Hanging With the Cool Kids

I dearly love living in Portland. Almost everything about it is great – the city, the neighborhoods, the restaurants, the coffeehouses, the arts scene, the microbreweries, the friendly people, the lush scenery, the ocean and mountains nearby, and the climate. But I do have one complaint. It isn’t much of a writer’s town.
Los Angeles is a writer’s town. So it’s a great place for me to hang out. I spent a long weekend down there at La Casa de Roger L. Simon and got to enjoy the company of some of L.A.’s finest writers and bloggers: Roger (obviously), his wife Cheryl, Matt Welch, Emmanuelle Richard, Marc Danziger (aka Armed Liberal), Cathy Seipp, and the Dark Lord himself Charles Johnson. Marc Cooper and Megan McArdle (who lives in New York) were scheduled to be there, too, but they couldn’t make it. Both were missed.
It’s normal to write in Los Angeles. At least that’s how it feels when I’m hanging out in a room full of writers. In Portland it’s strange. I can’t talk shop when I’m home unless I do it by email or phone.
So thanks, y’all, for having me down there and indulging me. Don’t take each other’s company for granted.