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.

72 thoughts on “Weirdos And Misfits”

      1. It’s probably regional. You’ve mostly lived in the South and Colorado, right? While I can’t speak for Colorado suburbs (the three years we lived there were apartment years), the South is notorious for neighborly attitudes. I’m sure the Midwest has a healthy dollop of that too.

        I’m in a pretty friendly suburban Californian neighborhood, but “pretty friendly” translates to you know your neighbors’ names, and a few facts that you exchange on the way to pick up the kids or somesuch, but aside from the fourth of July gathering, you might not see them for a few weeks.

        I certainly hear you on the yard work. At least I’ve managed to have a lot of the pretty weeds. (California poppies look nice even when they’re not intentional anymore.)

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    3. That was always the glory of a detached house on a half acre lot – you would certainly be polite to your neighbors, and yes, if you had some other shared social function that would be extra contact, but I could stay happily in my own yard, do my gardening, and not have to worry about if it was my turn to host a block party.

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    4. My limited exposure to suburbs agrees. I smile and wave, and every few months I actually exchange pleasantries. Mostly with the little old lady across the street–who sometimes asks me to fix something when she’s in trouble. (There’s not much better than helping someone who needs it, and who appreciates it. Especially when you get to solve a puzzle along the way.)

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    5. Same.

      Growing up, what Sarah describes, yes. Only because new neighborhood in the ’60s, and everyone had grade school children. Now, even that neighborhood it isn’t true. Mom knows her immediate neighbors, even the “youngster next-door” because, they’ve been there forever. (Yes, even the youngster. He is the grandchild, whose grandmother had custody, who inherited the house.)

      Our neighborhoods? Whether we owned, or rented, two places in Washington, and two locally in our neighborhood. No. In fact when we moved to Eugene, first street had one of hubby’s co-workers, and where we lived now had two (now one, as one has died). Our street has had very few families in schools. Because, like us, any families move in, they stay until the estate sells it. Despite being between two grade schools within walking distance (two different districts).

      We were friendly with people in the wider neighborhood because our kids played sports or were in scouts together. Now that everyone has graduated, everyone has dispersed (even ones who haven’t moved). Partly because we were older parents. But not entirely, because there were older parents, even if it was because it was their youngest child, not their oldest (or one and only).

      Bottom line. I know our neighbors well enough to say “Hi” and wave, when and if we are out front together. Yard work? If it is up to me? It’ll get hired done. As it is, hubby or son does it. Weeds, if the barriers don’t hold, get sprayed.

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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. 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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        2. Accused of having swallowed a dictionary, of flaunting my erudition, etc.

          Meanwhile, I get corporate email written in txtspk and gangbanger-ese.

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      2. I’ve a library of rote response that works on normies. It is discrete, tested, and useful in only brief everyday interaction. Which perforce I must do much of (hospitals et. al.). When things get outside that relatively narrow wheelhouse, chaos ensues.

        Occasionally entertaining chaos, one must admit. But from the inside it’s an unexpected trip downriver sans paddle and you’re lucky if there’s even a boat innit.

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      3. I’ve discovered (not recently, thank God) that several people have thought I was, “stuck up, think you’re better than me.” I wasn’t trying to be. I just assumed everyone was as smart as I am and would be interested in this neat fact I just dug up.

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        2. You have to wonder if the Left haven’t deeply wounded us to the point where most have a deep-seated need to be offended at anything, to crab bucket anyone to the bottom of the bucket just to make themselves feel better.. You know, when you assume everyone is as smart as you are, they really ought to take that as a compliment. Instead, they take it as an excuse to vilify you and put you down.

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          1. I want to hit “LOVE” for a response to that. Because I, too, got that all my life. When I ASSUME you’re as smart as I am and just as well-read, you should dam’ well take it as a compliment. How is that even an insult??

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        3. I try to hang out in areas where enthusiasm is an asset. Like Scouting. It’s a BIG asset in Scouting.

          I’m also surrounded by the neurodivergent. When you start spouting off neat facts in front of ADHD types, you get interest instead of opprobium.

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      5. Years ago, my manager-at-the-time told me that some of our ESL people found my vocabulary an obstacle. I asked if he was accusing me of erudition.

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      1. Mine, too.

        But you know, we’re the sane ones. Everyone else is weird. They call us scatterbrained, because we miss things going on around us. But it’s really just the opposite. We focus on one thing. They scatter their attention on every distraction they can find.

