A Red Letter Day

October 29th, 2007Blog0 comments

I picked our good friend Lloyd up from the airport yesterday. Then we went to 3rd Street Promenade to get him a new computer and watch people.

3rd Street is a great place to watch people. It’s crowded and there are buskers and plenty of weirdoes. Weirdoes are my favorite sort of people to watch. Folks wearing three pairs of glasses simultaneously and helmets. We saw a sad clown with withered balloon animals. Weirdoes have the best stories to tell. They’re like the quotation from Anna Karenina about unhappy families being unhappy in their own particular way. Weirdoes are all distinctly unique in their weirdness.

Then we went to Versailles and were there for roughly three hours. Hieu was there, Monica, Deb. I like fried plantains. I also like when my food is smothered in onions. This is the place to be for both of these things.

I think I need to spend more time weirdo-watching and eating Cuban food. If I can make both of those things happen more often, I think my youth will have been well spent.

I’m racing to finish this new thing in the next couple of weeks. It’s really fun writing this thing — when I’m pacing, thinking about it, I’m smiling.

Every story has to be defined in its distance away from the classic mythical hero. Realism, slice of life stuff, moral gray areas — these sorts of stories are pretty far from that hero mythology, though you can often pick out pieces of it in the choices made (or made in the wrong direction). Life is grayer than the hero myth — real, absolute heroes are are pretty rare. This can make them more extraordinary in a lot of ways.

But this project is pretty darned close to mythical heroism. And it’s fun to play with those ideas, change them around, present them in interesting ways. BEND and break stereotypes, but clothe the familiar in different costumes. That’s what I’m trying to do here.

Anyway, it’s fun. But it’s hard fun, which is my favorite kind.