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As some of you may or may not know, I made a rather drastic relocation last year from Los Angeles to a wee town in western Colorado.
From a metro area of 12.9 million people to a micropolitan (not making that term up) area which has a population (in the entire county) of about 42,000. As you can expect one might be in for a bit of a culture shock.
Thus, I tend to get bored.
A lot.
So what does a big city girl do for entertainment in a rather remote one horse town? <crickets> yeah, no idea here either.. but one thing I do do is expand upon a little game I have played all my life: “Characterization.”
Now in my ‘hood in LA I was in an apartment in the middle of other apartments built around a few houses that are standing their ground much like Carl Fredrickson did in Up. We had me: I called myself Switzerland since I was neutral to the warring states of:
Shaker One: my lovely upstairs neighbor, friend and martini blog partner (I’m Shaker Two.. and the blog is The Red Shaker.. the Shaker Girls.. get it?)
and The Nut in the Nut Hut. He was a rather “unbalanced” creature who lived in the back end of the house next door to us that ranted and railed against anyone and everything.
Shaker One and I would share gossip about The Nut and The Nut would catch me watering plants on my patio and tell me how he had been wronged and ask why everyone was mad at him.
It was a small cast without a ton of drama since Shaker One and I usually had much more interesting things going on, though The Nut provided some fun conversation over cocktails from time to time.
Then I change locations to TinyVille. Since I don’t have much else going on outside my work, which is in the house on my computer, I have WAY more time to create scenarios and watch all the drama unfold. So I have a NEW cast of characters:
City Girl: that’s me. A foodie, type A world traveler who now lives in a place time pretty much forgot.
The Geezer (aka My Precious): my dad. A city boy that somehow became trapped in these here remote parts and has now become slightly hermit-ish
Gollum (aka The Stalker): An 89 year old woman who is obsessed with The Geezer. She calls a number of times each day and seems to feel there is something WAY stronger than her imagined romantic relationship with him.. it is a bond so much deeper.
The “Girlfriend”: who lives in another town that dad enjoys spending time with. They have known each other since their late teens and now are enjoying being able to spend more time together.
Shadow: our comic relief animal character with separation issues who is attached to City Girl
Jack: long suffering feline who has moved with City Girl to 4 states now.
Now, as you can imagine, with this little love triangle going on – and the fact that The Geezer usually puts his phone calls with Gollum on speaker phone and I can hear it upstairs in my room – there is a decent amount of entertainment value to be had.
Gollum rails against his conversing with The Girlfriend and wants to know why he doesn’t want to spend more time with her and how his evil daughter has taken him away. The Geezer kind of glazes over it all since he just hasn’t gathered the energy to deal with it. The Girlfriend couldn’t care less about Gollum other than her stalkerish behavior on a number of occasions and City Girl keeps trying to talk The Geezer into cutting ties with Gollum, especially after they had a run-in last summer.
It’s not much, but it keeps me slightly amused for now.
So am I the only one who does this or do you have neighbors and friends that you see as characters in your life? If you had to assign character names to people, what would they be?
I give people who have somehow indirectly impacted upon my life nicknames. There is Sci Fi Guy: he is my ex and current male best friend, he’s also a professional victim and constantly complains about how his ex wife has screwed him over and how his work is preventing him from seeing his son. I am Cat Lady (for fairly obvious reasons). There was Tall Cute Guy who taught me some more advanced moves with my dancing but sadly he has moved on to a town up north.
Acheron is my Sweet, Gappy-Toothed Vampire Kitty and he’s lost a tooth which is a little sad. I hope it grows back. Freya is The World’s Cutest Puppy and my Psychotic Little B***h (the latter is when she is being naughty). I don’t have nicknames for any of the other members in my family yet but I will come up with them at a later date when something inspires me to do so.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 4:59 am.
Kelly, my 12 year old cat recently lost a tooth, and the vet told me that it wouldn’t grow back. He said to watch it closely for infection becasue apparently cats are very vulnerable to infection in that area. It hasn’t affected her at all, though.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 9:43 am.
Thanks Amy, thing is Acheron is only almost 3 (he turns 3 next month) and so is still fairly young.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 10:12 am.
Aw, poor Acheron. Shadow is missing a canine which is sad, but adds to his charm. We’ll go with that for Acheron as well
“Tall Cute Guy” that dances brings up lots of fun images
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:39 am.