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    3. > Somebody made the comment about Frank being the source of random, obscure knowledge

      —-

      A friend mentioned he was learning Latin. I told him that could be useful if he was at the Vatican, which has the only ATM machine in the world with Latin menus.

      “How did you know that – no, never mind, I don’t want to know.”

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      1. That actually makes a lot of sense. While you might not be able to get every language that visiting clergy have, there’s a large chance that they studied Latin well enough to navigate an ATM with it.

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    4. “Accused of having swallowed a dictionary, of flaunting my erudition, etc.“

      –

      I will never be accused of this. I understand the words when someone else speaks or writes them. But I will never be accused of saying or writing big obscure words.

      Why? One asks. Because I’ll never pronounce them correctly (speaking), let alone spell correctly (thus tend to restructure sentences, and spell checker or internet searches are rarely helpful), if I can dredge up the vocabulary.

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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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      1. I’m sorry to hear that of Worcester. Back in the late ’70s it always struck me as a decent little town. And similar in many ways to the decent little Appalachian town I came from: everyone knows you, knows your mom, knows your grandma (and will be on the phone to her in an instant if you misbehave). And boy howdy, do they know if you’ve come from away…

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      2. “Save Ayer. Close Fort Devens!”

        “Save Fort Devens. Close Ayer!”

        I was stationed at Fort Devens in 1979, when in October it snowed 2 feet in one night, and froze on top of that. Gloriously beautiful in the autumn. The locals hated us. :) For which we did not blame them. The police I met one night were lovely.

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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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      1. Apparently John Scalzi turned up on a favorite author list of m the WHCD dinner shooter. Larry Correia was taking considerable pleasure in pointing ,that out.

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    2. She also resolutely refused to buy into transgenderism. Being an “old-school feminist” as well as a survivalist, she knew that biology did matter.

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    2. I recognize myself in those labels. Despite nowadays blending in like a social camo clad lad on a turkey hunt, what’s in the brain doesn’t mix well with others. ‘Splodeyness is definitely not recommended for the average normie.

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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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          1. Nashville is becoming a bright blue dot (though parts of it are very nice in an upper-middle class way). Memphis scares me. Have only driven through Knoxville but it seems to be OK for a college town. Pigeon Forge would send you screaming into the darkness in about 10 minutes – high-density tourist trap.

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            1. Memphis is… if you’re passing through on I-40, make sure you gas up in Germantown or West Memphis (in Arkansas) if you’re running low.

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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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    1. I’ve never understood coffee shops. I mean, I get the “store that sells coffee” part, but the “hang out” part? I view them as I view parks: I suppose, if you have nowhere better to be.

      Not being a city-boy (see growing up lakefront, above), parks have always puzzled me. I don’t dislike them or anything, but they seem so contrived, probably because they are. I can’t imagine myself saying, “let’s go to the park.”

      Note that golf courses, tennis courts, ball fields, etc… are different. They have stuff. Parks are just grass. Doesn’t everyone have grass? (Yes, I know, not everyone does have grass, but my subconscious doesn’t seem to realize that.)

      Coffee shops are the same. If you drink that much coffee, buy a coffee machine. If you don’t, then the coffee shop is a nice treat for the five minutes it takes to drink an espresso.

      Now that I think about it, when I worked in Fort Collins, we went to a coffee shop (then immediately returned to the office) almost every day. The company paid – and we bought our own, reusable mugs after seeing the pile of styrofoam that quickly built up. I still have the latte stirring spoon/straw thing (30 years later); never use it, though.

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      1. If you don’t have a lot of kid space, or outdoor gathering space, parks are a wonderful thing. The one near RedQuarters gets a lot of use – little-kid soccer, families with kids running around or using the playground, people doing tennis things on the tennis court, dog-walkers, church and other picnics, little-kid parties.

        Another benefit if the park is greenspace (lots of grass and trees), is that it cools the area around it, and slows rainwater runoff, so street flooding is less of a problem.

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      2. The one hanging-out-in-a-coffeehouse thing that I do enjoy is bringing the laptop (and earbuds/headphones in case the chatter and clatter and crappy music get to be a bit much) and spending a couple-three hours caffeinating and writing. Not by myself, though; me’n the daughter used to go to Starbucks or one of the local joints a few times a year to do some concentrated writing together. I really miss those outings now that she’s on the other side of the state.

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  15. Live where you want, you be you, we’ll be us. As far as the the half mil. my lottery numbers haven’t come in either.

