I got out of the house for a while yesterday. I received an email on Friday saying that my brother's band would be in LA this weekend, and it suddenly seemed very important that I see him. They were playing at the Santa Monica Pier, and I arrived quite late, but I went. He saw me step in front of the stage, and he got a big smile on his face, and when the song ended, he said, "Hey, you guys, that's my sister!" to the band members. He didn't know I was going to be there.

I met his girlfriend, and my friend Danielle and I spent a couple of hours with the two of them on the 3rd Street Promenade. Ethan's girlfriend is very tiny and very sweet. She's shorter than I am, weighs about 95 pounds, is covered in tattoos, and has several piercings. They seem good together. We talked, and we poked our heads into shops, and it felt strange to be in a truly public place. We looked around us.

I saw a little boy lying on the ground, writing on one of a series of posters that had been set down for people to write on. I saw a mannequin hanging from the roof of a shop, on the outside. She held on to the roof, one foot braced against the wall, and the expression on her face was vacant. I had never seen that mannequin there before, and I found it haunting. I don't know why it was there. There was a street performer, a boy of about 10, who was playing the guitar. He was actually quite talented, but I couldn't help but laugh at his song choices. He was playing Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, and when he started "Stairway to Heaven," I had to work hard to repress the urge to request "Freebird."

There was a woman dressed in multi-colored, flowing robes. She had a makeshift veil over her head made out of a shirt; I'm fairly certain that she wasn't actually Muslim, but wanted to pretend for a while. She came up and talked to us. Someone had been handing out American flags, and she wanted to buy my brother's from him. He just gave it to her, and she was very grateful, and I do think she was just a touch crazy.