We have the pirates across the street, named such because of the pirate flag they wave over their house. They also don’t care for us, so whenever we see them and they don’t wave as neighbors do, we say “Aaarrr!”
There is also the psycho. A woman I met a few times who is obsessed with the fact that I’m a writer. Wants to be friends. Wants to bond. Wants to borrow all my books. Share my kindle. She’s found out my cell number and calls me on that to ask me to do things. She showed up on Christmas Eve just to say hi and wanted to join the family party. I need to move.
I’ve named the husband the Italian Viking (IV for short) because people constantly say “Handeland? Isn’t that Norwegian? You don’t look Norwegian.” Because I’m not. He is. Of course HE looks like an Italian Viking.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 9:18 am.
Lori, if I lived in the US near you I would so want to be friends with you too but that’s because you are awesomely cool and all. Heck, I would make brownies, apple muffins and double chocolate chip cookies to like share with you and stuff so it wouldn’t be too creepy
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 9:27 am.
Lori, I didn’t know that we could borrow your books and share your kindle!
Thanks for the chuckle this morning. Sorry to be amused by your stalker…
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 9:41 am.
My husband and I do this all the time. We usually don’t mean it in a nasty way, but we have names for some of our neighbours.
The neighbours on our right are Mr.Community and The Gossip. He works for the township and always seems to be in the middle of everything going on around us, and she always has a story or 2 about surrounding neighbours. It always makes me wonder what kind of stories she tells about us. We aren’t overly close with them, but they are a very nice couple.
Then there’s the neighbours on our left, they are not very friendly and we don’t talk to them much. From what we have witnessed, she doesn’t treat him very well and he does everything he can to keep her happy. For this we call them Michael and Jan, it’s a reference to The Office, and anyone that watches will get what I mean.
We also have Barbie, who lives 3 houses down and drives a pink Mustang.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 9:40 am.
It does make you stop and think what gossips say about you to others. I wish I could morph into another person sometime just to find out.
LOL on Michael and Jan. How completely appropriate for that type of situation!
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:41 am.
I just snorted coffee out of my nose. Do you have any idea what that feels like?
Actually, I haven’t given nicknames to anyone in my life, except when I talk about them when I’m in my super secret alter ego author disguise. (Which is Olivia Kelly, FYI. Oops.) I have dubbed my almost 6 yr old The Professor (The Prof) because he is like an analytic, highly sensitive 40 year old in a child’s body. My 4 yr old is Little Dude, because, well…he’s little and his is A Dude. He is SUCH a boy. My husband remains DH (Dear Hubby), because he defies definition, lmao…
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 9:41 am.
lol I have snorted tea and soda, but not coffee.. but my nose wrinkled at the thought
Being a writer adds another degree of fun since you can go into even more detail with your observations!
The Prof and Little Dude – I’ll bet that is an interesting combination for the brothers. When you said “he is SUCH a boy” it made me think of the scene in Brides Maids where the mother is talking about having boys…makes me giggle every time.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:44 am.
Oh, yes. I found out last night what they do when mommy is at her writer’s group. The Prof let it slip by begging Daddy to “make that fart sound thing you do” at the dinner table. My husband had the grace to look mortified, as he muttered “We only do that when Mommy’s not here.” LOL!
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 4:23 pm.
HAHAHA!
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 10:48 pm.
Hi Sheridan! The problem with living in a very small town in the middle of a corn field is that you know EVERYONE.
The only person we gave a name to was a woman who we saw jogging all the time. We called her Barbie because she looked and was shaped like a Barbie doll. Then we found out she was the daughter of one of our neighbors. I still can’t remember her “real” name. Trying not to do that anymore!
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 9:51 am.
*sigh* yeah. I have been avoiding getting too immersed in the local culture since I have no plans to stay.. but when I go out to eat, I tend to overhear LOTS of gossip about everyone.
LOL I nickname guys I have dated and one time I ran into one years later and could not remember anything other than his nickname.. bad Sheridan!
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:46 am.
My husband has done “The Chracterazation Game” since he was a little boy. Well,he’s a grown man now who is an appliance repair man now and he deals with his customers and he also hears juicy stories. He gives them chracter names and tells me the stories and when he gives me his schedule(he has his own business)the chracter names kinda stick with me that is our system for knowing which job he goes on when I set up his schedule. Customers are happily unaware of our system:)
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 10:14 am.
Oh, Gail, I can only imagine the interesting type he meets on his job! I’ll bet there are some funny names he has come up with.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:47 am.
