From the People Journal

Been sick this week with symptoms of acute severe vertigo, nausea and transient nystagmus. I think it was from swimming. It turns out you can still write while the room spins around you if you sit very still, but coherent thoughts are hard to come by.

In other news...

I keep a people journal for the same reason I keep a texture journal. From time to time I run across someone who stands out for whatever reason. I write very quickly, to capture them in some way, on the page, before they're gone. This one was in a coffee shop in Oroville, CA, while I was visiting my family. She'll be in the books somewhere, once I think of a place for her. Of course, once an idea becomes part of a story, the idea merges with the world of the story and sometimes doesn't look like the original thought at all. In the end I might be the only one who knows where that piece of the story came from.


A girl walks in, skinny on the lower half and top heavy on the upper. Black pleated skirt that reminds me of a horizontal slinky, springy around her thighs when she walks. Rainbow striped socks, red, lime green, bright yellow and orange. Black shoes. Black and white zebra tie, collar folded down. Black hair in steppes around her dark round face, silky little stripes running down her cheekbones and brushing against her collar.
White linen button-up shirt with a skull and crossbones beautifully airbrushed across her shoulderblades, like a Japanese tapestry.
She's dainty. The boy with her, her friend or perhaps a cousin, doesn't fit.

And then I had to go.