Weirdos And Misfits

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

We have been looking at houses for about two months. No, don’t cringe back in horror, this is actually with a view to making me more productive. And there are “family economy” reasons behind it. Not in the sense of saving money (though true to an extent, if you consider the whole extended family) but in the sense of “making life easier.”

At any rate I will confess the main reason we’re looking is that all of us have a feeling of a move-in-haste at around September. We don’t know why, but we’d like to be prepared. And if it’s “trauma” and nothing happens, that’s fine. Mostly the looking involves us going to open houses. We found a house we REALLY want, but you know, lottery insists on picking the wrong numbers. (No, it’s not…. How do I put this? The house looks and feels like it was designed by Robert A. Heinlein, including the naval engineer touches, and the labor saving. And SO MUCH STORAGE and organization space. But you know…. ain’t got half a mil. If any of you finds it on the street, please send it in. Pleaz and Thanx.)

Anyway, this is in the service of: I finally figured out why I’m uncomfortable in suburbs.

I’ve always felt a little guilty about this, because the left hates suburbs so much. And because so many of you love them. But me? I’ve always felt most comfortable in older urban neighborhoods, usually the ones that never fell or were re-rehabilitated. My touch stones used to be “Can walk to at least two bookstores and a coffee shop. Walk to library can be slightly longer, provided the library is good.” That’s not true now. At least two of thos are inoperable. I still like coffee shops.

But this means most of my neighbors are liberal, so why? And why was the only suburb that was endurable (though I was still not that fond of it — the reason there being that walking was difficult as it was all uphill) the really expensive one. (Too expensive for us, to be fair. Strapped us down for years.)

Well–

I figured it out. Or actually Dan did. As we were driving away from a perfectly decent neighborhood, I said “that was nice, but I don’t think we’d be happy there.” And he said “Uh… you know, they look like a nice, close knit neighborhood. They’d resent us within six months. They’d try to have conversations that confuse us, interpret our responses as talking down to them, and then start low level acts of spitefullness.”

AND it hit me: I like urban neighborhoods because NO ONE expects me to be sociable. My neighborhood (then of a year) got to know me because I was part of the effort to trap and neuter Greebo and his brothers and sister (we couldn’t catch mom, which is why we had D’Artagnan and other cats.) And then we went to not talking to each other for three years, until the neighbor across the street accosted Dan and asked if I’d autograph her books. It wasn’t UNFRIENDLY. It was just “at a distance.” We smiled and waved, and when there was an emergency, like someone getting ill people helped. We’re still Americans. We just didn’t live in each other’s pockets.

Also, the neighborhood was very mixed ages, which means… well, at our age, buying in a suburb with lots of little kids will get us strange looks, at least until we have grandkids who can visit.

Anyway, that’s when I figured out it wasn’t the suburbs. It was us. We suck at lawn care. Mostly because I’m the one who does it, and I’m likely to suddenly disappear inside my head for three months, while the weeds grow chest-high. And we’re introverts. DUH. So having people try to talk to us all the time (ALL THE TIME the two times we lived in normal level suburbs) is exhausting. And on top of that, people often take our conversational style (“She sounds like she swallowed a thesaurus” — from a former neighbor) as PERSONALLY offensive, and like we’re doing it SOMEHOW on purpose. So we end up withdrawing and not talking to anyone, which is viewed as an act of hostility.

The problem, friends and blog-neighbors, is that we’re weirdos. Just straight up weirdos. You try to ask Dan how the game was last weekend, and he’ll cheerfully inform you he doesn’t follow. If you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, he watched it for some bizarre reason, and will start going into probability and statistical analysis until you run screaming into the night. (I’ve seen it.)

A normal conversation about the yard or movies around me, particularly if I’m trying very hard not to go political, will take sudden right (or left. Or kumquat most likely) veering turns into a book I just read, or my opinions on narrative construction or the history of archetypes.

I don’t do it on PURPOSE. The stuff is in my head, and it comes out, you know?

“Well, have you tried stopping being weird?” Sure. I have made great efforts since I was six or so, but weirdness keeps breaking through.

Look, I can hold it together for the space of the occasional party or social function. But people who live around us start noticing the oddness, and if they’re the kind that cares, it all goes downhill.

So what is this in the name of? I was talking to a friend who like me doesn’t write … as you’d expect from someone on the right.

Like me she gets afflicted with characters with weird sexualities (in her defense, she’s better than I. A lot of hers are alien.) Or characters that have other characteristics the left claims as theirs. Because this thing isn’t PRECISELY under my control. And if I try to control it completely, the life coursing through the writing dies, and it becomes a just so story. A slightly saner just so story than the left tells, but still blah and meh.

