Spent the day on the West Bay, at a beach so far from the road, we had to take a launch. The trip was organized by the hotel. We shared the beach with the French party — a Honduran woman and her French husband and their kids, and another French couple. She’s from Cortés. “A success story,” Oscar said. We also met a nice young guy from Manchester, England, named Harry. He was exploring Central America with his girlfriend and a Californian couple. Sleeping on the temple steps, getting bit by scorpions, camping out on the beach, that sort of thing. It sounded like they were having a great trip, actually. And pretty much for free.

It was the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen. The water was so clear you could see all the way to the bottom. Where the sand ended, the woods began. And therein lay the problem. The moment you stepped out of the water, the mosquitoes attacked you. Nasty little almost-invisible mosquitoes that leave a tiny pinpoint blood-red hole surrounded by a red blotch that doesn’t swell up. I’ve got about fifty bites on my shoulders and back despite the insect repellent. Oscar is even worse. As soon as the mosquito threat became apparent, we fled to the water and stayed there all day — four hours, with occasional dashes to shore to reapply sunblock.

Dinner at Romeo’s, the restaurant the girls from Fantasy Island beach recommended. The first decent restaurant meal I’ve had all trip. Oscar was silent all through dinner while Robert and Jason and I were joking around.

I thought I knew what was bothering him. On the walk back I asked: “So Oscar… what do you think of the tourist life?” He flipped the bird so vehemently, with a full-arm gesture, that I knew I’d guessed right.

A line from Memories of Underdevelopment was banging around in my head: “The truth of the group is in the assassin.” I told Oscar about it. “It’s like the last line of my poem,” he said. “‘He who calmly contemplates the commission of a crime becomes an accomplice.’”

“It doesn’t bother me,” I said. “I was an imperialist pig already.”

“I am too, man,” he said.

I spend my time trying to think of pleasant stories with happy endings, stories I can sell. There’s a lifetime’s worth of material all around me, if I’d just have the guts to use it. If I had the courage to write about what I know, to write what’s true, I’d never run out of stories.

[La Lima] Lounging in the hammock watching the kids play ball. It’s restful. I could stay in this place forever.

Yesterday they bought a crib and now Cruz’s baby can stand in it and howl instead of crawling around and howling. Robert, Oscar and I, as honored guests, have no duties. Marta cooks, Cruz cleans, and we play with the children. The neighbors drop by a lot. The climate is so mild, you can sit around on the porch all day and see everyone who passes by. There are a lot of 15-to-25-year-olds living in this town and most them are female. No shortage of opportunities to practice speaking Spanish.

I could fill five of these notebooks just writing about the last ten days. I’ve seen so much I don’t know what to include.

Now I know where “magical realism” comes from. Life really is like that here. Like the fish that rain from the sky. Like Oscar’s abuelo who walked from one end of Honduras to the other to settle in La Lima, lived there all his life, and just a few years ago discovered that one of his neighbors — a friend of his — was his own brother. Like the Romeo-and-Juliet romance of Oscar’s parents, who grew up across the street from each other in two familes that hated each other. Or the way Alex mentioned last night that he and his two sisters are three of thirty-four sired by their father. And on and on…

In some ways the last few days in La Lima have been the most memorable of the trip. I stopped “travelling” and settled into a peaceful daily routine. It was so much fun playing with the kids. Julito (“July”), Gellin, Ronaldo, Hector, and Mauricio. Saturday, Robert and I took them to the pool. They were aghast when I pulled out 16 lemps to pay for the seven of us (nearly $3).

Young as they are, the kids were fascinated by the beautiful objects we’d brought with us — Robert’s Yale book bag, his Spanish book, my sunglasses. Even little Mauricio had a moment of fascination with my black J. Crew t-shirt when we were walking to the pool. He reached out and fingered the collar and remarked on how well-made it seemed. It makes you want to give them everything you own.

We bought presents for everybody, but it was just junk from the street fair in San Pedro. A Walkman for July, a Bowie knife for Mauricio, cars for Ronaldo and Hector. Off-brands, at first glance similar to the U.S. models, but manufactured cheaply enough to sell for one-tenth or one-twentieth the price. Ray-Bone and Roy-Lean sunglasses. Teenage Turtle Warriors. Zest toothpaste. Like the old Wacky Pack stickers. Everything is just a little bit off.

I see what Oscar meant when he said sometimes he wished he’d never gone to the U.S. Once you’ve taken a bite of the apple, paradise isn’t paradise any more.

Now I’m back in the world I know… specifically, a first-class seat on the Continental flight to Merida, eavesdropping on the stewardess questioning the couple behind me about the resort they stayed at in Belize and how much did it cost a night ($120) and how was the scuba-diving (wonderful). The stewardess has offered me a drink about ten times in this 30-minute flight. All I’ve asked for so far is water, and she seems to feel concerned that I’m not getting my money’s worth.

