My mind is like the valley--this vast barren waste. Car lots. Malls. Tract homes. I know there are other worlds beyond it--of canyons full of coyote and monarch butterflies, squirrels, bunnies, purple and yellow wildflowers, of magical boulevards lined with palatial movie theaters and movie-star haunted mansions, of parks and palms and palisades, especially, especially of the ocean, where it all ends and everything begins. I know the rest is out there but from where I sit in my head it's like being on the bottom of a hot sunken pit--you can't see anything else around you no matter how hard you try.