got poop on your shoe."