While I was drawing this, a man, wearing a stonewashed denim jacket, high-waisted stonewashed denim jeans and what look to be Birkenstocks with socks, pulled up in front of me on a bicycle.
After a brief exchange on why I was sitting in the street, the man said, ‘Is that an Australian accent I hear?’
‘Yes,’ I told the man, ‘it is.’
‘Oh, cool,’ he said, smiling and bobbing his head up and down. ‘My roommate lived there for like 12 years.’
‘Nice,’ I said. ‘Have you been?’
The man smiled and laughed and said no, that he hadn’t had the opportunity.
‘I’d love to go, but I’ve only just moved here,’ he told me, ‘so I’m kinda stuck here for a while now, working.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘What do you do?’
‘I’m an actor,’ he told me.
‘Nice,’ I said. ‘What kind of acting?’
‘I’m a performer,’ he said.
‘Oh, nice,’ I said. ‘What kind of performing?’
‘I work in theme parks,’ he said.
‘Oh, very nice,’ I said. ‘Whereabouts?’
‘I worked in Orlando,’ he told me.
I thought about the lovely Florida weather.
‘Which theme park?’ I asked him.
‘Harry Potter,’ the man said.
‘Oh, that sounds like fun,’ I said, even though I had never read a Harry Potter book nor seen a Harry Potter film.
Then the man’s phone rang and so I went back to drawing until he finished his conversation.
‘So do you dress up as a wizard, then?’ I asked him.
‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘I dress up as a wizard.’
‘That sounds like fun.’
‘Yes,’ the man said. ‘I guess.’
Then, my questions exhausted, the man stood there staring at his phone until a car pulled up.
‘That’s my ride to work,’ the man said.
‘Another theme park?’ I asked him.
‘Yes,’ said the man, laughing.
‘Another fun day,’ I said.
‘I guess so!’ the man said, giving me a thumbs up as he walked toward his ride.
Today’s listening: Dr. Judith Grisel-Never Enough
A Hundred Houses 