My mother tried to convince me not to go back to L.A. She failed. My hippie friend tried to convince me not to go back to L.A. He failed. Patricia Highsmith, Matt Damon, Jude Law, and Anthony Minghella tried to convince me not to go back to L.A. They failed. Now my body was trying to convince me not to go back to L.A. It, too, failed. Two weeks later, against all logic, I was in my Lumina and heading back to Hollywood. My apartment in L.A. was, at the end of the day, all I had going for me; it was my life raft. If I wanted to keep my dream alive, I had to live on the raft I had, even if this meant that Tommy was, however briefly, my fellow passenger.