I’ve mentioned before I have an awesome day job - as a dailies operator and colorist in training - which is actually a night job.

As I’ve worked the night shift I found myself developing some strange schedules to compensate for this odd lifestyle.  For example, I had to figure out when to brush my teeth again.  Even if it’s the ol’ before bed after breakfast routine, then it’s at 6am and noon, which leaves my brain confused and my breath a little stinky (fixed since then, since I know you really needed to know that). I also answer the bulk of my emails right before I go to sleep, which I have really got to stop doing because sometimes I dream about finishing digital correspondence. 

It’s easy to feel like you live in a tunnel when you work nights.  I get to work the same route every night, with my headlights illuminating only what I need to see right in front of me. Under post meridiem hypnosis I march on. I say “Hi” to the security guard the same way every night, say “Thank you” equally as surprised every night when I get a walk out to my car (hot tip: always do this if you find yourself walking through parking lots alone at five in the morning.)

It happens to me because it’s so dark.  It’s hard to change your routine when you physically can’t see anything.

And then one day last week I found myself driving the same route to work but during the day - and I could see everything I’d been missing.  The walls and walls of graffiti, the mish mash of neighborhoods, which is so much of what I love about Los Angeles.  I couldn’t see it until I turned off the high beams and waited for the day, and then it was right there, in front of my face.