I mean, my arguably most Catholic work (Other than the Vampire series, because that was supposed to be the third book and…. oh, another thing to finish. I mean the reveal is in the third book and it turns the whole thing on its head) is Deep Pink, which is about…. satanic metal bands going to the pink. And the hero going to hell with holy water filled super-soakers.

Because I can’t just be normal. Doesn’t work for me. And my levels of pretending are lower and lower every year.

So, if we move are we going to end up in another urban neighborhood? There’s a high-ish likelihood, though right now my priority is being within walking distance of the church, for a bunch of reasons. (Will I horrify the other elderly church ladies? Likely, but you know what? I’ll volunteer for the cleaning and maintenance committee and they’ll shut up because I’m good at THAT.)

More importantly, talking it out with Dan made me less guilty about going into places — real and virtual — that are dominated by the left.

Because, honestly? We can’t let them claim the weirdos. Part of the problem was we let them do that. Which means they are squelching the leavening of society right at the source and turning all misfits bitter and full of hate.

They can’t have my people. Not anymore. Because I’m not retreating. Not from urban spaces. Not from weird fiction.

As I told my friend: We will march right on into their spaces and reclaim them. And if our reach is small (it is for both of us, relatively speaking) let it be so. Our presence will allow others like us to break out of the stultifying assumption they MUST be leftists. And they’ll have a little further reach.

Putting weirdos into straight jackets of thought breaks them. Which is what we’re seeing happen in real time, everywhere.

They’re not even of us, these leftists. They’re like Terry Pratchett’s auditors, trying to make everything fit into their mental categories. They just view our people as easy meat, because we’ve been weird since we’ve been aware of being alive, and are used to getting kicked around.

So, Weirdos, Misfits, Huns, follow me. Weirdness is ours, and they can’t drive us off.

Let’s go into the spaces we enjoy — or are called to — even if they are left-claimed or left infested.

Lift the light high. Claim our right to exist. And be weird.

28 thoughts on “Weirdos And Misfits”

  2. Odd. I’ve lived in the suburbs my entire life, and no one *ever* talks to each other. Maybe if you have kids the same age, or know each other from other venues.

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  3. “Well, have you tried stopping being weird?” 

    I really laughed. Who hasn’t? It just never works. When I wrote my work biography, my best friend who is certainly my intellectual equal, made a comment about my using some “obscure” words. I gave him a quizzical look because I deliberately write in an informal manner, and he explained that he had to look it up when I used the phrase, “my famously parsimonious grandmother.” I might fancy myself an intellectual in that I try to write about things that make you think, but I’ve never considered myself someone with the vocabulary of William F. Buckley, or, heaven forbid, John Updike. Honestly, I can’t remember when I didn’t know the word parsimonious, but then I can barely remember my childhood, and those memories are less like flashbacks and more like being an outside observer.

    I don’t generally consider myself socially awkward, but then it comes out before I think about it. Saturday I made a remark about Austria being the only country I know of that has common last names ending in two consonants with “l” being the last, like Feitl, or Stenl. Somebody made the comment about Frank being the source of random, obscure knowledge. I honestly can’t remember if something in the preceding conversation related to it in some way that only made sense to me, or I just blurted it out like a random madman on the street.

    Ah well, I guess I have to own it.

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    1. The vocabulary is a DEEP issue. People accuse me of trying to talk down to them and I have no idea what word I used that caused that.
      And I infected the boys who have similar issues.

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      1. So much experience in that area. Accused of having swallowed a dictionary, of flaunting my erudition, etc.

        So grateful for the Internet for letting me find my own tribe, instead of having to make friends based upon physical proximity.

        (And fellow-feel on piles of unfinished projects. Must get them done. Must get them done).

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  5. I grew up in the city as did the wife. I’ve lived in NYC, London, Paris, and …. Hong Kong (sorry no Munich IYKYK). I’ve lived in a deepest, darkest Sussex UK village, and I’ve lived in suburban NJ. I hate suburbs. Hate ‘em. Not half as much as the wife does, but hate ‘em I do. It’s that combination of no one ever talking to one another since there’s no one on the street to talk to and the curtain twitching disapproval intrinsic to the concept of an HOA.

    Alas, NYC is dead to me, as are the rest, so I have to make the best of it. Once #2 son finally launches — grad school finally done TG — we might move to a large, older town in PA or MD depending on where he ends up. List isn’t long because they’re mostly dead, sterile, or dangerous but we do have a list of places that still have second hand book shops, poky places, and a reasonably orthodox diocese keeping liturgical innovation to a minimum.

