BY 2004, I HAD LIVED IN LOS ANGELES FOR a full year. One February night, I was walking to my car after dinner with some new friends. Two minutes into the four-minute walk, I thought, It is actually cold right now. Thirty seconds later, I couldn’t feel my fingers or the tops of my ears. This must be a record cold snap, a climate catastrophe out of The Day After Tomorrow, which wouldn’t even be out until that May. Then I got in my car and cranked the heat; the dashboard told me the outside temperature, 59 degrees.
One year in L.
