This site is also a kind of novel-journal where I make notes on characters that I want to include in novels. So these are the results of character analysis this morning on the walk to work.
RECENT EMIGRE FROM CHINA
A guy was in front of me and came down Stockton/Telegraph Hill and walked almost all the way down to Financial District. He was a tall man, Asian, with large feet and kind of skinny overall. He was dressed in a nondescript way- tan slacks, dark button down (even though it was drizzly). He had a cute little red shopping bag from something like Pink or other couture, and it had an umbrella in it. Now, American guys would freak out in machoness if their wife said, “grab an umbrella before you leave today!” and you put it in a cute little red bag with an umbrella. But French guys, and maybe Vietnamese, wouldn’t think it was so fey. Or maybe they would compromise for the weather? Thankfully he jsut had loafers on, a non-descript inexpensive kind. I couldn’t place where he was from. I thought northern China since he was so tall, but he didn’t seem like a recent transplant since he seemed pretty comfortable in North Beach. (In re-reading htis, maybe he’s gay?)
LAW STUDENT SLUMMING IT IN 30s
I work near a law school that’s not super prestigious. When I take the pedestrian walk through the block to my building, I’m usually outnumbered by really annoying little briefcase-on-wheels strollers that make a really loud awful sound. Similar to when you take your shopping cart across brick. In front of me was a woman in light weight black track pants, very flat trodden-to-the-earth flip flips (I was disabused from calling them thongs when thongs-the-underwear came back in), badly streaked long brown hair in a pony tail, and an unshapely large sweater. I’m thinking: rolled out of bed? Had to go to class? Had to bring her civics books volume four and five to class? Has a student meeting? Walking around MUNI with flip flops makes me hygenically cringe. As well as the arch damage going on. Then more motivation questions: did she re-enter this phase of her life, quitting a job and going to school, and regret it? Were the early mornings (it was 10am) just too harrowing to put on a real pair of sneakers, or dress like Julia Roberts in Pelican Brief etc. Maybe that was the motivation, the tousled, “too busy to use hair product” look?
Also had a good idea for a short story about my very hip 80s friend Christine.