December 24, 2010

It’s the day before Christmas and time and quiet are in short supply. So just a quick post here, to keep my hand in. On yesterday’s walk, the tide was higher than I’d ever seen it and the waves still stormy. The bottom step at the dog beach was completely underwater, but Mojito and I went down anyway, just for the excitement of standing so close, looking down on those crashing waves. One of us found it exciting anyway. One of us was quite unnerved.

It was as if we’d stepped into the beautiful Erica Harris’ cover on my own most recent book. There is something magical about a staircase ascending out of the water like that. The ocean was the right color. The pelicans obliged. No submarine, no gorilla, and we felt their absence, but we were on the back cover only.

Farther along the walk, the sunlight struck a stop sign behind me, lighting it up in a large ball of dazzle. This isn’t an image from my own work, but there is a moment in The Once and Future King when God arrives in the dazzle on Sir Bors’ shield, which stops his brother Lionel from killing him. It was just Exactly like that.

Yesterday’s walk was a literary one.

A shout-out here to the man who juggles while he jogs. I have never seen him miss a step or drop a ball and even if I had I would still think he was awesome.

To the person who picks up breakfast every day at Taco Bell, eats it in the car while watching the sunrise, and then drops the bags, napkins, and leftover condiments out the car window and drives away, I also have a message. Lump of coal coming your way tomorrow, buster. No one likes you.