[Back from Honduras and Cuba] Went to Gideon Brower’s apartment to sit in on a reading of his new screenplay, Thebes. Kevin and Jane were among the readers. Seeing him brought back fond memories of the night of George’s screening, when Lobna was here and we all went to a bar on 7th Ave. I liked Gideon. I’m glad to see he’s got talent.

Gideon’s reading made me want to live in New York again. Also it made me want to have written another screenplay. To have a new 120-page manuscript, suitable for Xeroxing, begging to be bought.

Jane’s got her first agent. She’s so excited.

Five months ago all I wanted was to make films – to write them, shoot them, direct them – to become a success as fast as possible. I was so ambitious I couldn’t fall asleep at night. Now I seem to be following a different path. Travelling, learning languages, conducting courtships like some 19th-century gentleman who doesn’t have to work for a living and has nothing to occupy him except his own Bildung. It’s all very well as long as I keep writing… but what have I written lately?

[In SF] Nonstop meetings every day since I arrived, with different groupings of people. Even lunch is a meeting. It’s exhausting, and exhilarating. To be acting, to have a purpose, feels wonderful after a month of tourism.

Prince 2 is happening. I’m relieved… guardedly optimistic, anyway.

I’d been afraid I’d arrive to find the project scuttled, or at least that I’d have to fight tooth and nail to keep it afloat; but although I’d heard rumblings to the effect that the Powers that Be (John Baker and Michelle) were shocked and dismayed by the project’s size, all they’ve done is, quite reasonably, express concern that it not grow out of control, and entreat me to get as specific as I can, in the two weeks I’m here, about what graphics work will be required.

For now, it’s all going (seemingly) smoothly… a lot of work, taking the storyboards and spec’ing out how much graphics will be required to implement them. As to the actual content – what will be on the screen and how it should look – everyone is deferring to me the way a film crew defers to the director. Somehow, I’ve acquired that magic quality, credibility.

As long as they continue to trust me and believe in me, this job is a dream. If they ever start to doubt me, it could become a nightmare.

Mac Prince has been pushed back to January, which isn’t as good as shipping in October, but, after two years in the netherworld of “almost done,” will come as an enormous relief.

Dinner last night in SF with Tomi’s new collaborator, Bill Purdy of Purdy and Young, the job shop she’s contracted out the Authorware accounting program to. They are, in fact, young and purdy.

[In LA] Met with Ken Sherman. It was sort of discouraging. He’ll keep sending out Bird of Paradise, but after eleven rejections, it’s clear he’s lost faith and isn’t expecting much. I told him the Hawaii story and the Golden Bowl-in-Prague story. He didn’t seem too excited about either of them.

Saw a matinee of The Commitments. George and Sue were lukewarm; I loved it. It delighted me from start to finish. Now that’s a movie.

I’ve been doing so much flying lately, it’s become automatic… I looked out the window just now and saw with a shock that we were 40,000 feet up. I’d been writing in my notebook and hadn’t noticed the takeoff.

I don’t think I want to live in L.A. It’s sort of exciting to be around the trappings of the movie business – agents and studios and so on – but it’s a thrill best experienced, I think, by the occasional visitor. As long as I’m making enough from the computer games to live wherever I want and write screenplays, why not take advantage of it?

[In SF] Dinner last night at the Hunan. There was a full moon and we walked to the restaurant from Kelly and Ann’s apartment by Coit Tower. The night was clear and the moon was shining on the water under the bridge. It took my breath away. San Francisco on certain days has that special, piercing beauty that’s almost painful, because it arouses a hunger it can never satisfy. You know that even if you live with that beauty, see it every day, wake up to it every morning, get as close as it is physically possible to get, you still can’t possess it, and its distance from you will make your heart ache.

Prince 2 is coming together, slowly.

Today Brian showed me the alpha version of Nintendo Prince. Nothing cheers me up like seeing Prince on a new machine.

Robert Cook’s in town. Software Toolworks flew him out for two days to chain him to a computer for the final playtesting and debugging of D-Gen. I’m writing this in Robert’s sumptuous suite at the newly constructed Embassy Suites Hotel (which, as I recall, was marshland the last time I was here).

Spent the morning at Broderbund and the afternoon at Presage, sitting at Scott’s elbow, tweaking the character animations frame by frame, pixel by pixel, like in the old days. We’re still not done. I’m going back tomorrow for more.

Everyone’s happy to see me, now that I don’t live here any more.

Scott’s leaving tomorrow for the national sky-diving championships in Arizona, so today had to be our last day pushing pixels. Fortunately, it’s looking pretty good. Barring further mishaps, Mac POP should ship in January as planned.