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    1. One would have to play, or be gifted a ticket in the first place. My math brain, small though it is at this age, tells me to invest that money in books rather than tickets. Better ROI.

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    2. Alas, I live in the crazy part of the country where a half mil is below the median starter house price. (Note that we essentially bought at the bottom of the market, so our house price was actually sane for the area—and a price it hadn’t been in twenty years.)

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  16. I very much like the suburb where I live now. (I’ve lived there long enough to pay off the 30-year mortgage.) Small houses (2 or 3 bedrooms/two bath, or bath and a half. usually about 1,100 sf), with small, manageable yards. A good size for a small family, just starting out, or a single person, or retired couple. The properties are just large enough that we aren’t constantly in each others’ lives, but small enough to be manageable and attractive. Affordable for most people with a middle or working-class job. There were and are a lot of military and retired military, because of proximity the the bases. A fair number of people who walk or run for exercise, have dogs and walk them, or walk with children. A nice mix – and a lot of us know each other by sight, or at least well enough to say ‘hi’ to, just through walking around. Just about everyone owns, only a handful of rentals. I like it very much, and would be reluctant to start all over again somewhere else, although that is what my daughter has done in moving to a new development in the next town up the road.

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  17. Condos are different. We don’t deal with the lawn. We don’t deal with the outside of the building. Our condo are in groups of three with a big private fenced patio behind each. It’s a 3 bedroom 2 bath with a garage. We wave at each other but the only ones we’ve met are the two other households in our building. You can walk or bike a loop road around us but the only outlet is on a busy street with no sidewalks so you drive anywhere you need to go. The poor access tends to keep those cruising to look to steal or porch pirate away. The whole development is pretty much an old folks home. Walmart and all the Instacart stores are close enough you can have just about anything delivered. At 78 soon to be 79 it works.

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  18. If the Formerly Golden State were not in all respects such a disaster, I’d say you’d find your happy place in suburbia out here. While I have friends who live in progressive-dinners neighborhoods where they have grilling parties in various front driveways on the regular all summer, and all talk to each other about all their, um, stuff all the frelling time, the rest of my friend group all agree that’s just weird.

    I can count the times I have spoken to most of the people in my neighborhood on one hand. I wave back freely, and chat with my next door neighbors on occasion, but other than that, not really. I think it comes from the California thing of everyone being from somewhere else. It must be frustrating for southern transplants.

    And the trick to your front lawn weed height staying within your limits is either pave it in astroturf, or do a xeriscape thing with specific plants and mulch. Much, much less maintenance required, though I a, told you still have to run a lawn mower across fake grass to vacuum up accumulated detritus. Plus it makes you look all envirorespinsible and Gaia-friendly while also making absolutely certain those kids stay off your lawn, since you don’t have one.

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    1. I spent 17 years in a more-or-less suburban neighborhood in San Jose. (Willow Glen). Knew a few of our neighbors, generally enough to chat for a few minutes, and talk dogs for a couple. (Our 13 pound Italian Greyhound terrorized their 40 pound Airdale Terrier, drawing laughter on both sides.) Was in a lower class (occasional gang signs) ‘burb also in San Jo, but barely spoke to neighbors. (Modulo the one we took to court for backing into my car…)

      Growing up, between ages 2 and 8, we lived in a typical ’50s burb. Boatload of kids on the street, mostly stay-at-home Moms, mostly WW 11 (thanks to Somilia’s finest congresscritter) vet Dads. After 8, we moved to a much ritzier ‘burb, where I had the dubious joy of being one of two class Odds, and in the bottom rank of the economy. Great schools, but the snoot level of a bunch of the kids was off the chart. (One guy’s dad was a VP of a railroad company, and it went on like that. Son of a draftsman, Odd and clumsy, not so much.)

      We enjoy rural living, though before Covidiocy, we were starting to think about moving nearer town. Generally an hour-90 minutes from 911 call to ER, or 60 minutes speeding to the clinic during open hours. However, California Expats drove the prices through the roof, and the real estate market is pretty cold. Dry Ice, not Liquid Helium, but liquid water would be better…

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  19. Dear lord,

    This has been an entertaining reading of comments. I feel as if all the birds of my feathers landed here. The number of times I have been told I was mocking people or acting superior for just using the vocabulary I know is huge. I had a kid (Friend for that year) in the seventh grade that I found out years later got out the thesaurus and dictionary every day to learn bigger words than me. I never even realized I was in a competition.

