Forget the DSM IV... Laugh Out Loud

The sky was gray this morning, a gray that embraced the sun, not yet ready to release it to the day. I might have frightened some people on my way into work, under that gray sky. Sometimes I notice things that make me smile inside my head. Sometimes they make me smile on the outside. Sometimes, I even laugh. Out loud. That's when I notice people stepping away from me.

I see things differently than some people do. I think about things, particularly mundane things, a little differently. I don't know if it is a learned skill I use to fuel my writing or if writing is a natural result of seeing and thinking this way. I like to think I'm not like some (many? dare I say most?) other people.

I had an assignment in fourth grade to draw a caricature of myself: exaggerated head, little body, accentuating traits or personal interests. (I might be making that up. I don't remember the details of the assignment; it was a long time ago. It may have been an assignment simply to draw myself, but I interpreted it as caricature.) For a short time after the assignment was complete, I was called "Peanut Head." There's no surprise why: I drew my head in the shape of a peanut. (It wasn't as extreme as it might sound. It was sort of a circle, but I brought the sides in just a bit. Maybe more than I'd intended.)

I would have escaped unscathed, but my teacher decided she wanted to instruct from it. "See how Matt drew himself with a toy car in his hand? We all know he likes toy cars." "Matt has bright red freckles in his picture. We know his freckles aren't that red, but it gets our attention, and we recognize them when we see him." Why would she do this to me? "See how..." Ok, we get it. See how Matt has a head shaped like a peanut? (I've changed her name, but Ms. Amblewaddle has a lot to answer for: this—and other episodes.)

My justification for the peanut head was that I figured everyone else in the class was going to draw a boring, predictable circle as a head and I knew heads weren't perfectly round. (I am not making that part up. I remember thinking that.) Admittedly, my head isn't peanut shaped (I hope), but why draw yourself with a boring, predictably round head unless you want to be seen as a boring, predictable person?

Because of my ability to see at things differently (and my willingness to be called "Peanut Head"), stories—and especially characters—seem to be everywhere I look. I was vindicated by a writers' how-to guide I found on my shelf, which I read in spite of its awful title (in fact, I won't identify it; there has to be something similar and more updated—and without a title that embarrasses you if you're caught reading it). Almost three-quarters of the book is focused on knowing your characters. Even without a story, to know your character inside and out, to know the ambitions, joys, fears, loves, and secret demons of your character, is the essence. The setting, tone, theme, and plot will form around her. What a relief. I have a city's worth of people in my head. And a city's worth of people I notice as I go about my day.

The author also repeats a quote, attributed to Mark Twain: "Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities." Turns out, I live by this. I did like toy cars, but I called them Matchbox cars. I always used that brand name, deliberately. Hot Wheels? Unthinkable. I still have a dust-speck of longing over a toy Lincoln, made by Matchbox, that was left behind when I was four and we moved. It was an unremarkable dark red two-door with a white top—and it was my favorite. It was a car a four-year-old might see parked on the street outside his window. Hot Wheels made cars like a station wagon with fat back tires, a ridiculous paint job, and absurd decals. Honestly, what normal person jacks up a car and paints it bright silver with a flaming skull-and-bones? Worse, it was a Pinto.

When I played with my Matchbox cars, I stuck to possibilities. For a time, a plain green Volvo station wagon was a favorite. It was when "Family Ties" was popular, and the TV family had a Volvo. My imagination took me as far as the Keatons! Was my imagination feeble? On the contrary, it takes a vivid imagination to make the mundane interesting, to make the ordinary worth retelling. True, a story without tension and conflict won't fly, but finding drama in the ordinary makes a story the reader can relate to, a story not outside the obligation to the possible. Although they were not named so at the time, I suspect Olive and Emily were driving around in those unremarkable, possible cars.

Most of us live ordinary—boring and predictable, even—lives. (Unless, I suppose, you're an Obama. Even so, everyone poops.) Still, I find myself writing my own story as daily life churns along. I imagine a typewriter clicking away, capturing observations and events on an endless sheet of paper. This morning as I walked, I noticed the autumn sky. I captured it and tried to see it as words on a page. "The sky was gray." Wait. "The sky was grey—grey with an E grey." No. "The clouds in the sky..." I kind of liked that 'with an E' thing. "The grey of the sky came with an E." Yuck.

After five minutes I realized I'd said 'gray' in my head two dozen times (I get the meaning of ad nauseum when this happens). I don't often take special note of the color of the sky, no matter how it's spelled. People, however, are rarely gray. Even during the soul-crushing experience of riding on a DC Metrobus, you see the richness of life. Down-turned faces and furrowed brows hint at the ambitions, joys, fears, loves, and secret demons underneath. Sometimes people let you know how important they by talking too loud on cell phones. Sometimes they fall asleep and flop against the disgruntled passengers next to them. Sometimes they just stare ahead and think about things a little differently from anyone else. That is why we're all funny enough to laugh at—out loud.