Endless sunset.

That's what we're experiencing. Except when the sun actually sets - then it's dark. But all during the day, the sky is orange, the sun is dim, and everything around has an ochre hue to it.

"But why?" you ask.

It's the fires. "The Day Fire" to be precise - so called because it started on Labor Day. The smoke is now billowing its way up to LA county due to the changing winds, and it's thick. I drove past Hollywood proper on my way to Occidental Studios and couldn't believe my eyes as I looked out at the town from the 101.

See the color behind that fire bomber? That's what I saw drifting around the Hotel Roosevelt and engulfing the Capitol Records building - dirty orange air, the sun glowing wanly in the vague distance. Gross.

I've been working on a video today, and I kept noticing the color of the sunlight as it filtered through the window. Wow, what time is it? I'd think, but then I'd look at the clock . . . 2:40? What?! So I'd step outside and Egads! the sky be filthy. Then I'd go back to the video, forget about the sunlight for a moment, and then I'd suddenly notice it again. Wow, how long have I been sitting here? It must be late and . . . 4?! Incredible. Yuck. Incredibly yuck.

On top of the smoke and the dust, autumn in Los Angeles means new and devious allergies. Before moving here, I never had a single allergy. Not a one. Now I've come to think that the pollutants and abundant flora varieties of Southern California could make Basalt sneeze and reach for the Kleenex. In fact, I think it's made me more susceptible to developing new and interesting allergies in other areas, like medicines, por ejemplo.

See, last November I developed a bad sty in my eye and it was a tenacious nogoodnik, too. The doc prescribed some Erythromicin gel to smear on my eyeball, and it seemed to work ok, but then the sty started coming back a couple months later so I used it again. This time, my eye got worse. Much worse. It burned like the dickens, it became inflamed, and . . . ohmygosh! my eyeball's wrinkled! What's. Happening. To. Me.?
After a brief, urgent call to an optomotrist friend of mine, I found out that the human eye wrinkles when it's having an allergic reaction to something placed in it. Whew. That's it? I wasn't allergic to that medicine before! How was I to know? It must be that I'm in an allergy-causing environment. I'm becoming oversaturated with allergy-type-stuff and it's starting to manifest.

That's it: No more dairy, wheat, soy, penicillin, cat dander, wool, shellfish, ragweed pollen, bee stings, or mango skins for me, no sir. Time to live in a latex-lined cell with nothing but distilled water and boiled, free-range chicken.

Unless there's a chicken allergy I don't know about.