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    1. I’ve lived in both Suburbs and Urban. Being able to walk to things is nice. However, Urban regions have gone way downhill in the 35-40 years since I inhabited one. I can particularly compare Worcester (where I and then girlfriend now wife) lived for four years of 1979-1983 to Worcester where my younger daughter lived 2014-2018. Where I had my RIFT (rat infested Fire trap, although we were luckily short on rats) apartment was 1/2 mile from campus. Beyond it another 1/4 mile or so was Pleasant street, You Did NOT go there unless you were looking for Weed, Ladies of the evening or Trouble (and normally you’d find trouble). By my Daughters day that line was MUCH closer to campus at Highland Ave much of that half mile away where I had lived was no a no go zone where Worcester townies had been replaced with something else. Waltham has had similar changes. These are LITTLE cities, but had been quite liveable when we were there, they are no longer so.

      Suburban New England is a culture NOT likely to interact with neighbors. Small suburban towns like I grew up in can be tough. EVERYONE knows you I was Marion’s son or Carlos’ grandson (and woe betide me if any miscreant behavior got back to mom or worse yet maternal grandfather). And New England Townies have an immense suspicion (and to some degree contempt) for those that “come from away”. Brother-in-Law lives in Vermont Exurbs, where you almost need a telescope to see your neighbor, although he is part of several local clubs and efforts. More of the small town vibe, and definite Town vs import issues.

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  6. I think this is why leftists were so angry with Leslie Fish. She was a misfit who refused to have anything to do with them, and had the gall to make fun of their tropes.

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    1. Yep. It’s part of why they hate me too. It’s funny because when one of the sprouts says I can’t write, one or two always feel forced to defend me, but it HURTS them. So they say things like “She’s an excellent writer, but has a lot of health issues and has gone peculiar.”

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  9. I’m southern and female. We aren’t allowed to be antisocial or introverted.

    Weird is okay though. Southerners love eccentricity. And we hate HOAs. So I like to visit cities (briefly), live in the suburbs, and wish I could live in a small town or out in the country.

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  10. I lived smack-dab in the middle of Denver (two blocks off the zero/zero address point). I live in a similar location now, relatively speaking. The biggest difference is two orders of magnitude in population (three if you count “Denver metro” not “Denver proper).

    I’ve thought about exurban (“living in the mountains” or “living on 40 acres”), but that time has passed (but “is past”; weird conjugation on that one). There is no way that I’m going to put up with that sort of inconvenience in my old age. I walk to my doctor appointments. I do, usually, drive to the grocery store, but mostly because I’m lazy, not because it’s not walkable. I have a lawn roomba (some Huskvarna thing that I do not recommend) so yard work is mostly weed-whacking.

    I grew up in an unusual area. Lakefront is different than other places. We lived, with several other families, between two wooded lots. It was “suburban”, sort of, but more strung out along the lake with fields on the other side of the road. Now, it’s suburban, no scare quotes needed.

    I agree with Sarah: I like people around, but “wave hello” around not “let’s chat over the fence” around.

    My fiction, such as it is, is much less parenthetical (thankfully).

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  11. One of the houses we really loved was in a neighborhood where we just wouldn’t fit. Same sort of thing– there were kids around, but they weren’t actually at the houses. There would be like one toy on the very nicely fenced yards. And so on.

    Dropping my horde into there? It’d be like setting off a bomb. And that’s just not a good thing to do to folks for no good reason!

    So the place we got is way more– well, us. The yard’s a mess. There’s random acts of engineering by the garden. WE have, ah, eclectic variety in our food-plants, and way too many chickens.

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  12. I’m with you on the house hunting. Been doing that the last couple months also, and have found several that matched what I need except that the idea is to make the mortgage go down not up!

    I’d say lets move to the same place and be wierdo’s next door to each other, but I’m pretty sure your a state or two away. I only visit the state I live in, as I’m generally in the state of confusion. Or sane. I’m in sane a lot.

    And I really don’t want houses so close I can hit them with a thrown baseball, but that’s probably what I’m going to be getting.

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    1. Oh. We call the close houses “Warreny.” As in “it’s a warren.” I CAN’t live in those. Don’t ask me why but the writing STOPS. It’s kind of like having strangers in the house. The writing STOPS.

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  13. Heh. Just found something I wrote some time ago, that’s going to get worked into a story:

    “Your courts and trials are like duels between stage magicians. Whichever side crafts the most convincing illusion wins the case. Facts, truth and logic are minor considerations, if they’re not actively subverted.”

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  14. “cleaning and maintenance committee”

    Altar Society among the Papists, of course. Late wife had been treasurer for ours in town. I still get occasional nice cards from them.

    I don’t think CG is a suburb, exactly, as Eugene seems too small to have those. We’re just Small Town; in my neighborhood, folks seem to smile and wave, but conversations are uncommon.

    Everything ‘downtown’ is between half a mile and a mile from my house; don’t use the library, though we got cards first thing (mostly because I read in bed before sleep and my tablet and kindle app is easier to hold and easier to read with the backlight, so physical books get short shrift). Never got into coffee shops.

    As an adult, the Thesaurus has always been my favorite dinosaur. There are whole books about it!

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