Paul Patrzalek’s house in La Mesa is impossible to miss: Outside in the front yard sits a 10,000-pound truck with a camper shell that looks — and sounds — not unlike a tank. It’s beige in color, adorned with the Mercedes logo. The cab is bright white, and the whole thing sits a good few feet off the ground.

Sam Zien is a regular guy. He’s a husband, he’s the father of three teenage boys, and he has two dogs, an orange Labrador and a Chinese Crested. He also happens to have both a local and national televised cooking show. Zien’s show, Sam the Cooking Guy, emphasizes food made easy. It helps that it’s shot, with few exceptions, right in Zien’s own kitchen.

Israel and Lebanon were at war. England and Argentina were at war. In Hollywood, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were formed. Navy beat Army 24-7, the Chargers beat the Dolphins 41-38 to make it to the AFC Championship, and "The Last 79," a town-by-town analysis of the remaining vacant beachfront properties in San Diego County, appeared in the Reader's January 21 edition alongside ads for $7 haircuts.

My long conversation with Judith Moore about writing began in 1980. We first met at a monthly campus ministry shindig for the faculty of Central Washington University, in Ellensburg, Washington. Judith was escaping the small-town tedium she describes in her book Never Eat Your Heart Out. I would drive 40 miles up from Yakima, where I taught philosophy at a community college.

Paradise Hills lies in a small corner of southeastern San Diego, butting right up against National City and State Route 54. It's a low-lying neighborhood, despite the dips and bobs of the hills; the sky looms large over the slope-roofed houses atop the crest, while rows of compact, one-story homes line the streets below.

"You girls ready?" I raise my head from my pillow. I am shoulder deep in industrial-grade bedding, trying to pull the last dregs from an uneasy, however jet-lagged, sleep. Light pours through my window, slicing through the white strips of the blinds. Estela, in the opposite bed, is a moderate-sized lump under her covers, tufts of her black hair peeking out.

I got a call from my old friend Julia the other night. She was on her way to a triathlon swimming class and, after a short aquatics-themed chat, we lapsed onto memory lane. All our funny creations, labors of love only childish brilliance can think up. The "Aunt Ruth Song," an ode to a particularly nasty relative; The Beer Slipper, an old wingtip found on the street and, hoisted aloft on a bamboo stick, became a minor deity; The Katherine Show , a theatrical roasting of a gal-pal who had done me wrong.

Nanny is dead. It is Karen who calls to tell me this. It is Thursday, and I hear the phone and know, ducking out of class in what I hope is a discreet manner. "Nanny passed away today," Karen says with heaviness in her voice. A kid passes by, hip-hop blaring tinny from headphones he wears hiked up above his ears.

It was my aunt's truncated e-speak -- in which she disregards all conventions of grammar -- that informed me my maternal grandmother was dying, and I suppose that made it...blander, less impacting. There was something offhanded about it, impersonal: "...this is from your cousin ceecee, she says henrietta isnt doing so well, as she said she doesnt think shes going to make it... we'll be up there soon...things are going good here...kids are fine."