First, can I say how cool and awesome and wonderful you are to have moved to Hicksville to take care of your Geezer? Totally wonderful of you, Sheridan. I know you can’t hear it, but I’m giving you a standing O.
Is it okay to admit that I give these sorts of names to my kids? What can I say? They popped out, developed “ways” and I named them accordingly. They do not know what these names are. Only Big D and I are privy to the names. It’s a mom/dad thing. We find it hysterically funny.
No, I will not be sharing the names.
I will admit that we call my f-i-l the Food Police. He’s very “didn’t you already have one glass of milk?” Or “You’ve already had a handful of walnuts. That’s enough.” My kids learned to consume food VERY carefully around him. And I learned to whisper without moving my mouth, “I’ll make you a sandwich when we get home.”
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 10:46 am.
Thanks, Claudia. I will keep that kind compliment and the long distance ovation on hand when I get in my “I’m gonna go crazy” moods.
You TEASE with not telling the names! I love how kids develop those personalities and how they can be so different coming from the same gene pool.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:49 am.
Yes. I am a big tease. Ask anyone.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 3:53 pm.
I have the added bonus of being your fb friend for a few yrs now, so I get regular funny/scary but true updates about Geezer and Gollum. snort worthy
My cast of characters right now, at the risk of sounding all cat lady crazy are my cats Sweetums and Luna aka My evil overlord and her minion.
Evil overlord is a typical cat in that she wants affection on her terms as in a”too bad if you are sipping coffee, let me just bang it out of the way so i can get snuggles” kind of way.
minion Luna is more devious- licking my forehead while I’m sleeping at night so i wake up, prompting her to siamese howl in my face “do I get food now?” And feeling so put out when I scoop her up, drop her out side my doorway, shutting the door, that she tries to dig under the doorframe into the carpet to get at me.
Can’t wait till the landlord sees that mess. I’ve had to get dollar store carpet peices to duct tape to the dorr jam and carpeting to save what is left. trimming her claws do not help control much damage while she digs a hole to “the one who controls the food”
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:23 am.
Oh, Kathy.. The scenario is tragically funny, isn’t it? Oy.
Cats and dogs are just as worthy of the nicknames and I think The Evil Overlord and her Minion are pretty spot on.
It is amazing how much damage such little animals can do in order to get affection. lol They just wanna be loooooooved.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:53 am.
oh and lets not forget that when she gets taken to the hall, evil overlord is waiting quietly inside my bedroom.
once the door is shut she picks her way to my side, snuggles under the covers with me as if to say ” there, that troublemaker is gone. it’s just you and me the way it should be” I feel bad for Luna but Sweetums is trained so that when i say ‘sleep’, she settles and leaves me alone. 5yrs vs 10mos kitty roommate. sigh. so much work to do
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:09 pm.
OMG! I thought I was the only one who did this!!! My kitty is Her Royal Cuteness.
While riding the bus, my only means of transportation, I give little nicknames to some of the passengers and some of the drivers. Mel (a driver) is the Sweetheart, because he his. There is Slow Joe (aptly named) then there are the ones I consider to be kinda freaky. Some I call freakazoids because they act weird (at least I think so) or talk to nobody in particular.
You could be my facebook friend. My name is Angela Butz and my profile picture is my cat.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:33 am.
It is nice to know we are not the only ones who do this
Oh, I’ll bet the bus is a great source of characters since there are some regulars and lots of people who ride once.
I am always intrigued by people who are just talking to the air.. I really, really want to know what they are seeing/thinking.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:55 am.
my bff and I worked at the small supermarket in town during HS. After a year, I decided the circus must have come to town years before and decided to stay. Andy and I created our cast of characters from the locals.
Stinky – the very sweet elderly woman who wore a vile ointment.
Pork Chop Lady – the wee little Scottish lady who wore her winter coat all year long and bought 2 pork chops each visit and thoughtfully scooted them down the belt with an arm like Randy Johnson.
The Groovy Lithuanians – 2 young Euros who should up one day speaking little English and we’re dressed cooler than our school friends
and my favorite, the Five Bread lady! – My mission was to help her improve her English (or I’m just passive aggressive). Each day she’d say to me “Five Bread” referencing the roll bin. I’d ask “round or Portuguese?” and she’d reply “Five Bread”. We did this dance for 2 years. I hoped one day she’d ask an English-speaking friend what I was asking but no such luck.
