We have a lot of catching up to do.

Look at that. I haven't contributed to this chronicle in what? Three weeks?

A lot has happened.

First of all, there's the whole morning sickness thing. Your mom has been going around everywhere with Saltines, Altoids, and sea-salt-and-vinegar potato chips. Sometimes the stuff works; mostly it doesn't. You've made her puke on more than one occasion. Mostly, though, she feels gaggy. As in, she wants to gag.

Just about every meal--even ones involving beef--ends with her shoving the plate away from her and saying, "I'm done." Which is code for, "I feel like puking."

In the past couple of days, the gagging has subsided a bit, though she's still really tired a lot. She asked me to move a trash can full of yard debris because, as she put it, she was being girlie and couldn't handle it. It wasn't all that heavy, she was just exhausted from repotting plants.

So why haven't I written? One word: Portland.

Your mom and I went up to Portland. Kind of a reconnaisance mission. We figured there had to be someplace better to raise a kid (you) than Los Angeles and Kirk and Deb (who I'm sure you've met by now) had to go to New York for a trade show so we volunteered to house sit for them for nine days. Just as I'd hoped, your mom fell in love with the place. And just as I hoped, I did too.

We found a house for sale, made an offer, and what do you know, that's probably where you live right now.

As I write this, the paperwork is moving ahead, the inspection has been done, and the loan is in process. The only hiccup is that the sewer is a party line, which might have a happy sound to it, but apparently it's both illegal and expensive to fix.

Not good.

I know what you're thinking. You're wondering why we would ever leave an exciting place like L.A. for a boring place like Portland.

Here's what you need to know about that:

First off, no matter where you grow up, you're going to think it sucks. That's just human nature.

Second, L.A. sucks. At least it does now. Cities have cycles. When I first moved to New York in 1984, it sucked. People were rude, the place was filthy and scary, crime was rampant, and the women were insane. I was so excited to get the hell out of there and move to Los Angeles a couple of years later because the people were nice, the place was clean and friendly, I never saw any crime, and the women seemed pretty normal.

Over the next 15 or 20 years, the two cities traded places. New York got civilized; L.A. got nasty, rude, filthy, and obnoxious. When I first came to L.A., I was astonished that a pedestrian could step out onto a busy street and traffic would come to a stop in both directions. Now as you drive down a street, drivers turn right into traffic without even slowing down at stop signs, staring you down with a defiant look as they cut in front of you to get where they need to go.

It would be okay if there were a benefit to living in L.A., but I've long since lost sight of the magic. I've directed enough films and commercials to realize that the work is not all that glamorous, and met enough celebrities to know that being in the same room as them doesn't complete me.

The city operates on a weird sort of dynamic, where actually accomplishing something is not the goal. In fact, it's usually in direct opposition to the goal. The goal is to look like you're accomplishing something, and that something usually involves getting others--particularly famous people--to agree to work on something with you.

The perverse logic of L.A. is that if you actually get a famous person involved in your project, other, more famous people are by definition not involved in that capacity, and so what might seem like success is actually a type of failure. You therefore have no choice but to try and parley one famous person's commitment to be involved into a commitment by another, more famouse person to be involved either in addition to or instead of your first famous person.

And so nothing actually ever gets done.

By the time you read this, that may all have changed and Los Angeles may be a gleaming metropolis whereas Portland may have become stinky. And if that's the case, by all means move there and good luck to you. I'll visit occasionally and point out landmarks that aren't there any more and bore you with stories about people you've never heard of. You'll find it annoying and I know that, but I'll do it anyway because I'll want to reminisce and you'll be convenient, so I'm sorry in advance and thank you for not rolling your eyes, at least while I'm looking.

But back to you.

We went to the doctor today to check in on you and I know I kind of changed the subject but I have to make one more jab at L.A. before I tell you what happened. The appointment was for 10:15. The doctor didn't see us until 11:30.

Sure, that probably happens everywhere. But it happened to us in L.A. and so I'm blaming the city, at least partly.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. So we got to see another sonogram. This time, you're a little creature, with a head and little hands and feet and everything. We saw your teeny little heart going thunkata thunkata thunkata really fast, and every once in a while you'd have this spasm--your whole body flailing like a fish on a dock trying to flop its way back into the water.

The doctor--the one who was an hour and fifteen minutes late for our appointment--said it was normal for 12-week-old fetuses like you to do that. But I like to think it was you going, "Yippee! We're moving to Portland!"

By the way, you're no longer Dot. After seeing you spasm like that four or five times, we're now calling you Twitchy.

Deal with it.