Yesterday the weather turned sour on us, so instead of the beach we haeded to Monmouth Park, the local horse race. Sat in and bet on a couple of races, none of mine won. Ended up coming home and watched a movie from the library.

Big Fish, an excellent movie in my opinion. I probably wasn't meant to, but it really made me think about what I do. The story basically revolves around a guy whose dad had spent his entire life telling stories. Not garden variety stories that could happen to anybody, but fantastic ones that could have only happened to a special guy. Eventually the guy got skeptical and stopped believing his dads stories. When he confronted his dad about it, his dad said the stories were real. The kid couldn't accept this and they didn't speak for 3 years.

The dad was on his deathbed, and the guy brought his wife and went to be there with him when he died. They were going through some of his old things, and the guy found actual things from the stories.

His dad eventually died, and at the funeral, he looked around and saw people that his dad had described in his stories, people that he always considered fake, but were real. He realizes that all his dad's stories were real.

Maybe this story touched me because I am a storyteller. I live my life through telling my stories to other people, and the stories are occasionally stranger than life, but they are true. Every story I tell is based in truth, but when I tell just the facts, it's boring. A storyteller needs to add flavor to keep the listener interested. I know my stories are interesting to me, that as a rule, most people don't really care. But I live through those tales, that's how I remember what I have done.

The hitch in the movie was that the guy's wife was pregnant, and he was debating whether or not he would be passing on those stories. Once the guy saw all the people who actually were real, he kept the stories alive. I hope that eventually, somebody will want to remember my stories, but I haven't gotten to the interesting part yet.