Ah – that thing we do when we’re in a too-long line at the grocery store, or when it’s 0-0 at the bottom of the eighth.

People-watching has always been fun for me, but since I’ve started trying to write fiction, it’s taken on a new twist.

I used to people-watch out of habit, I think. Or maybe it was just an insatiable curiosity about people, and life’s fascinating characters. I mostly people-watched to figure out relationships: I’d be sitting in the roaring heat of a UCLA football game, when the score was too depressing to watch, and decide to watch, instead, a row of seven people, all together. Two would appear to be parents, five adult children. I’d then ponder which of the children were siblings and which were couples. Sometimes I’d get fooled: a young man and young woman would get up to go get snacks, come back together, razzing each other, and I’d think “okay, they’re dating.” But then both would lean in toward the parents with such affection that I’d reassess: “Okay, they might be Continue reading →