And that is the cast of Met Foods Shoppers or as we still call them the “MFSes”.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:38 am.
ha! Five Bread! You know that will come up at some point in future conversations.
Little Scottish ladies are fun! Pork chops every time? She must really love her pork chops.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:59 am.
No, you are not the only one. I don’t know the people in my hood as well as you do in your tiny little hamlet, but I am outside a lot and see things and make up stuff in my head about them. I am sure their lives are much duller than the ones I give them. Mine include murder and mayhem
.
The Gollum is hysterically funny and alarming all at once!
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:45 am.
Why do I now have visions of you being like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window – but the outdoor version remake?
You pretty much summed up the Gollum situation right there. She is afraid of me so I don’t get the really fun episodes she used to conduct for my brother when he visits. She came over all the time then.. many in-person fits. My brother would call my on his cell and put me on speaker so i could enjoy the show as well.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:03 pm.
As for my neighbours, there is backyard neighbour Gingerbread House’s Garden Gnome and next door neighbour whacko lady.
the house that my backyard connects to literally looks like a gingerbread house, complete with cobbleston driveway. Illegal to take sea stones from the beach now, but they have beach rocks embedded on their drive. Garden gnome is really too tall to be considered a gnome but I have seen him out there on his hand and knees tending lovingly to his gardens- sometimes trimming the garden edges with a pair of scissors. yep.really
whacko lady is Sweetums’ original person. They left her outside in the snowy cold weather for over a week during the holidays a few yrs back. Sweetums(not her original name) came in with me to get fed and warmed up on Boxing Day and wouldn’t go back when they arrived home the day after New Yrs. I’ve seen W Lady get all dolled up in her red rubber boots,oversized hippy poorboy’s cap, and dress clothes to mow the lawn. She lets her kids light fires unsupervised to roast marshmallows in an old enamel pot that stinks up the neighrbouhood. shudder to think what kind of poisons the marshmallows are seasoned with.
not to mention how close they are to the houses. I tend to go out and stand on my deck like a mother hen/busybody and warn them not to get it too high or to burn themselves. she is inside. far away from any window.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:23 pm.
Sounds like quite the show you have going on over there!
I am glad Sweetums has a nice, warm home now
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 1:56 pm.
I don’t do this, but I have strong reasons to suspect that a few people have done it with ME. And I don’t think my character is named “Goddess” or “Cool Girl” or “Angel” either, so I have not tried too hard to learn just what my character is called. Just sayin’.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:35 pm.
LOL I am sure I have a few nicknames I’d rather not be privy to as well
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 2:08 pm.
First of all a belated welcome to Colorful Colorado, where you can always find something to do. My Hubby has nicknames for coworkers that are so funny. There is the Whisper, the caveman and a few others. I gave a few coworker nicknames too. My coworker is young and she loves it when I call someone we don’t like a name and that name sticks and that is what they are called when we don’t what them to know we are talking about them. Yes, we are so mean. But some people just need the names.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:46 pm.
Thanks, Patsi. I have spent a part of my life in this beautiful state and it has so much to offer. I am just not particularly keen on this little area. I think I am more of a Front Range girl
and I agree, sometimes people just need the names – for everyone’s sake
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 2:10 pm.
I love reading about the Geezer and Gollum updates. You always crack me up.
I work with a couple of characters. We have The Bus Driver who is always going into my boss’s office to complain about someone. He doesn’t just throw people under the bus, he actively seeks people out to run them down and then will back over you a few times. Then there is Road Block. Every time you try to accomplish something, he has to stop everything and analyze it. Then once we have the go ahead, we have to scramble to make the deadline.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:49 pm.
The Bus Driver sounds like a nightmare. ugh. and I know about the Road Blocks.. what a pain those are for productivity and progress
and glad you like The Geezer and Gollum updates. hehe
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 2:11 pm.
Sheridan–your posts always crack me up! As a girl who was raised in the sticks, I totally understand your pain. There’s good and bad, but it certainly would take a HUGE adjustment of attitude to move from one extreme to the other. Good on you for heading back to be with your Geezer
We play this game all the time. My brother is a master at it. We have:
The Marrieds–using the term globally for our married friends
The Mamas–we seem to be part of a baby boom right now (may be it’s just our age), but it seems like EVERYONE is expecting
The Utopians–our neighbors across the street. Never have a stray weed in their yard. When they clean out their gutters, they also Clorox the outside of the gutter so it’s whiter, you get the idea.
