While I was drawing this, I looked up to see a young man standing just off to my right, staring down at my drawing, and smiling.
I took off my headphones and smiled up at him.
‘Hi,’ the young man said, ‘I hope I didn’t frighten you, I just wanted to see what you were doing.”
I told the young man about the Hundred Houses project, and the stories, alerting him to the fact that he would probably be today’s story.
“Oh,’ he said, ‘in that case, my name is Fernando.”
I told the young man my name, and he asked me where I was from.
“I am from Australia, originally,’ I said to him, ‘but I was living in England for a long time.’
‘Oh,’ said the young man, eagerness in his voice, ‘do you know Robert Smith?’
I told the young man no, that I don’t know Robert Smith, at the same time thinking that though England is a small place, it has a lot of Smiths.
‘I really like the Cure,’ the young man then said.
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘THAT Robert Smith.’
‘I saw them play once,’ the young man told me, ‘and I’m going to see Paul McCartney soon.’
‘Oh, wonderful!’ I replied.
‘Yeh,’ he said, ‘I just wanna go because I’ve never seen a Beatle.’
Today’s listening: Judith Grisel, Ph.D.: “Never Enough: How Affective Homeostasis Creates Addiction”
A Hundred Houses 