He first thought I was a psychotic liar when I described a new TV show called American Gladiators. After this discussion, we turned on late night TV and it just happened to be on. John saw my description of it as a cross between a Nintendo Game, roller derby, and wresting as accurate. I call this show Rome Burning and highly recommend it as pure TV and an indication of where we're heading culturally.

I am writing you from Newport Beach, California. However, I just returned from a one day trip to San Jose where I had a successful job interview. I am a translator (French/English) and writer by profession. Since meeting John in Squaw Valley in August 1990, I have been traveling and job interviewing in California and Europe. My next contribution to Archipelago will find me in Northern California where I have lived before (Berkeley, San Francisco, and Monterey).

My translation work takes me all over the place, figuratively speaking. I translate all kinds of stuff, from the glamour of film and art to the mundane ingredients of Root Beer. I also interpret (between people) both consecutive and simultanous, although I hate simultanous and hope to never do it again. It is a very unnatural use of the brain.

My own writing is fiction, what I would call slices of life. I don't write any science fiction or fantasy since I find my own reality at times very strange.

Over and out.