The Mail Monkey–out postman looks a bit like a primate
Stepfords–my step-dad and his daughters. They are WONDERFUL people. We really are blessed, but they are PERFECT. All the time. No exceptions.
Have a good day–
H
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 1:06 pm.
Haley, I am glad I can make you laugh. It IS a huge adjustment and while there is nothing really wrong with small town life, it is just not me. Perhaps a small town near a big city.. but not one over 250 miles from one.
The Utopians would scare me. You know there is something shady going on there.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 2:14 pm.
We refer to one of our neighbors as Mr. Wilson on steroids. He’s generally not a nice guy, but then he does something nice that surprises us. There’s, also, Mr. Smiley because he’s always smiling. And Lawnmower Man because he moves his lawn on Sundays right at 7:30 am, like he’s been up for hours waiting to mow the lawn. There’s OCD Dude who I swear measures his ivy, lawn, and trees to cut/trim them exactly. Any mess is cleaned up as he goes. I think he checks his sidewalks daily to make sure that there’s no unnecessary debris on it.
He’s probably not as bad as who I refer to now as, The Original OCD Dude, who was our neighbor in Montana. We used to watch him shovel his walk and driveway during blizzards from the second story window across the street. He had a shared driveway, so there’d be a perfectly straight demarcation between his side and his neighbor’s. One time he shoveled it twice within 30 minutes. I always thought he’d be a little thinner with all the time and attention he showed on his driveway and yard. When there were some threats made against our other neighbor’s German shorthair pointer, the police went straight to him since he had complained about the dog before. They told him because the dog was a purebred, it’d be a felony if anything happened to the dog. The threats against the dog stopped immediately. The neighborhood breathed a big sigh of relief when he and his family moved.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 1:50 pm.
my gingerbread house garden gnome cleans up his housefront side walk too! with a broom and dustpan! ocd all the way
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 1:59 pm.
Oh yeah, ocd all the way. Our ocd guy drags his green waste garbage can around, too, with his broom and dust pan. I guess, to avoid sweeping it more than once, IDK, lol.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 5:08 pm.
I love hearing about all the interesting neighbors! The Original OCD Dude sounds a bit scary. Anyone THAT particular has some issues. )Not scientifically proven, I just say that to make my less than orderly world sounds more normal.
)
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 2:16 pm.
Very rarely does someone believe me when I say that the weirdest/scariest people I’ve met or known are in/from Montana. Of course, many of my Montana friends, especially the ones who’ve only lived in Montana, think LA’s weird. Of course, LA’s weird, but IDK how much of it’s genuinely weird as it is an act.
I haven’t had a ‘Mrs. Kravitz’ for a neighbor since I left Montana – thank heaven, lol.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 5:15 pm.
Oh yeah, there was my time working in a slow store at the mall. Everyone was assigned their celebrity counterpart. I swear Gov. Anne Richards worked at Saks Fifth Ave for years.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 2:57 pm.
I think I spend all my energy on the characters in my books–I just don’t have energy for my neighbors, LOL! It’s kind of weird, because my SON has all kinds of nicknames (Punkin, Punkadoodle, SweetiePea, Cutie-Patootie). One of his caregivers used to call him “My Big Man” because he’s, well, big. So when I call him Peanut, people look and laugh.
I OUGHT to give names to the people in my life. There’s so many of them! But I don’t. Is that weird for a creative person? I call all my neighbors that I know by their names. We have a fairly innocuous neighborhood, so I don’t call anybody by anything weird.
But I love hearing about the characters in YOUR life! Especially the triangle–too funny!
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 3:25 pm.
Awww I love the nicknames for your son!
and I totally understand that after thinking up names for all your characters thinking of other nicknames might not be quite as fun
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 9:26 pm.
Congratulations Sheridan on moving to the country. Your county is more populated with more people then where I live.
I do not give people character names, but my Sister-in-Law does. Course they are our employees. My dad is Grumpy. Jim is Not Again (he calls 4-5 times daily). Martin is Whiner. My brother is Honey. She claims there is no name for Brant. I have not heard if Auntie or I have a name.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 4:07 pm.
LOL Sounds like your Not Again is like my Gollum!
Your area is less populated? oy. That’s little
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 9:27 pm.
