It's been a tough week, here in Los Angeles. This probably didn't make national news, but believe it or not, a 3.0 earthquake hit Malibu the other night. Mother Nature doesn't pull any punches.

I'm an asthmatic, so I've spent the last few days locked in an air-tight room, sitting next to a Honeywell HEPA Air Filter machine and a warm-mist humidifier, sucking down extra medication and watching the 24-hour fire coverage on TV. Earlier this year, I read Mike Davis's excellent book, Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster, which explains the hows and whys of fire movement in the Los Angeles terrain as well as the politics of fire management in California. Very useful background information in the present situation. One of the things I learned from the book was that Los Angeles has the longest wilderness border of any city in the United States: 675 miles. This border is being referred to on the news as the "urban interface" with the forested mountains.

Air quality has improved somewhat, and yesterday when I saw there was a shooting outside the Robert Blake trial, it almost felt like the city was returning to normal again. Of course, that would not be entirely correct. The city was experiencing other disasters even before the fire started, in the form of several large-scale strikes. The transit authority is on strike, which has added about 50% to commute times. The chain-store grocery workers are on strike, bless them, which makes it extremely difficult--though not impossible--to get food. And three groups of county workers have held intermittant strikes, including the county sheriffs.

Last Sunday was particularly hard. I went out into the baking 90 degree heat in an attempt to get groceries. The air was choked with ash that burned my eyes and nose. To avoid crossing the picket line, I had already been to a bulk grocery that supplies restaurants in order to get staple goods, now I was going to a mom-and-pop grocery store to try to get fresh food.

The scene inside was a mad house. It was so packed with people supporting the strike that almost every step required negotiation with adjacent shoppers. People had that brittle politeness one often encounters on the L.A. freeways, just in case Michael Douglas's character from Falling Down is driving the car next to you.

Last week, my sister freaked out while waiting in the check-out line at a small natural foods store. Since she's not patient enough to stand in the long lines, she's been reduced to eating dinner at 7-11 every night.

The fires may be under control, but the city's still way out of hand.