    My wife though not much of a reader is a school teacher and very competent, between her and me we have thoroughly ruined our two girls. At 12 and 15 I will only stump them with a word they don’t know every month or two at this point. I’ve also corrupted them with long conversations about human nature and socialization that puts them at odds with some of the brainless behavior at school and they get judged as being no fun when they don’t just go along with the latest stupidity and or try to say that might not be a good idea or that that’s mean.. sigh.. children are still as cruel as they used to be and maybe more so.

    I would love a new house in a different geography. However I own what I have and budget says unless the lottery mails me a winning ticket I’m not going anywhere else. On the plus size it is small and relatively easy and inexpensive due to smallness to maintain. It is also out in the country. I have three neighbors the closest of whom is 100 yards away from our house. The are good people but a bit stand offish and always have been for the 28 years i have lived here. There is no walking anywhere, a car is a necessity. I am 12 to 20 to 40 miles from the closest towns in all directions. Advantage is I have almost an acre that my 1100 sqft house sits on. With a wife and two teenagers it is a bit small but you live with what you have. We have over the years planted over 100 fruit trees, fruit bushes, vines etc.. kinda lazily creating a food forest. Not all its cracked up to be done lazily but we have blueberry’s, plums, peaches, persimmons, apples, blackberries, elderberries, goji berry’s, grapes, mulberries, jujube trees, pawpaw trees, banana trees, fig trees galore, and we try to plant a garden every year with not a huge amount of success.

    My yard is a mess and close neighbors would be a hassle as they whined about it. We have no street lamps and at night it is dark dark. I love it. When I drive through neighborhoods or subdivisions it always creeps me out a bit seeing all those houses right up against each other. We are 300 feet from neighbor up the drive and 400 feet from the road and I would love it to be twice the distance if not farther.

    Oh we also grow sheds and chickens :) I have over 700sqft of sheds scattered around for tools and work shops and storage etc.. We also have about 17 chickens and get about 6 eggs a day.. 6 of the chickens are roosters my wife won’t let me eat. Who knew that 6 roosters would get along that well. The don’t kill each other and don’t try to kill us so I guess other than having to feed the damn deadbeat noisemakers that all is good.

    lol we joke with people and just say we live out where the children of the corn live. fields to 3 sides and woods a mile deep behind us.

    Though you get a bit of push back for being weird here (deep south) it is like another commenter said, there is a bit of pride in the weird individuals also. So it isn’t a horrible thing here.

    I do tend to not say much in groups or with people anymore though. In todays age almost anything you can do or believe in can be contentious and not worth the effort. Mostly I will just unwind online once or twice a month when a topic or conversation strikes me and a lot of the time I regret doing so later anyways. :)

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  21. I grew up in the north Seattle suburbs. 3 blocks to the open air shopping center, a huge patch of woods owned by the Catholic Church a 1/2 block away, Echo Lake a couple blocks away down the hill, across the street from the shopping center. Children on every block, so much so that we named the block for who lived there.

    Dad was a mountaineer and Mom was a lover of all things outdoors, so we spent virtually every weekend stuffing ourselves in the camper, driving to the Olympics or the Cascades, and backpacking to some idyllic mountain lake.

    I live in an apartment now while I save for the house. Small town north of Seattle, that’s being stuffed with people as fast as the developers can build 8-story beehives. My dream-target is so rural it takes twenty minutes to walk to the neighbor’s house. I’m fortunate to have relatively few aging issues, it gives me some flexibility, assuming I stay this way.

    (My younger brother dropped dead on February 7th. My nephew, 35 years old, heart stopped a week ago Sunday–half of it forgot how to pump blood. (We have our suspicions, and that part of the family was BIG on getting the covid shots, so we’re treading very carefully.) He got out of ICU today and will be in the hospital for a bit. All of this to say that staying healthy is nearly 100% out of my control.)

    I’ve finally accepted that I cannot pass as “normal,” no matter how hard I try. I stopped trying and it’s way more relaxing, and easier to write, draw, etc. And more fun.

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  22. I come with a warning label. Beware of..B……..(Presbypoet’s true name).

    I warn people I have 3 goals in life, first that everyone I meet is made more joyful. Second that I make people think, and third that I reflect God perfectly to all I meet. Three of my 312 paradoxes.

    I warn people “i am dangerous, i will make you think”. I explain “i am a charismatic Calvanist redneck from Berkeley, an extroverted odd”. So no one expects a normie.

    I found online a picture with the beware of…, a useful sign. Perhaps the AI can make one for Sarah to warn them…Beware of Sarah..

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