LOL!!!!! Terrific blog today, Sheridan. You are hysterical! I think we all have a bit of that – we are all the heroes of our own story, and others are the supporting cast. I tend to walk around in a bit of a fog, though, lost in thoughts of the book I’m working on at the moment, so I haven’t gotten around to giving my neighbors nicknames yet.
Sounds like City Girl is getting a little antsy.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 4:49 pm.
Thanks, Susan
I decided to write about it after creating a Geezer and Gollum FB page. The whole thing is like a weird soap opera.
and yes, City Girl is DEFINITELY getting antsy
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 9:28 pm.
I constantly give my neighbors names that match their characteristics. Clapping Man always goes into his backyard at 5:15 am and apparently jogs in place while clapping. Dog Doodle is the guy who never cleans up after his dog when he takes it for a walk. I also have The Revver, the Mower, and OCD Guy in my neighborhood. Of course they probably call me Crazy Lady Who Giggles to Herself or something. *g*
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 5:44 pm.
HAHAHAHA He DOES NOT!! HAHAH I’m coming over, I wanna see Clapping Man.
Have they seen the giraffe? Perhaps you are “Giraffe Lady” or “Keeper of all Action Figures”
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 9:30 pm.
We just moved into a new neighborhood, too, and I can’t remember anyone’s names! There’s the Cookie Lady across the street. That’s how she introduced herself, but I’ve yet to see one cookie! Then there is the Minister across the other street. Much to my hubby’s chagrin, he really is a minister – a fact we didn’t discover until after DH worked on my car in the driveway with all the accompanying curses it requires! Then there’s DalenAlice up two houses because you rarely see one without the other. DH calls the neighbor a few houses down that Druggie Guy. Not because he does or sells drugs but purchased the house where there was a drug bust. Fortunately the guy has a sense of humor and introduced himself to us, “Hi my name is Doug. The dumb guy who bought the meth house.”
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 5:45 pm.
LOL poor Druggie Guy.
Cookie Lady better cough some of those treats up if she’s going to be taking that name.. I’m just sayin.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 9:41 pm.
Nope. Don’t do it. We do label people though, “You remember Paul? The close-talker?, well I saw him last week”.
LOL
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 6:28 pm.
Labels work, too! There are so many names of people to remember, sometimes those triggers make remembering people easier.. at least to me.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 9:40 pm.
It depends on where your at in Colorado. I loved it there and am trying to get back. Cant stand the city life looking to go back to a quaint home town. Hiking, biking, taking pictures of the mountains and wild life, sight seeing, the ghost towns and historical sights are entertaining. There are places that are reported as haunted and I have in fact met people who claim to have worked at a few so called places and have seen stuff move with their own eyes. There is plenty to do if you are willing to do a little driving to get from place to place. Then there is the shooting ranges, horse tours, it is a great place to settle down and write. The people there are also very friendly and personable. Colorado is a place that grows on you. Give it another year or two and you wont want to leave. lol oh and the cave tours are great along with waterfalls. I had so many places that where muses for me.
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 8:55 pm.
See? I love all that stuff, but I like living where I can travel easier, has more diversity and more access to cultural things.. and I can drive to all the cool nature stuff that is here. Best of all worlds for me
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 9:40 pm.
I have been living in the same area for many, many… TOO MANY years to count and still hoping to find myself waking up and living back in the city! (in another country!) I don’t really think I meant to stay this long when I moved, but… here I am!
I do live in a “smallish” town where nothing EVER happens (well, except for the usual “hooplah” that may make the 6 o’clock news… or… those people who enjoy their “15 secons’ worth of fame”). I can relate to what you have said and, to be fair to the area and the people here, it is not so bad?
I moved to my current house a few years ago and my most noticeable neighbors are the “grass nazi” (likes our grass to match his in height or else he complains and lectures us about the proper way to cut it), and accross the way I have the “golf dope” (an elderly gentleman who likes to practice his game and on a few ocassions manages to accidentally get balls bouncing from trees into his car, home, himself…). He is entertainming. The others are not too bad, except for my other next door neighbor whom I have not seen since I moved in. All I will say is that she scared me a bit! (sorta-like too “familiar” when she had just met me) And these are just the people nearest me…
Maybe I should have checked out this “‘hood” and taken off while I still had a chance or take notes to write some stories. What do you think?
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:17 pm.
sorry about the typos!
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:18 pm.
I don’t assign characters to people I know. I think I should. It sounds like fun.
Posted on January 12, 2012 at 3:30 am.